Maintaining patents is expensive!
Posted on March 13, 2009 by Chris
One of the questions I regularly get asked when I’m out trying to raise money from VCs for my latest brainstorm is whether I have a patent behind the idea. I’ve never bothered as I don’t really think that the majority of the businesses out there are successful because they’ve protected their intellectual property with a patent, but rather because they just out-compete their competitors. Plus new businesses have a habit of radically changing as you put them together which can easily invalidate the defense a patent provides. Plus I’m a fan of open source…and so on.
What I didn’t realize until I read a post in the Patent Law Blog on the cost of maintaining a patent (after shelling out all the cash to get it in the first place) is that maintenance feeds are rather pricey - especially if you aren’t making money from the patent and have to write a check from your personal checking account.
For most categories of patent owners, the maintenance fees after issuance are $980, $2,480 and $4,110 at 3.5 years, 7.5 and 11.5 years, respectively (I did wonder about the reason for the 0.5…). If the fee is not paid, the patent is forfeited and this cost results in a of patents expiring before their time.
Something to think about before you take that napkin into your lawyer for a quote. I wonder if this is why Lego lost its patent years ago? Perhaps they forgot to pay the bill.
Sphere: Related Content» Filed Under Open Source, Random Stuff, Venture Capital
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