How Much Does It Cost To Register?
How much does it cost to register patent, design and trade mark rights?
The cost of obtaining patent, design and trade mark rights varies depending on a number of factors including the technology or type of mark involved, the number of countries you are filing in and whether or not you opt for pre-filing searches to be conducted.
We will need to discuss your product/mark with you and your options and intentions before we can give a detailed estimate of costs. At Lloyd Wise, we provide such initial consultations and estimates free of charge, so do feel free to contact us.
Obtaining patent, design or trade mark registrations involves a number of steps and each of these steps has particular costs associated with it, as indicated below. For more information about the steps involved in registering your rights, take a look at How do I register a patent?, How do I register a design? and How do I register a trade mark? above.
STEP 1
If you and your patent attorney have agreed that a search should be conducted prior to filing, your attorney will conduct the search and report the results to you with advice as to whether or not you are likely to obtain a patent registration in light of the documents uncovered in the search.
Costs at this stage are calculated on the amount of time spent by your attorney plus the fees charged by the international subscription database companies and/or by your local Patent Office. For straight forward searching it may be possible to agree on a fixed fee in advance.
STEP 2
If you are filing a patent application, your patent attorney will draft a patent specification for you.
This is a reasonably expensive part of the process as drafting a patent specification usually takes a qualified attorney at least 6 hours work, and in the case of biotech or software inventions can take up to 30 hours work. Costs can be reduced by providing clear and complete information about your invention at an early stage and responding promptly to requests from your attorney. An estimate of costs for this stage can be provided in advance.
STEP 3
For patents, designs and trade marks, an application for registration needs to be prepared by your attorney and filed in a Patent Office, along with application forms that may require your signature, depending on the country you are filing in.
This step usually involves fixed scale charges, a proportion of which will be Government fees charged by the Patent Office(s) concerned. Fees are payable separately for every country in which an application is filed. Countries which require translation of the patent specification or specification of goods and services will be more expensive due to translation charges. The cost of filing in several countries can be deferred and your patent attorney can advise you how best to proceed if finances are an issue.
STEP 4
For patent design and trade mark applications, the Patent Office will usually conduct their own search of their databases and will report the result to your attorney who will advise you as to whether or not your patent specification or specification of goods/services might require amendment and whether you are likely to obtain a valid patent. For patents, your attorney will usually first forward documents to you with preliminary advice and ask you whether you would like detailed advice, unless there is something that obviously needs commenting on in detail. Attorney advice is charged by the hour at this stage and depends on the number and relevance of the documents uncovered. For trade marks and designs, your attorney will usually advise you directly how best to proceed.
For patent applications, in many countries it is necessary to pay an annual maintenance fee every year (usually starting after the 2nd or 3rd year) until the application is granted. These fees are charged on a fixed scale and can be quoted in advance, except that it is not possible to know exactly how long it will take for any particular application to proceed to grant.
STEP 5
For patents, designs and trade marks the Patent Office will conduct an examination of your application to determine whether or not it meets the requirements set down by intellectual property laws in the country in which the application has been filed. If the Patent Office has any problems with your application, it will liase with your patent attorney who will discuss the problems and their solutions with you.
Again, for patents, your attorney will usually first forward documents to you with preliminary advice and ask you whether you would like detailed advice, unless there is something that obviously needs commenting on in detail. For designs and trade marks, the amount of work involved is generally less than for patents at the advice stage and attorneys will usually proceed directly with detailed consideration of the objections raised and advising you. Usually there is a fixed standard fee for reporting objections from the Patent Office, plus a fee for attorney advice which is charged by the hour (where in excess of half an hour) which depends on the number and relevance of the documents uncovered and number and relevance of objections raised by the Patent Office.
STEP 6
Once you have decided on how to proceed, your attorney will respond to the Patent Office and endeavour to address all the examiner's objections. This process of receipt of objections from the Patent Office and responses to those objections may be repeated several times until all the objections have been dealt with.
Attorneys usually have a fixed basic charge for responding to objections plus an hourly charge where the work takes longer than half an hour.
STEP 7
Providing all problems with the application have been overcome, a registration certificate will issue.
This usually involves payment of a patent certificate issue fee or grant fee and sometimes a first renewal fee, a proportion of which is Government fees charged by the Patent Office.
STEP 8
Renewal fees are payable on registered rights. When they must be paid varies from country to country, but most countries require fees to be paid every year for patents, every 5 years for designs and every 10 years for trade marks.
Note that for patents in some countries, it is necessary to pay maintenance fees if an application is pending (not registered) for a long time.
Renewal and maintenance fees include Government fees and fixed attorneys fees for arranging renewal, monitoring renewal dates and reminding you of renewal fees due.
