How much does it cost to patent my invention?
This is always one of the first questions inventors ask when they come into my patent law firm. The answer would be the same if you walked onto a car lot and asked the dealer what is it going to cost to buy a car. It depends.
While Trenner Law Firm quotes most patent services up-front and as flat fees for individual inventors and small businesses, there are too many options to simply quote a flat fee for “getting a patent.”
For example, I almost always recommend my clients order a background search or “prior art search” to find out what has already been done, before investing their hard earned savings pursuing a patent application. If the prior art search is favorable, then the client can select between filing a provisional patent application and a regular utility patent application. While there are advantages to either approach, the cost can be significantly different.
But even after a patent application has been filed, there are usually downstream costs. These downstream costs can be significant if the Examiner at the Patent Office rejects the invention as being anticipated (already been done) or an obvious variant over what has already been done. It can take several attempts to convince an Examiner to allow a patent application to issue as a patent. Sometimes the Examiner is unconvinced, and the inventor may need to file an Appeal. So there really is no way of knowing in advance what path the patent application will take, and as such, there is no fair way to answer in advance “what it will cost to get a patent.”
