Patent Costs from Start to Finish

Samar Shah  00:02

Hello, and welcome to the Patent Pending Made Simple podcast. I'm your host, Samar Shah. And with me on the line is Jaime Brophy, Jamie, how are you?

Jamie Brophy  00:09

Hi, I'm good Samar. How are you?

Samar Shah  00:12

I am doing all right. I think we recorded an episode last week about the different stages of the patent process and what everyone can expect. And we talked about pricing a little bit last week. But I was hoping that we could record a follow on maybe a short podcast episode about the pricing by itself, because it can get a little muddy when we're going through all the different options and trees of what could happen in a patent application. Maybe we can just keep it simple and give people a price expectation so that they can get into the patent process with an understanding of the costs.

Jamie Brophy  00:50

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I know, we definitely talked about how expensive it gets for international patents, but I don't think we really talked about the price for each stage. So I think that's a great idea.

Samar Shah  01:03

Okay, great. So I'll start this one off. And I would love to get your input on this. But um, you know, if you're going to file a provisional application, I think you should budget between $3,000 to $5,000. Usually, depending on the invention for a non provisional application, you typically want to budget $7,000 to $10,000, depending on the invention. And then if you get and rejection from the patent office, you should budget anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000, for responding to that rejection. And then if you get your patent allow, there are some additional fees there. Jamie, how is that for a general kind of cost expectation or pricing expectation?

Jamie Brophy  01:40

Yeah, I think that sounds about right. And, you know, there's a there's quite a range, because it really depends on the complexity of the invention, it depends on how many different embodiments or permutations of the invention you have. So there is quite a range, usually. But yeah, those prices sound reasonable to me.

Samar Shah  01:58

Okay, great. And then the timing piece of this for the cost is, if you were going to start with the provisional, I would say budget $3,000 to $5,000. For the provisional on day zero, if you're going to convert that into a non provisional, I would say budget anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000, for the non provisional on day 365 or year one. And then typically you get a rejection 18 to 24 months after the non provisional date. So year three or four budget about anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 for your first rejection. And then if there's a second one, this would be four and a half years or so, from your provisional filing date and other two to $4,000. So hopefully that gives you a timeline along with the cost as well.

Jamie Brophy  02:44

Yeah, and you know, what just occurred to me, we did talk about the Fast Track application at the provisional stage and how there's an extra cost associated with that. Can you talk about the extra cost for fast tracking your application?

Samar Shah  02:57

Yes, so the Fast Track fees, we as the attorneys, we don't charge anything extra for that. I don't know if that's true for all attorneys. But there's a US government fee that you have to pay to fast track your application. And that's going to be about $1,000 If you are a micro entity, or $2,000 if you are a small entity, and that is $4,000 If you're a larger entity.

Alright, Jamie, there's one additional thing that maybe we should talk about, which is the search process. Can you give everyone a cost expectation with the search process?

Jamie Brophy  03:31

Yeah, so for sure, before you file your nonprovisional application, we strongly recommend getting a search and a patentability opinion before you proceed with, you know, all those costs with the provisional and Office Action responses and all that stuff. I would say the cost for a search is usually between $2,000, and $4,000.

Again, it depends on the complexity of the search. And again, for the timing, recommend doing that at least two to three months before you file your non provisional application.

Samar Shah  04:03

That's a good point, you will sometimes see a lower quote for the search process. I get bombarded with emails and commercials about searches for 400 bucks or 800 bucks by foreign practitioners. I always get a little nervous about that. I don't know what kind of protections I have with somebody in a different country if they decide to disclose or run with my idea. I'm not saying they're bad. I think a lot of practitioners and inventors have had good luck with foreign searchers. But I always get a little bit nervous about my ability to have some recourse if something went wrong in that relationship.

Jamie Brophy  04:39

Yeah, that's a good point. We here at our firm use professional searchers, and they're all US based and we've been using them for a long time and they're pretty reliable.

Samar Shah  04:49

Yeah, I agree with that. Jamie, what about patent illustration fees if you're gonna file a provisional or nonprovisional is that something folks need to buy? paid for separately.

Jamie Brophy  05:02

For the provisional? No, it's fine to have super informal drawings and the provisional for the non provisional Yes, you typically need to have formal drawings prepared. And I would say that the preparation of the formal drawings is included in the price you quoted Samar. But what do you think? Is there? Do you think they're normally charged separately for the formal drawings?

Samar Shah  05:24

Yeah, for us, they're all inclusive and our flat fees, but I would say majority of the practitioners I know, will bill for the illustrations separately beyond the attorneys fees.

Jamie Brophy  05:37

Yeah, so the prices that we see for formal drawings, again, it depends on the complexity, it depends on the number of drawings, but I think they're usually around one to $200 per page of drawings is what I've seen, is that what you've seen in Samar?

Samar Shah  05:52

That's exactly right. For us based illustrators, you are looking at $100, a page to $200 a page on the high end, foreign illustrators will do it for typically 20 to $40 a page. So there is quite a bit of difference there. But we like US based illustrators, because you have the same kind of confidentiality concerns that you would have with searchers. But if cost is really an issue, that's something to think about as well.

Jamie Brophy  06:21

Yep, that sounds good. I think that covers it all. Was there one more thing you wanted to talk about Samar? Yes,

Samar Shah  06:28

I get this question from prospective clients are folks who call in in the office from time to time and they say, why is the provisional costing so much I saw on Google that some attorneys or practitioners could do it for 200 bucks or 300 bucks. What's up with that? And the answer is, I don't know, if you think about it, an attorney and a patent attorney in particular, we're typically billing for $100 an hour. So if somebody's quoting you 200 bucks for a provisional, I assume they're going to spend 30 minutes on your application, or more likely, they're going to spend zero time on your application. My guess is that those 200, 300 dollar provisionals. They make you submit something to them, and they'll just turn around and file it for you.

I don't love those because it potentially leaves a lot of claim scope and potentially is dangerous to your patent process, as we have discussed in some of the other podcast episodes, Jamie.

So I would think twice about those and make sure you're getting good value for money.

We also have a kind of a shameless plug here. But we have a software tool that is also called patent pending, made simple that uses AI to help you draft the high quality provisional patent application. So if cost is really a concern, we encourage you to check out our software tool. If you're looking at some of these other ones that will do it for a few hundred bucks, I would kind of try to understand what you're getting for those few hundred bucks.

Jamie Brophy  07:50

Yeah, a few hundred bucks barely covers the filing fee. I don't know what the filing fee for a provisional is these days, but I think it's usually at least $100. Right?

Samar Shah  07:59

Yeah, it may be they're billing them separately. I just don't know. I just can't imagine getting much of anything done in 30 minutes of time.

Jamie Brophy  08:10

Yeah, definitely. All right. Well, this was a shorter one. But I think we covered everything. As far as pricing for the whole process of obtaining a patent. I can't think of anything else that we missed. Do you have anything else Samar?

Samar Shah  08:24

No, I think this is good. We set out to have a conversation that's fairly short about pricing over the lifecycle of a baton. And I think we accomplished that. If you guys want to learn more about international pricing expectations, I would check out our last episode on the patent process from start to finish. And then if you guys have any other questions, let us know one way or another and we'll get back to you or try to address them in a future episode.

Jamie Brophy  08:48

Sounds good. Thanks, Samar. Awesome.

Samar Shah  08:51

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for listening.

Samar Shah  08:54

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