How to Budget Your Patent Process?

Previous articles in this category have focused on importance of Intellectual Property (especially Patents) for Technology Start-Ups, and checklist to remember for patenting process. It is ripe time for Indian start-ups to be aware with the patenting process and financial planning revolving around the process. Before kicking off, you must understand why patent and financial planning is important for your business:

1)     Pitch to Venture Capitalists (VC) – First thing a VC will ask you before investing in a technology business is whether you have a patent protection over the technology. Regardless of your answers, he needs to listen to these two phrases – ‘Yes, we have patent(s) filed in India’, and ‘We have also filed an International Application, and with your funds we will aggressively pursue patent protection in global markets.’ If this is the case, you are not only bringing your expertise and technology idea on the table, but also an Intellectual Property which has a value tag attached to it. Also, Venture Capitalist is somewhat convinced that technology will not be stolen by anyone giving more fierce competition. THIS WILL GIVE YOU LEVERAGE IN EQUITY SHARING BY BRINGING MORE THINGS ON THE TABLE. For example, watch the first pitch of Barmate in Episode 7 of Season 9 of Dragons’ Den or read the episode review here.

2)     Sound Financial Planning – Patent Process involves time and money at several phases. Knowing the range of investments and time phases involved in the patent process will help you understand the financial planning and investment planning better. Also, it will leave a sound impression to the seed funding agency, angel investor, or a venture capitalist.

So, how do you actually get a patent and how much does it cost? Let us divide this in two categories: getting an Indian Patent, and getting global patent protection. Given below are two processes, timeline and funds required. Please keep a note that fees vary on lots of factors including, but not limiting, discounts for individual inventors, excess claim or page fees, and differences in attorney fees etc. Fees include attorney service and processing fees also.

Let us now assume that you want patent protection in four jurisdictions – India, US, Europe, and China. You would need to arrange for funds at various stages in this process and a thorough understanding will help you plan it better. Given below table does a scenario averaged out for start-ups want to have patent protection in these four jurisdictions. Fees include attorney service and processing fees also.

We hope that you take a step forward to protect your technology, conduct robust technology, business, and financial planning, and pitch it the right way to Venture Capitalists or your customers (in case you do not require VC funding support).

About InnovAccer

INNOVACCER (Innovation Accelerated) is an innovation management and acceleration company focused and dedicated to provide high quality innovation management services to accelerate every step of an innovation life-cycle. InnovAccer was founded with a vision of people in the fields of Intellectual Property, Business Innovation, and Technology to change and accelerate the creation of innovation ecosystem in India. InnovAccer’s team comes from a varied background of engineers graduated from IITs, intellectual property specialists graduated from Franklin Pierce Law Center, USA, analysts, statisticians, and business innovation experts.

Website: www.innovaccer.com