It will typically cost £3,000 – 5,000 or more to file a patent application just in the UK, and it can cost £20,000 or more for a global patent filing programme. Whether that represents good value or not depends, ultimately, on the commercial value of the patent – whether it protects an invention that has commercial value, and whether the inventors have the expertise and resources to realise that value.

Whether the cost is considered high also depends on the client; the first time private inventor will often find the investment in his or her first patent to be a stretching investment, while large companies who have already spent millions on R&D will regard it as a relatively small additional cost to protect their already significant investment.

One thing for the prospective patentee to bear in mind is that, unlike some other forms of legal work, you are buying a bespoke service. While many legal contracts follow precedents and use “boilerplate” text and other templates, every patent draft is a unique document, customised for the invention it is describing. That invention is, by definition, unique as well. Typically it will take ten to twenty hours of work for a patent attorney to understand an invention and turn that understanding into a carefully crafted draft. Sometimes it will take a lot longer still.

After the patent application has been filed, patent examiners at the Patent Office, e.g. the UKIPO in the UK, have to study the application and to decide whether the invention does qualify for the grant of a patent. The cost of the examiner’s time and the Patent Office’s expenses are recovered through the official fees that they charge. Note that while the Patent Office can subsidise its application fees with annual renewal fees which it charges on granted patents (some offices also charge on pending applications), patent attorneys generally cannot do this as they charge for the work as and when it is done.

A third reason that a patent can seem to cost so much is that the patent attorney will often have to argue the case for the invention with the examiner. This is the process known as patent prosecution, and without it the patent applicant may not get as good – and commercially useful – a patent as he or she really deserves. Again, we come back to the question of whether the patent has commercial value; if it does, you do want to get the best patent possible.

What doesn’t need to cost very much is getting some initial advice from a patent attorney. Many firms offer discounted or free initial consultations, which will allow you to understand your options and to plan your IP strategy accordingly. Costs are always an issue, and a good UK patent attorney will always think about the client’s commercial objectives. For example, see Brookes Batchellor’s recent case study on filing IPR for a start-up company with an innovative safety product.