Ask HN: Why are patents so cheap?

by jmole on 8/18/2024, 11:06:53 PM with 4 comments
Compared to the cost of drafting, litigation, etc., the actual filing fee for a patent is a ridiculously small sum of money. If the patent office has the obligation to review a patent with the same attention to detail as the authors themselves, why doesn't it cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to file a patent?

  • by GianFabien on 8/19/2024, 6:34:13 AM

    It is not the patent filing fee that matters. It is the litigation costs when some entity willfully impinges upon your patent. Big companies can afford litigation and often cross-license patents.

  • by dtagames on 8/19/2024, 3:26:15 AM

    What costs is getting an attorney to write it in such a way as to see it awarded.

    While in theory you can write your own (and file for the small fee), in practice your self-authored application won't be awarded a patent and your invention will become free public knowledge.

    Nearly all parents are awarded to big companies with massive teams of lawyers. The "little guy" patent is mostly a myth.

  • by alexander2002 on 8/18/2024, 11:20:48 PM

    imo so that normal people can afford to patent not just the big guys which is one of the reasons the patent exist in the first place