Before you develop a patent strategy, you need a good idea of how much it will cost you to get a patent. There are two components that make up the total cost of acquiring and maintaining a patent: government fees, and attorney fees. Government fees are easy to calculate, while attorney fees can vary widely. First, I will go over the government fees. Small entities (<500 employees) pay half of what large entities pay.
Filing the application
For a small entity, a provisional patent application has a fee of $105. A utility application carries a $255 utility search fee, $105 utility examination fee, and $155 basic filing fee ($75 if filed electronically) for a total cost of $515 ($435 if filed electronically). Applications over a certain size, over a certain number of claims, or initially filed without documents are charged additional fees.
The total fee for filing a design patent application is typically $220 and the fee for filing a plant patent application $340.
Issue fees
Those fees all must be paid around the time of filing. Once examination is complete and your application is allowed, you must pay an additional government fee in order for your allowed application to issue as a patent. Right now those fees are $720 for a utility patent, $410 for a design patent application, and $565 for a plant patent. However, the fee you must pay is the fee in effect at the time of allowance, not the fee at the time you initially applied. As of November, 2007, the average pendency (time to issuance) of an application was 32 months . That is almost three years. Since the Patent Office increases its fees each year for inflation, those fees are sure to increase by the time your patent is ready to issue.
Examination
So between filing the initial application and paying the issue fee, you know you are going to be paying at least $1,155 in government fees for a utility patent filed electronically ($630 for a design patent or $905 for a plant patent). In addition, you will most likely incur some additional fees over the course of your application’s examination.
There is no government fee for responding to an Office Action. However, there are fees for extending the time for response, if more than three months are required, and for requesting continued examination (RCE) if a final rejection is received. Appeals also carry fees. Typically, at least one RCE or an appeal is required, depending on the circumstances. An RCE carries a fee of $405 and an appeal with an appeal brief carries a total fee of $510.
Thus the total amount of government fees from application to issuance for a utility patent application is at least $1,560.
Maintenance (Post-Issuance) Fees
Although the term of your patent is 20 years from the time of filing, a patent will expire before that time if regular maintenance fees are not paid. This ensures that patents that are no longer valuable to their owners are released into the public domain. The first maintenance fee is due 3.5 years after issuance and is $465. The second maintenance fee is due 7.5 years from issuance and is $1,180. The third and final maintenance fee is due 11.5 years from issuance and is $1,955.
The typical utility patent, from filing to expiration, will cost at least $5160. Of course, these amounts are paid over approximately a 15 year period. If at any time the patent no longer appears to be valuable, it can be abandoned, saving you any remaining fees. Thus, from a government fee perspective, patent costs are pretty reasonable. The modest charges are spaced out and need only be paid if you continue to anticipate that the value of the patent warrants the expense.
Please let me know if I have overlooked anything. I will try to keep this page current as fees change. This post was last updated in the Summer of 2008.
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