Patent Advise please.........

agrostar

Hey there, just wondering does anyone here know anything about applying for a patent?? I have an idea for a product, sorry for being vague but i was told to keep it as secret as possible to ensure its security.........
Its a very basic product without much design or fabrication needed to be used for safety purposes. I have done some research myself and there doesnt seem to be any such product with a patent applied or on the market.
Just wondering how long would it take to acquire a patent?
And (most importantly;);)) how much would it cost??

whoppoe

all info available here http://www.patentsoffice.ie/

A patent agent can look at your idea and ensure that it is patentable before proceeding with costs

agrostar

whoppoe wrote: »

all info available here http://www.patentsoffice.ie/

A patent agent can look at your idea and ensure that it is patentable before proceeding with costs

Was talking to four patent agents on the phone earlier this week, seems it should be fairly straight forward to patent but there was a huge variation on cost one agent reckoned possibly about 1000euro or so and another quoted about 2500euro.
Is there any patent agents in the south east?
What are peoples experience of dealing with them?
I know the cheapest isnt always the best all advise welcome please....

You can get a patent for 12 months for around €200 written by a patent attorney as far as I know but after 12 months you need to take further action or the patent will lapse.If the patent has worldwide potential,you are looking at €120,000 approx for a worldwide patent to cover all possible regions.Don't take this as bible but I think it is close to the mark.

random.stranger

Try not to be too put off by Davidian_ie's post (although I am not disputing any of the facts). The patent system is designed to make it reasonably affordable for somebody to patent something, but these costs begin to snowball after about 3 years if you intend to patent in multiple countries (open to correction). Try to keep your idea secret as long as possible & go as far as you can with the product (design, market research, business plan etc) on your own before applying for a patent.

I think you are right to keep your idea to yourself. There are some places where your idea is protected, such as conversations with patent attourneys, enterprise ireland, enterprise boards and other government bodies, such as innovation centres based in universities/IT's. It might be worth popping into your local innovation centre, or even a few of them. I don't know if there's one in Waterford IT, but there's definately one in Carlow IT. This would be a good place to get an impartial opinion on your product & advice about patent attourneys. A lot of these innovation centres seem to be tied in with a patent attourney that they could recommend & they have past clients that would have dealt with them. It might be worth asking these patent attourneys if they are prepared to sit down with you and talk about your product for an hour unpaid (the innovation centre might be able to arrange this for you, no harm in asking).

Good idea to get to know as much as you can about patents before these meetings, so you are getting the best out of them.

Here's some downloads you might find useful (not intended as a recommendation for either company):
http://www.tomkins.ie/dbfiles/download/8
http://www.frkelly.com/WhatWeDo_Patents.php

Also:
Irish patent office, as mentioned by whoppoe
& European Patent office https://e-learning.epo.org