Editing Patent (section)

====Costs====
The costs of preparing and filing a patent application, prosecuting it until grant and maintaining the patent vary from one jurisdiction to another, and may also be dependent upon the type and complexity of the invention, and on the type of patent.

The European Patent Office estimated in 2005 that the average cost of obtaining a European patent (via a Euro-direct application, i.e. not based on a PCT application) and maintaining the patent for a 10-year term was around €32,000.<ref>With the following assumptions: "18 pages (11 pages description, 3 pages claims, 4 pages drawings), 10 claims, patent validated in 6 countries (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland), excl. in-house preparation costs for the patentee" (the costs relate to European patents granted in 2002/2003), in European Patent Office, [http://www.european-patent-office.org/epo/new/cost_analysis_2005_en.pdf ''The cost of a sample European patent – new estimates''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080527201548/http://www.european-patent-office.org/epo/new/cost_analysis_2005_en.pdf |date=2008-05-27 }}, 2005, p.&nbsp;1.</ref> Since the [[London Agreement (2000)|London Agreement]] entered into force on May 1, 2008, this estimation is however no longer up-to-date, since fewer translations are required.

After a patent is issued, in most countries patent maintenance payments are required. In some countries (e.g. Russia) fees are due every year, and the amount due does not change much. In other countries (e.g. US) payments are due ca. every 4th year after the grant date, and the amount due increases every time. A 2023 study by [[Rochester Institute of Technology]] found the full term maintenance rate of issued US patents has been fairly constant (40-50%) since 1992. Full term patents have more issued claims and receive on average more citations than earlier expired patents.<ref>The persistence of worthless patents? 2023. World Pat Inf. 72/. A. Schwall, J. Wagner. doi: 10.1016/j.wpi.2023.102179.</ref>

The [[European Patent Office]] charges annual fees for pending applications. Also, between 2012 and 2016 [[Ecuador]] increased its patent maintenance fees ten-fold, briefly becoming the most expensive country to maintain patents.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.mondaq.com/patent/524436/ecuador-reversed-the-increase-of-its-patent-fees-decreases-it-by-90 | title=Ecuador Reversed the Increase of Its Patent Fees: Decreases It by 90% – Patent – Ecuador}}</ref>

In the United States, in 2000 the cost of obtaining a patent ([[patent prosecution]]) was estimated to be from $10,000 to $30,000 per patent.<ref name="lemley">{{cite journal | last1 = Lemley | first1 = Mark A | year = 2001 | title = Rational Ignorance at the Patent Office | url = https://escholarship.org/content/qt1tc166q2/qt1tc166q2.pdf?t=lnp2qz | journal = Northwestern University Law Review | volume = 95 | issue = 4 | doi = 10.2139/ssrn.261400 | s2cid = 154339316 | access-date = 2020-09-02 }}</ref> When patent litigation is involved (which in year 1999 happened in about 1,600 cases compared to 153,000 patents issued in the same year<ref name="lemley" />), costs increase significantly: although 95% of patent litigation cases are settled [[Settlement (litigation)|out of court]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hblaw.org/articles-reader/items/carry-a-big-stick.html|title=Holland & Bonzagni a full Service IP Law Firm in Western Massachusetts |website=www.hblaw.org|access-date=4 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414072237/http://www.hblaw.org/articles-reader/items/carry-a-big-stick.html|archive-date=14 April 2016}}</ref> those that reach the courts have legal costs on the order of a million dollars per case, not including associated business costs.<ref>{{cite book
|title=Patent failure: how judges, bureaucrats, and lawyers put innovators at risk
|url=https://archive.org/details/patentfailurehow00bess
|url-access=limited
|last1=Bessen
|first1=James
|last2=Meurer
|first2=Michael James
|year=2008
|page=[https://archive.org/details/patentfailurehow00bess/page/n146 132]
|publisher=Princeton University Press
|isbn=978-0691134918
}}. Based on an [[American Intellectual Property Law Association]] (AIPLA) survey of patent lawyers (2005), and court documents for a sample of 89 court cases where one side was ordered to pay the other side's legal fees. The containing chapter ('The Costs of Disputes') also tries to quantify associated business costs.</ref>