How much does it cost to draft a provisional application for a business method?

A provisional application is a first step in obtaining a patent for an innovative idea in the United States, and serves primarily as a priority document used to establish the date of innovation and preclude others who later file a provisional covering the same idea. No patent is granted based solely on the information obtained in a provisional application. It should be understood that a patent, if granted, is based solely on the information that is provided in the non-provisional application. In terms of content, the provisional application provides what can be viewed as analogous to the frame of a picture with a fairly general description of what the painting "will" contain. It is important to ensure that the provisional application covers, in general, every aspect of your idea since you aren't able to add new aspects in the non-provisional application claiming priority from that provisional application. For example, if you discuss generally an idea having A, B, and C in the provisional application, you cannot disclose aspects D, E, or F in the non-provisional application. Certainly, patent law can be very complex and the information discussed above may be difficult to wrap your mind around. This is why it is always recommended to seek counsel experienced in patent law when looking to get a patent on an idea. Even so, the quote you've received does not seem unreasonable for completing and filing a document that is relatively straightforward and limited in format. The higher fees you expect are sure to come with filing the much more detailed and lengthy non-provisional, the application from which a patent is actually granted. Hope this helps!

It is strongly recommended that the inventor seek the advice of counsel and not draft the Application him or herself. You are paying for the Attorney's time. It appears that the attorney will be spending less than 4 hours on the Application. That is a tad low. Also, as an example, a business method for a lemonade stand (a basic system) will be much easier to describe in a Provisional Application than a business method for a new Facebook system. In addition, there may be drawings needed for the Application. While the drawings can be informal, generally a business method involves logic diagrams and even system layouts. Beware of hidden charges. Good luck!

That depends on the subject matter and how the work is done. These days, since the recent changes in U.S. patent law, I and many other attorneys recommend that the provisional be drafted in a professional manner similar to a regular application. In other words, think of the provisional as a preliminary draft of the final. Another way, which used to be common, is for the provisional to be a "sandwich" of a technical disclosure such as a viewgraph presentation or preprint "pasted" between official forms. The second way is relatively cheaper, but generally not the best approach for many reasons. $750 sounds like the second way, say $300-400/hr x ~2 hrs. to review, paste, complete the forms, and file.

I assume you're talking about filing a provisional application for a patent. If so, the amount you quoted seems reasonable.

Pricing for provisional patent applications can range from $200 - $4500+ (plus the government filing fee) and software-based technology (almost all business method applications are software based) will be towards the high end. If not, then the attorney is probably skipping steps or maybe just doing a "coversheet provisional" which is taking your material, adding a coversheet and filing the application. For a provisional patent application to be solid, it needs to meet the enablement requirement, the written description requirement and have a broad enough description to meet the doctrine of equivalents needs. Pretty hard to do a good job at that for $750.

This is a low price - but not unreasonable. You should visit the US Patent Office website for more information on provisional applications - www.uspto.gov. The drafting work likely includes no prior art searching or prior art analysis - instead it will simply be the cost for setting up your invention into the traditional parts of a provisional application, namely - Background (if any) Summary of the Invention Detailed Description of the Invention (with Examples if any) Claims (maybe at least one) Abstract The provisional will be valid for 1-year from the filing date. After that - it is expired. Conversion to a formal US Application and any desired foreign filings must be made before the expiration date.

Business method patents are difficult to get. They were not allowed before 1995 and then with the Supreme Court decision in Bank Street, the USPTO started to issue them. There was an outcry and then most business method patents were rejected. Now they are allowed but in my experience more difficult to get allowed. I think that the fee is quite low and I certainly could not afford to write a provisional application for that fee. Something to watch out for is although the technical requirement to get a provisional application filed and thus to receive "patent pending status" is low, basically pay the fee and call it an application, the actual law requires exactly the same disclosure with a full utility application except for the requirement to contain at least one claim. If your provisional does not really operationally disclose your invention, you really have no protection. I would carefully consider filing a very comprehensive provisional at a reasonable rate.

I depends on how much effort he is putting into it. Also does this include the filing fee? My self i tend to charge in the range of $1200 including the filing fee but my provisionals are very thorough and thus when you decide to file a full utility patent within a year i charge $1000 or so less for the full utility application.