Decoding the Patent Annuity Maze

Patent annuities (also known as maintenance or renewal fees) are an integral part of the patenting process and are required to keep a patent application or a granted patent in force. Patent annuities differ from one country to another not only in terms of the fee to be…

Translation Costs to Validate a European Patent

It is well-known that a European Patent (EP) is a “bundle of individual national patents.” A granted EP is to be validated in member countries of interest, a process that may involve translation of the claims or the entire specification. As an IP…

Prosecution Costs: The Toughest Part of Patent Cost Estimation

Patent prosecution is an integral part of the patenting process. The term “prosecution” refers to the interactions between an applicant and a National Patent Office with regards to either a patent application (pre-grant…

To File or Not to File a National Phase Application: That is the Question

A common question that prospective applicants pose to patent agents/attorneys is “How much will it cost to protect my invention?” to which the answer is usually in the form of a quote outlining the…

Translation Costs: Huge Proportion of Filing Costs

It is well-known that every country across the globe has its own patent legislation that comprehensively lays out the requirements for filing a patent application. One such major requirement is the language in which an application is to be…

Patent Filing: Fees for Extra Pages and Claims

In some patent jurisdictions around the world, the fee for filing a patent application includes a limited number of pages and claims (for example, 30 pages and 10 claims in India). Thus, if a patent application has extra pages and/or claims beyond…

Estimating the Costs for Future Filings

Before the beginning of any year, it is critical for companies to estimate the costs for future filings, along with any subsequent filings that may happen through the Paris Convention and/or the Patent Cooperation Treaty. This process is not-so-straight…

The Art of War: Know Thy Competitors

As Forbes writer Robert Langreth wrote in 2010, “Investing in a small or even medium sized biotech company is a lot like gambling in Las Vegas. You are either going to win big or lose big.” This is because of low success rates, which in turn escalate the cost of…

Costs of Getting a Patent Application Examined

Patent examination is an integral part of the patenting process. There are two types of patent examination systems across the world, namely automatic examination and deferred examination. In the former, as the name implies, a patent application is…

Traversing the Mystifying European Path

The European patent system is a highly complicated one. Foreign applicants who wish to get a patent registered in Europe have two options available. The first is to file an application for a European patent with the European Patent Office (EPO), said…

Cost Implications of the Proposed Unitary Patent Regime

IP Software for a Cost-Driven World

As the famous English proverb goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” In today’s highly competitive world, companies are faced with the triple challenge of constantly having to think outside the box to be innovative in order to survive, shrinking budgets for…

Automation: The Way Forward for Estimating Trademark Costs

Trademark is a form of Intellectual Property (IP) right on which Fortune 500 companies routinely spend millions of dollars, thus necessitating accurate estimation of costs for budget forecasting and strategic decision-making…