Q: What is the cost to protect an invention and what documents do i need to provide?

A: The cost to have a professional draft an application can be as low as 4-5k and dramatically higher if you go through large firms. Filing the application will cost about 1720, unless discounts for small entity or micro entity apply. For filing, the main things you'll need are the complete application (background, specification, claims, and drawings), an application data sheet, and the oath/declaration.

A: I echo Sean Serraguard. I charge a $3,000 flat fee for most applications ($9K-15 when I was with a big firm), not including the filing fees. Average folks pay about $430 in filing fees, but the price could be substantially higher. If you'd like a free consultation, please reach out at https://calendly.com/ahajiamospllc/15min.

A: The FULL cost to patent something depends on the scope of protection you want. The cheaper fees you might be getting quoted ($3k to $5k) might lead to a very narrow (less valuable) patent, and most importantly, that is only to get the process started! It is very unlikely you will get a patent without being required to respond to at least one office action. And the cost for responding to an office action can vary between a few hundred dollars to several thousand, depending on the issues raised by the patent examiner. You may face multiple office actions depending on the scope of protection you want.

Essentially, you should budget between $10,000 and $20,000 for the full process to secure an average patent of low to medium complexity, and considerably more if it's fairly to highly complex, or if you want the broadest possible rights.