Making IP Protection More Affordable

Many businesses and inventors struggle with the high costs of Intellectual Property (IP) protection. Patents, trademarks and the necessary searches can work out to be quite costly. This article will outline a few tips that will help you to protect your IP in a more cost effective and affordable way.

Applying for and managing your patents can be an expensive endeavour. Patent costs include but are not limited to the search costs, renewal costs and design registration costs. Here are a few patent help hints to help keep your patent related costs to a minimum:

Patent Search Costs:

Performing the patent search yourself will save you quite a bit of money. While it may not be as easy as simply hiring a patent attorney or firm to do this for you, it will most definitely help to make the whole process a lot more affordable. Also, performing the patent search yourself is a skill that can quickly be learnt and mastered. There are also many online tools that make conducting this search yourself that much easier.

Provisional patent application costs: Hiring a firm or patent attorneys to do this for you may seem like the easier choice but the truth is that this application is quite simple to complete and you can do this yourself. By completing the provisional patent application form yourself, you can save yourself thousands of dollars.

The costs related to design registration: Design registration can be quite expensive when you enlist the services of a patent attorney or a professional patenting agency, such as InventHelp.

However, if you complete the forms yourself or use one of the many online tools available, such as the design tool on the website, then you will be able to enjoy massive savings.

One of the biggest expenses businesses face when embarking on an IP protection plan is the overwhelming amount of trademark applications needed. Many businesses end up wanting to file trademark applications for everything from their slogan and logo to their packaging. Numerous applications for various countries and classes are also put into action. Many of these are not at all necessary and businesses can save a lot of money by simply limiting the number trademark applications giving preference to the most important.