Patent costs (Score 3, Interesting)

I have been working in the patent field for a few years and I feel bad for the inventor mentioned in the article. There are ways that the costs can be structured to avoid the cash crunch he experienced. The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT, which is administered by WIPO) now operates to allow an inventor up to 30 months from filing in their first jurisdiction to decide whether to file in other PCT member nations. Most of the world is part of the PCT (with the exception of much of the Arab world, some of South America, and Taiwan). The PCT process is an application which is subject to a prior art search, like any other patent office, and to an optional examination. Therefore, a current inventor faces the following costs (approximately): Day 0 $7000 for preparing and filing in the US Month 12 File a PCT application (charges about $4000); File in non-PCT countries Month 14 $3000 in legal fees for examination process in US Month 30 File in other PCT countries ($$$$$$) While the costs at Month 30 are huge, as mentioned in the article, the inventor has hopefully been marketing his invention since Day 0. By Month 30, the inventor can decide whether the invention is marketable and to what extent. Depending on his cash flow at that point, he can decide how much he has to spend on getting patent protection around the world. One of the big costs to filing in other countries is the translation costs. Japanese translation costs can hit $7,000, as much as to draft and file the patent. Therefore, you can also target a few major languages such as French, Spanish, German etc. Many countries will accept a patent translation in one of these languages and thus you keep your costs to a minimum. As far as the debate about which countries to file in goes, producers vs. consumers, the answer is "yes". With limited funding, generally you would patent in major consumer countries, because their legal systems are generally more patent friendly. With more funds, you would then start to target producer countries. The reason is that it may be easier to stop one producer than dozens of distributors. However, much of this decision rests with the type of product and the nature of the industry. Remember when we're feeling sorry for an individual inventor (and I work with with many of them) that a patent is an asset and that the cost of assets are part of the startup costs of any business. Most small businesses fail just as most inventions fail. The main reason that inventions fail is not in the patent system, but in the marketing. Just a thought to keep in mind.