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Originally Posted by tkwetzel
How much time, effort, money, and resources does it take to submit a patent? I know there are a lot of variables and you don't even need to have anything tangible to patent, but based on what you did what are the answers to that question? Any other general information about submitting a patent would be appreciated (though I have read the a lot of stuff on the Patent Office website). Thanks.
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The business I started just filled for a provisional patent on its primary business method a couple of months ago.
A provisional patent is something that one can write without a patent attorney and still have protection until the final patent is written. A provisional patent has an $80 filling fee is something that simply lets you get your claim date set in stone earlier, and you then have 1 year to file your official patent which actually protects your design, plant, or method.
As for costs, it widely varies depending on your attorney and the type of patent. For something tangible and mechanical, you're looking between $3,000 and $7,000, depending on the complexity, potential conflicting claims in that field, and things like that. Technology patents, like on software or software methods, are much more difficult (and attorneys who specialize in them are much more rare) so your costs will range from $7,000 to $20,000.
Writing the patent and prior art research time varies significantly, all depending on your priority with the attorney and the complexity of your design or method. A range between a week and a month to write the patent is very ball parkish.
Actually getting your patent back and official... that's where the bigger variety comes in. Between 12 and 30 months, depending on your patent and how well it's written, and if it goes through the first time.
One book that we used that I highly recommend is
Patent it Yourself, by David Pressman. This book teaches you how to write your own patents and goes through the whole process very well. However, I think that if you truly have a patentable idea, your safest bet, far and away, is to just have a patent attorney write the patent.
That's my two cents!
Matt