Things to Know Before Hiring a Patent Attorney

Things to Know Before Hiring a Patent Attorney

Never hire an attorney without an end-to-end cost estimate

Patent rights last for up to 20 years from the date the idea was first filed. And it could be 3 or more years before a patent is granted. Given such long time frames, it is in your best interests to ask your patent attorney to give a ballpark estimate of the costs that you would incur during this entire period.

Don’t Fall for Cheap Hourly Rates

Let’s say you have two attorneys, one charges $250 an hour while a more experienced attorney charges $500 an hour. Often the higher rate comes with better efficiency such that a better draft might be done in far less time. Both options typically will promise a similar writing cost of $8K-15K depending on technology area and complexity or lack thereof.

Look for Innovation Attorney Fit

Now, you would want a patent attorney who has experience dealing with blockchain & financial services to quickly understand your innovation over what the big financial firms have already filed in this space and, if so, what should your filing strategy be.

Know Your Attorney’s Strategy

A good attorney would listen to all of the above, ask questions about your business model, review the landscape to find out what your competitors are doing, what kind of patents are they filing, and would then come up with a pragmatic patent strategy to provide the most value for the least cost.

Choose an Attorney Who Success Rate is Greater than Industry Average

In terms of costs, most counsel are within 20% of each other when writing a patent and doing each round of argument, but the better performing attorneys will always cost less when yield is taken into account. https://bit.ly/2U12pOw