Q: How much will it cost for me to file a patent?
A:
About $700.
That is for a US utility patent; much less for a provisional patent application, much more for an international patent application.
Also, if you have modest income and you are pretty new to patents, then you only pay half of that amount. If you are a big company, you'll pay twice that.
But, the biggest cost in filing a patent is writing the patent application. This is typically 30 to 100 pages of technical stuff, which a patent attorney has to prepare. This will cost around $10,000.
Good luck!
A:
You may want to look for some recently issued patents that are in the same general field. See my slides on patent searching http://bit.ly/Patent_Searching
The reason to do this is to find a patent attorney that works with individual inventors to write solid patent applications in your general space. Note that you cannot hire someone that has written applications in the very specific space where you hope to compete as a good patent attorney won't take on a second client in the same exact space as there would be a conflict.
Keep in mind that the act of writing a patent application and arguing on your behalf is covered by a federal registration not a state license so your best choice may be an attorney in a state other than the state where you live.
Be careful about looking for the lowest cost provider as some seem to simply want to take money and file an application whether or not it is really a good foundation for getting a patent out of the process. Most people want to file a patent application as part of an effort to obtain a commercially meaningful patent. Filing a patent application is a start to the process not an end point.
If you found this answer helpful, you may want to look at my answers to other questions about patent law are available at the bottom of my profile page at
https://lawyers.justia.com/lawyer/kevin-e-flynn-880338
Kevin E Flynn
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