Our guide to the cost of obtaining a patent in an infographic!
A patent is an industrial property title that enables you to protect your invention.
In the field of innovation, it’s an essential tool for protecting your interests, and those of your company. Start-ups, SMEs and independent inventors have every interest in registering their invention and applying for a patent.
Contents
- The price of a patent in France from filing to grant
- Tariffs for obtaining a patent
- Calling on an industrial property attorney
- How much does it cost to file a patent abroad?
- Unitary patent
- The PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty)
- The costs of maintaining your patent rights
It’s not just for very large companies! To help you budget the cost of protecting your innovations through patenting, we present you with the prices of the procedures, and what they consist of.
See our infographic to find out how much it will cost you to obtain your patent in France.
Need more details? We also have a online patent cost simulatorfree of charge and with no obligation!
A patent is:
A national industrial property title
Valid for 20 years.
The patent holder:
Has a monopoly on the invention
Discloses the invention to the public
Exploits the invention, or adds value to it through licensing.
In 2021, INPI received:
14,750 patent applications
5,851 design applications
113,070 trademark applications
Beware of a false truth about patents: filing for a patent does not guarantee its grant!
An Industrial Property attorney optimizes your chances of obtaining your granted patent title.
You can file your own patent application withINPI. In this case, you run the risk of having your application rejected, while incurring the costs of the procedure and seeing your invention published. An industrial property attorney, with his expertise in your technical field and his knowledge of patent law and procedures, will help you optimize the whole process.
Good to know: When your patent application is rejected, your expenses are lost and your invention, once published, is no longer patentable and accessible to everyone. Calling in a patent attorney is advisable from both a legal and a financial point of view. This industrial property law professional, an expert in invention protection procedures, will advise you on the procedures you need to put in place to protect not only your inventions, but also your business. A lawyer specialized in intellectual property law can also guide you through the process. Patent, provisional patent, utility certificate, design & model… choose the most appropriate protection!
The price of a patent in France from filing to grant
Tariffs for obtaining a patent
The fees presented here are those charged by Cabinet Touroude & Associates, the initiators of YesMyPatent.com, an online patent filing service. They include the fees of an accredited patent attorney for patent drafting, advice, procedural follow-up and fees.
The amounts shown therefore include INPI fees, for the filing procedure in France, drafting, examination and issuance.
Important: These are the taxes charged to companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, which benefit from reduced tax rates.
- Patentability study: €625 (excl. VAT) or €750 (incl. VAT).
- Drafting the patent: €2,773 excluding VAT.
- Examination & patent issue: €1,595 excluding VAT
How much are INPI fees (from patent filing to grant, i.e. 3 years of protection)?
- IP consultant’s fees: €4,800 excluding VAT
- INPI taxes: €375
Our advice: It’s best to enlist the help of an industrial property attorney, like those at YesMyPatent, to keep procedural costs under control.
Good support from an industrial property attorney = a cheaper patent!
Why use an IP attorney to file a patent?
- A regulated profession
- Increase your chances of obtaining your patent with unrivalled expertise
- Control the cost of procedures with effective support at every stage
In France, there are just 1,054 industrial property attorneys (January 2020)!
What is the career path of a CPI (Conseil en Propriété Industrielle)?
- Expert in a technical field (B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D. in Science, Engineering)
- Graduate in patent law from the Center for International Intellectual Property Studies
- At least 3 years’ experience as a patent engineer in a firm or in industry
- Examination with INPI to obtain the title of Industrial Property Attorney (Conseil en Propriété Industrielle)
- Qualifying examination as a European patent attorney is also common
Calling on an industrial property attorney means :
- Regulated professionals, approved by INPI, bound by the same code of ethics as lawyers
- Control the cost of a patent throughout the entire procedure
- Transparent support
- A technical expert in your field in just a few clicks
Filing a patent abroad: how much does it cost?
When you want to expand internationally, it’s important to protect your innovations in the countries concerned. Depending on which countries you wish to protect, there are simplified procedures that enable you to apply for patent protection in several countries at once.
Focus on the European patent and the PCT international patent application, also mistakenly referred to as the “international patent”.
The European patent
The European patent is a Europe-wide patent that enables your invention to be protected by a single patent in the contracting states of theEPO (European Patent Organisation). In each of these countries, the patent gives its holder the same rights as the national patent that would have been granted there. This means a single procedure before a single office, the European Patent Office (EPO), instead of twenty or so different procedures.
In this way, your innovation is protected in each of the 26 member states participating in this system. This simplifies the process of protecting your invention in the countries for which you have applied. Countries outside the European Union are also covered by this protection: Albania, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Norway, San Marino and Turkey.
If you are a French inventor, or a company domiciled in France, and you wish to apply for a European patent, you have two options:
- If you have already filed a French patent and would like to extend it to Europe, you can file your application with the European Patent Office.
- Would you like to apply directly for a patent in Europe, without first filing a French patent? It’s possible, but under certain conditions! You must first obtain validation that the invention is not likely to be of interest to national defense.
How much does it cost to file a European patent with the EPO?
With YesMyPatent, you can apply for a European patent at the EPO for as little as €5,500, of which approximately €3,000 is dedicated to procedural costs (including filing, European search and examination of the application).
Contacting an industrial property attorney is the best way to protect your patent. The PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty)
The PCT is an international patent application. It enables the granting of several national and regional patents. It is therefore possible to file a patent application in several countries… at the same time!
For this type of patent filing, there are two successive phases to consider: the international phase and then the national phase.
The international phase involves filing the application and processing it by the receiving office, drawing up the international search report, publishing the application and search report, and drawing up the international preliminary examination report. At this stage, you have made an option for PCT member countries. At the end of this international phase (which lasts 18 months), you will have to “exercise the option” in the countries that interest you, and definitively leave aside those that do not.
The national phase, which comes at the end of this 18-month international phase, involves entering the national phase in the countries in which you wish to protect your innovation, examining your invention and then granting or rejecting the patent, by each office in each country. You must therefore take the necessary steps with each office concerned.
In the United States, theUSPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) is responsible for granting or refusing your patent. It’s important to bear in mind that each country’s Patent Office obeys different patent laws, with different criteria for patentability, so a patent may be granted in one country, and rejected in another. How much does it cost to apply for a PCT and file a patent in several countries at once?
With YesMyPatent, you can apply for a PCT, or international patent, for as little as €4,290, including approximately €3,100 for fees paid to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
To give yourself the best chance of success, call on the services of an industrial property attorney. The costs of maintaining your patent rights
Once you’ve got a patent, you need to make sure you keep it in force. Unlike a trademark, which must be exploited or lost, you can own a patent without having to use it. There are exceptions to this rule, for example in the case of inventions useful to public health. However, you will still have to pay annuities to retain the rights.
Good to know: With a European patent, you pay annuities directly to the EPO, whereas with a PCT , annuities depend on the countries in which you have filed a patent.
The cost of maintaining the patent
| Year | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patent protected in France | 38 € | 38 € | 38 € | 38 € | 76 € | 96 € | 136 € | 180 € | 220 € | 260 € | 300 € | 350 € | 400 € | 450 € | 510 € | 570 € | 640 € | 720 € | 790 € | 5 460 € |
| Patent protected at the EPO | – | 490 € | 610 € | 855 € | 1 090 € | 1 210 € | 1 330 € | 1 450 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 1 640 € | 25 075 € |
Why do patent annuities cost more over time?
During the life of your patent (including provisional patents), you are required to pay annual fees to guarantee its protection. Over time, this fee becomes more and more expensive. Why is this?
It’s a way of making the cost of the filing procedure more accessible.
Payment of annuities therefore begins on the date of filing of your patent application. By the time your industrial property title is granted, you have already paid the annuity fees corresponding to the time elapsed between the filing date and the end of the procedure.
A patent is supposed to make money over time.
It is considered that the longer you wait, the more profitable your patent becomes, and therefore the higher the annuity payments.
This pushes you to exploit it.
In fact, unlike a trademark, you are not obliged to exploit your patent in order to retain a monopoly. Increasing annuities in order to keep a patent is a way of encouraging you to exploit it, or to let it fall into the public domain so that others can exploit it.
