Anyone been through the Patent Process?

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seodevhead
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Anyone been through the Patent Process?

Post by seodevhead »

Has anyone here ever been through the patent process for an idea you've had? If so, how did it turn out and how much dough did you end up dropping? I'm thinking about going through the process myself.
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califdon
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Re: Anyone been through the Patent Process?

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seodevhead wrote:Has anyone here ever been through the patent process for an idea you've had? If so, how did it turn out and how much dough did you end up dropping? I'm thinking about going through the process myself.
I obtained one patent, some 25 years ago, and it was for an electrical circuit. I don't know if my experience will be pertinent, but for whatever it may be worth, here are my observations.

I engaged a patent attorney and struggled with getting him to understand the nuances of my circuit for months. I eventually got my patent (not that I ever made a cent on it!) after a lot of frustration and it cost me about $3,000 in 1980 dollars. It has always been an ego gratifier for me, but from that experience, I would advise anyone to have a pretty high confidence that you can successfully market your invention before sinking a lot of money into getting a patent.
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

My family and I own several. Current prices are at about $10K or more per year. We've done it enough that it's fairly straight forward for us. The basics are you do a patent search for prior art, you do outside searches for prior art.. each of those will cost a bit if you don't want to do it yourself. A bit being easily in the thousands. Depending on the category you're filing in, it can take quite a while to get a response back however.
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