Ing. Mariana I. Vernieri
U.S. Patent Agent
Registered with the USPTO
Registration No. 77275
+1 (561) 809-2760
How much does a Patent cost?
Learn about all the elements that make up the total cost of a
U.S. Patent
Transparent Prices
If you want a realistic idea of how much it will really cost you to obtain a patent, you have come to the right place. Below, we present a table with an estimate of all the costs that make up the total cost of the patent over time, depending on its degree of complexity and the size of the applying entity. We include both our fees and what the government charges so that you can have the most accurate estimate possible.
All stages
Many patent sites that, like us, offer flat fees only state the cost of the application, and clients are later surprised to find that the complete procedure ends up costing much more than they thought the total would be. To avoid this, we include the costs of all stages, including the preparation and filing of the application, the prosecution of the patent before the USPTO, issuance and maintenance.
Provisional Patent
Obtain "Patent Pending" status simply and economically, gaining a year of time with the possibility of later applying for your non-provisional patent claiming the priority date of the provisional.
Utility Patent
Non-provisional Utility Patent application to protect for 20 years the invention of a new and useful product, machine, process or composition of matter.
Extra Services
Extra Services
Patentability Study
Find out with this study, before starting a patent process, whether there are other patents or prior inventions or other factors that make yours unpatentable.
Report Type
Complete - One Aspect
Additional Aspect
Preliminary Study
Our Fee
$500
$600
$250
$1375
$1375
not available
Translations
All the translations you need between English and Spanish at an affordable price.
Ask about other languages.
Translation direction
English - Spanish
Spanish - English
Spanish
$20
$20
$500
Not offered
Not offered
$1375 plus translation
Prosecution Stage
(At the USPTO)
At Patent Issuance
Issuance Costs
These are the costs you will need to pay when your patent is ready to be granted, so that the USPTO can complete the process of granting your patent.
Issuance
Prepare utility patent for issuance
Prepare design patent for issuance
Prepare plant patent for issuance
$398
$398
$398
After the Patent Is Granted
Maintenance Costs
These are the fees you will need to pay in the third, seventh and eleventh year after your patent is granted in order to keep it in force.
Pay 3rd-year maintenance
Pay 7th-year maintenance
Pay 11th-year maintenance
Maintenance
$300
$300
$300
PROCEDURES
POST-GRANT
At PatentesUSA we can advise you on the various procedures that may arise after your Patent is granted, always within the framework of the USPTO and the PTAB.
PROCEDURES
POST-GRANT
-
Reissues
-
Appeals
-
Post Grant Review
-
Inter Partes Review
-
Inter Partes Reexam
-
Ex Parte Reexam
-
Covered Business Method
-
Supplemental Exam
-
Derivation
-
Protests
Patent applications
Design Patent
Protect the ornamental features of your industrial designs with this application.
Embodiments
$1250
$1875
$2500
$2308
$2563
$2750
Plant Patent
Register a new plant variety capable of asexual reproduction.
Embodiments
$1250
$1875
$2500
$2308
$2563
$2750
Extra Drawings
These are the costs for extra technical drawings you need for your application that are not covered by the original flat-fee package you purchased:
Simple
Medium
Complex
$150
$300
$80
$150
$250
$400
Extra Pages
These are the costs for drafting and adding each extra specification page you need for your application that is not covered by the original flat-fee package you purchased:
Simple
Medium
Complex
per hour*
per hour*
per hour*
* Most Patent Agents, and certainly Patent Attorneys, charge by the hour for these services, with hourly rates ranging from $150 to $475 or more. With these rates and the number of hours that may be required to professionally draft specification pages, the final cost can be very significant.
The fee for each individual page is simply 1/10 of the fee for the 10-page package.
** These USPTO fees apply when the application exceeds 100 pages, and are charged for each additional 50 pages.
Extra Claims
These are the costs for drafting and adding extra claims you need for your application that are not covered by the original flat-fee package you purchased:
Independent
Dependent
Multiple Dependent
per hour*
per hour*
per hour*
* Most Patent Agents, and certainly Patent Attorneys, charge by the hour for these services, with hourly rates ranging from $150 to $475 or more. With these rates and the number of hours that may be required to professionally draft additional claims, the final cost can be very significant.
** These USPTO fees apply when the application exceeds 20 total claims or 3 independent claims, or from the first multiple dependent claim included.
Patent Prosecution
Obtaining a patent goes beyond filing an application. After filing, the Patent Agent must carry out various tasks, including responses to the objections, requirements and demands the USPTO may have, until the patent is issued. These costs can depend a great deal on how the process evolves and also on the strategies the client decides to follow in each case.
Process
Office Action Response
CPA (for design)
RCE (first time)
RCE (second or subsequent)
Restriction (without traverse)
Restriction (with traverse)
Appeal (before the PTAB)
$1875 to $3750
$625 to $940
$1000 to $3125
$1100 to $3440
$125
$375
$2000 to $6250
per hour*
per hour*
per hour*
per hour*
$395
$825
$6250
* Most Patent Agents, and certainly Patent Attorneys, charge by the hour for these services, with hourly rates ranging from $150 to $475 or more. With these rates and the number of hours that may be required to carry out these procedures, the cost of an RCE or a response to a USPTO action can far exceed the original cost of the application. Our hourly rate is the minimum ($150), but in addition, to avoid this kind of inconsistency and to make the final cost predictable, we guarantee the client a maximum cap, in proportion to what was originally paid for the application.
Level
In patent applications, “Level” refers both to the complexity of the invention and to the size of the application, the number of pages, drawings and claims it includes, etc. With these criteria in mind, we present 3 levels of flat-fee application “packages”: Simple, Medium and Complex. Each of them corresponds to the values shown in the remaining columns. If you need more drawings, pages, etc. than those included in the flat-fee package level you initially purchased, they must be paid for separately according to the values detailed in the “Extra Services” tables. If you are unsure which level to choose, we recommend requesting a personalized quote.
Embodiments
In patent law, an "embodiment" is a particular implementation or application of the invention, when there are several. It can also be considered a solution that the patent offers to a problem. In Utility patents, more than one embodiment will mean the need for more claims, more pages of specification and more drawings, which is why we do not charge for them separately. But in design patents, which have a single claim, more than one embodiment of the same design can be protected by the same claim, as long as all of them cover a single inventive concept. For this reason, multiple embodiments make the application more complex and determine the price of the package.
Development
Indicates the maximum percentage of our own drafting of the application text that each package level includes. Some inventors already have their invention written out in full detail. In these cases, the patent agent's work consists mainly of drafting the claims and making the corrections and changes necessary to present the application to the USPTO in an appropriate and convincing way. In this case, less than 20% of our own drafting would be needed, and in that sense the simple level package would apply. At the other extreme, the inventor only has the idea in their head but has not written anything about it. They explain the features and operation of their invention to the agent verbally or informally, and the agent has to draft the entire specification independently, without any text to base it on. This involves many more hours of work and therefore the complex level package would apply here.
Pages
Pages refers to the number of specification pages the application will contain. Pages are considered A4 size with 2 cm margins at the top, bottom and right, and 2.5 cm on the left. Font: Arial, Times Roman, or Courier size 12, double-spaced, in a single column.
Compare with:
So that you can make an objective and fair comparison of our prices with other prices available on the market, we have added the "Compare with:" column to our listings. This value was calculated as the average of equivalent services offered by 5 competing sites*. These 5 sites were not chosen by any particular criterion; we simply consider them varied and representative of the market in general.
*The sites considered were: accupatents.com, ez-patent.com, stonecreek.us, patentattorneycionca.com and bw-iplaw.com
Claims
“Claims” define what you seek to protect through a patent. They must be drafted very carefully because they are what ultimately determine the scope of protection the patent will give you. Each claim is the subject of an exchange with the USPTO, which ultimately rules on whether it is allowed or rejected. Therefore, the more claims there are, the more complex and costly the prosecution. If your invention consists of many different novel features and you are interested in protecting all of them, you will need numerous claims to do so.
The three values separated by hyphens in the claims column correspond, in this order, to:
-
Independent claims (main claims):
They are the broadest; they stand on their own and describe the invention in its broadest sense, including all the limitations that define the invention. -
Dependent claims (sub-claims):
They are more specific and narrow the scope of the claim on which they depend, adding further details (limitations). -
Multiple dependent claims:
They refer, in the alternative only, to two or more preceding claims, adding further limitations or details to them.
Our Fee
This is the total amount payable to Patentes USA for our professional Patent Agent services, corresponding to each flat-fee package level and what it includes. The USPTO cost is separate and the client must pay both at the same time when hiring the service. Any additional requirement not included in the packages must be paid separately.
Coverage
This item is a provision, in the client's favor, whereby each flat-fee package covers up to a certain amount in expenses. This means that, for example, in the case of the simple package, of the $1875 the client would pay for our fees, up to $200 in additional expenses will be covered and the client will not need to worry about these expenses until those $200 have been used up. Extra expenses may consist of our administrative expenses (mailing costs, translations, extra pages or drawings, photocopies, etc.) or extra USPTO fees (not initially included in the package because they do not apply to all patents but may arise depending on the case)
Examples of extra USPTO fees that may arise are: requests for prioritized/accelerated examination, surcharges for late or incomplete filing, for excess size or claims, for needing to make changes once the application has been filed, for not filing the application electronically, extensions of time for responses, etc.
If these expenses exceed the amount provided for by the coverage, the client must purchase a suitable “extra expenses” package to cover the required costs.
If there are no extra expenses or they are less than the coverage amount, the difference will not be refunded to the client, since this coverage is intended to account for these possible costs but is deducted from the Patent Agent's professional fee. This is different in the case of extra expense packages, since that money will be kept in a separate account in the client's name from which the corresponding expenses will be deducted, and when the case is closed, everything left over will be returned to the client.
Drawings
Refers to the number of formal drawings simple included in each package. If your patent requires more drawings or drawings of greater technical complexity, the prices in the drawings table apply. If you provide your own formal drawings, suitable for patents without the need for adjustments, you will not be charged anything for including them in the application.
The types of drawings offered are:
-
Simple:
Flowcharts, very simple mechanical inventions -
Medium:
More complex mechanical inventions. Simple design patents. 3D modeling. -
Complex:
Drawings containing many parts. Sophisticated designs.
USPTO Fees
Each type of application involves a certain amount of fixed costs that the USPTO charges as fees. The fees charged in advance are those that must be paid regardless of how the patent prosecution process unfolds.
These are, when applicable: application filing fee, search fee, examination fee, IDS submission (a mandatory document disclosing the background art of the invention known to the applicant) and processing fee.
Not included: patent issue fee (paid at the end), maintenance fees (paid in the third, seventh and eleventh years after the patent is granted), petitions, surcharges, extensions of time, accelerated examination, additional requirements, or other extra expenses (beyond what is provided by the coverage).
You will notice that the USPTO fees are classified into three columns in our listing. These columns refer to the size of the entity applying for the patent, with lower fees for individual inventors or small businesses than for large companies.
The conditions to qualify for these categories are:
ME - Micro Entity:
-
Must qualify as a Small Entity
-
No inventor may have been named on more than 4 previously filed patent applications (not counting provisionals)
-
No inventor may have a gross income greater than $251,190 per year (unless employed by a U.S. public university)
-
They must not have assigned, or be obligated to assign, rights in the patent to entities that are not themselves micro entities.
SE - Small Entity:
-
The inventor is an individual (or individuals) who has not assigned, and is not obligated to assign, rights in the application to entities that are not themselves small entities.
or
-
The owner of the patent rights (in many cases the company that hired the inventor, or that acquired the rights through an assignment) is a small or medium-sized business with no more than 500 employees (including contractors)
or
-
The rights holder is a non-profit organization
LE - Large Entity:
-
The owner of the patent rights is a large company with more than 500 employees
Explanation of the concepts detailed in the tables
Why are our prices lower?
These are the reasons why our prices are so competitive:
Low Costs
What we save on infrastructure,
you save too
Patentes USA is a solo practitioner firm. Our low fixed cost structure allows us to minimize the negative impact of employee salaries, offices and other additional costs that large firms must incur, which is reflected in a lower price for the client.
Patent Agents
...And not attorneys
The Patent Agents registered with the USPTO have the same knowledge and powers as Patent Attorneys to represent clients before that agency, except that they cannot litigate or advise their clients on infringement matters. Other than that, Patent Agents are an excellent option, more economical than attorneys, for everything related to the drafting and prosecution of patents.
Focused on Small Businesses and Individual Inventors
We offer solutions
tailored to you
Our main audience is individual inventors and small businesses from Latin America and Spain. That is why we understand that our clients' purchasing power is not always on par with that of large U.S. companies, and we make an effort to offer them a high-quality service at a cost they can afford.