Patent Attorney Denver – Foreign Patents – Inventor Information
Should Inventors File Foreign Patent Applications?
A U.S. Patent Application does not offer any protection for your invention outside of the United States. If you want to protect your invention outside of the United States, then you will need to file a patent application in the particular country or countries of interest, or a PCT patent application.
Filing foreign patent applications can be costly. The international phase of a PCT patent application can cost thousands of dollars alone. Then in the national phase, you can quickly incur thousands of dollars (and significantly more, depending on the number of countries you decide to file in) – and none of this assures you that a patent will even issue.
For more individual inventors, start-ups, and small businesses, the money saved by not filing international patent applications can better be used for marketing your invention in the United States. It’s always disappointing when someone has to stop pursuing their invention everywhere, even in the United States, because they blew their entire budget filing patent applications all over the world.
While this is not to say that inventors shouldn’t consider filing foreign patent applications for your invention, inventors with limited budgets need to think seriously about the impact this will have on their budget and their ability to effectively advance an invention in the United States.
There are certain deadlines that apply, therefore you must notify your patent attorney immediately if you want to file any foreign patent applications.
