re: How much to file for a patent?

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I don’t like to throw mud at fellow patent attorneys, but the person saying it is a lottery for litigation (almost discouraging you to protect your invention), probably doesn’t practice patent law as his or her primary practice

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I also don't like to throw mud at fellow patent attorneys, and I understand your point. I prefaced my comment by saying it was a cynic's view. I only offered it to share a view that has since been confirmed by others on this thread--that many times a patent is only as good as your willingness to enforce it. Certainly there are times when it serves to put your competition on notice and clears a path in your space, or it provides a welcome license revenue without hassle. But that is not the norm, particularly for a solo inventor.

My entire practice has been in patent litigation and prosecution at what is often regarded as the top IP firm in the country. I know what I'm talking about, which is not to say that you don't. Although I only have two degrees to your three, so you've got me there. One day when you tell someone that a patent can be thought of as a ticket to litigation I hope you smile to yourself and think of me.

To OP's question, much of the advice shared here is good. It's a complex question and a good patent attorney will steer you in the right direction. If you want to pressure test your invention before taking the plunge to write a patent application, a good prior art search and analysis will run you 2-3k. If you still think you have an invention after that then you're looking at somewhere between 10-20k to get a patent for a relatively straightforward invention. You can find people that will do it for less, but often the patents from those outfits are not worth the paper they are printed on. As Sanchez425 said, this is an incredibly complex field and you're going to pay more for a quality product. The problem you'll have is that you won't know a quality product from a bad one, so I recommend using someone that has an impressive resume at a reputable firm who you can trust. I would not use a patent agent down the street who says he can patent anything for 5k.

You should be able to find someone that will quote you a fee cap for the basics of prosecution so that you won't have to worry about a surprise 30k invoice showing up.

A skilled patent attorney can nearly always get you a patent with a very narrow scope. But as someone else said, that patent will be designed around with ease. It takes much greater skill to obtain a broad patent that will offer you real protection.

To truly protect your invention and carve out a space in a field you will need several patents on your invention, in the US and perhaps across the world. You can think of this as as a 5-10 year process that will run 50-250k. A lot of this can be back-loaded, but that then gets to my point that it's easy to get a patent compared to the difficultly of starting a business that makes that kind of expenditure worthwhile.