Think Radio’s Guidance on Obtaining a Patent
Patent related services include advice on patentability, preparation of patent drafts, providing referrals to patent lawyers, and working with patent lawyers to ensure a successful filing, and answering any queries or challenges to your patent.
Costs
Regarding costs, normal day rate is £375, and an ‘average’ patent preparation is likely to come in at about 5 to 6 days work:
Searching for prior art (and familiarisation) = 1.5 days.
Drafting the main body of the text = 2 days.
Drafting claims = 1 day
Questions, clarifications, re-drafting claims, and general to-and-fro with your patent attorney = 0.5 day.
(+some time to prepare drawings/diagrams etc., if necessary)
The above would also include, at no extra charge, answering any straightforward ongoing queries that might come up after filing (other than those that involve new research to enable re-drafting claims to counter specific challenges / prior art).
Overall, an initial budget for Think Radio’s part of the patent preparation might be around £2500.
Legal work
Expect to pay around £4500 for the work of a top quality patent lawyer, to tighten up all the legal claims, and to file the patent (on the basis that they aren’t required to research the prior art, as it can be quite costly to have a patent lawyer do that part).
Think Radio can make top quality recommendations to specialist lawyers in the field of electronics and radio communications patents.
Process
In order to ensure a successful patent filing, the following should be considered:
- Has there been any public disclosure (websites, publications, journal & conference papers, lectures etc.) that refers to anything that you might want to put into a patent claim?
- If there has been some disclosure, this might not be a show-stopper, but it could mean that it’s necessary to be a bit more resourceful with the claims (“what it does” doesn’t matter as much as “how it does it”).
- What research into prior art has already been done? (Google Patent search makes this very straightforward https://patents.google.com/ ) Any background work already done will speed up Think Radio’s work.
- Other written materials available on the whole project, background reading, relevant published articles that perhaps stimulated your own invention. All these speed up work, and ensure fewer queries are necessary.
- Confidentiality/non-disclosure. Think Radio recommends using one of these templates from the Patent Office prior to discussing specific details of your patent claims: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-disclosure-agreements