How much will it cost me to get my idea pantnted?

I charge generally about $5500 including the filing fee and professional drawings. Others charge from $5000 up to $10,000

It depends on the complexity and the number of rejections received by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In a negotiation session, where the applicant tries to get broad coverage for a wide range of alternatives, and the Office tries to limit the applicant to one specific design, the Office routinely rejects everything and the applicant has to file amendments and responses in multiple rejection/response cycles until claims of a reasonable scope are allowed. The average legal fee for preparing a patent application on an invention of minimal complexity was $7879 in 2009. For relatively complex mechanical, the average fee was $9699. For electrical or software, $13,277. These are just averages. There is also a government filing fee of about $600. The average fee for each amendment/argument was $2322 for minimal complexity (rare) and $3135 for a difficult rejection for a mechanical case, $5021 for an electrical case. You should plan on about three of these rejection/response cycles, though it could take more. To reply a third time, a Request for Continued Examination and another government fee of about $600 is required. In some cases, if an examiner is being particularly difficult, an appeal may be advisable, and an average cost for a written appeal brief was $5547. These are averages for the U.S. My fees tend to be a little lower than the averages even though I have 20 years of patent preparation and prosecution experience. If you would like a more precise quote, I would require a written disclosure and I can send a form for you to use. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance. Unless I hear from you, I will assume that you are not proceeding. No attorney-client relationship exists until a representation agreement is signed and an advance fee is paid.