How to patent an idea in the UK: The procedure and costs explained

A patent is a pro­tect­ive right that protects your in­tel­lec­tu­al property. Unlike copyright, it does not protect artistic works, rather it protects in­ven­tions and ideas. When you apply for a patent, you prevent third parties from using your idea and from re­pro­du­cing or ex­ploit­ing your invention. You can grant licenses for a fee, meaning others can adapt your idea, but you still get paid for it.

Un­for­tu­nately, filing a patent ap­plic­a­tion is often a lengthy process and a major financial challenge for many SMEs. Fur­ther­more, patents are only valid in the country in which they are filed. However, the Patent Co­oper­a­tion Treaty (PCT), ori­gin­ally started in 1970 and modified in 2001, aimed to simplify the process of filing patents in several countries. This guide will take you through the essential steps and warn you of the hurdles of a patent ap­plic­a­tion.

If you are seeking to make a patent ap­plic­a­tion, your invention must meet certain re­quire­ments. First of all, it needs to be a technical invention – not just something you have dis­covered. The UK In­tel­lec­tu­al Property Office has certain re­quire­ments for a patent in order to grant one. These are as follows:

• The invention must be
• new. This means that is must have its own function and use on the market, and cannot be a copy of, or even closely resemble something else that is already on the market.
• The invention must be kept con­fid­en­tial. This
• means that your invention cannot be public knowledge before the patent is granted. This can be tricky, es­pe­cially if you want to market the product, but in order for it to fulfil the re­quire­ment of being new, you cannot reveal it to the public.
• Pro­tect­ing your patent idea. This is not a re­quire­ment, but a sug­ges­tion from the UK In­tel­lec­tu­al Property Office. Seeing as it can take over a year for a patent to be granted, and you won’t want to simply put the invention on the back­burn­er, you can take other measures to protect your brand, and still work for it, such as re­gis­ter­ing it as a trademark. This may be a better option than filing a patent for your idea.
• Analysing the financial potential of your invention. The cost of a patent is not in­sig­ni­fic­ant, as will be explained later on in this article. It is therefore a good idea to have a realistic forecast of whether your idea will make a profit when patented. An excellent guide for more in­form­a­tion on this aspect of how to patent an idea in the UK is the UK In­tel­lec­tu­al Property Office’s patent guide.

Case study: Edith Weyde and Andre Rott, of Germany and Great Britain re­spect­ively, both developed and patented a modern process to produce pho­to­cop­ies using silver salt diffusion for the first time in 1941. Was this legally ac­cept­able? As mentioned at the beginning, a patent is only valid in the area where you apply for it. This practice is based on the principle of ter­rit­ori­al­ity. If your invention is patented in the USA, someone with a similar in­nov­a­tion in Iceland, for example, could still make money with it. This is not unusual, because companies are con­stantly re­search­ing in the technical field and investing large sums in de­vel­op­ment. Tech­no­logy and the research sur­round­ing it changes daily - and so similar ideas can emerge in­de­pend­ently of each other at the same time.

Instead of investing in their own research, some companies copy existing in­ven­tions that aren’t patented in the company’s country. Sometimes these companies even patent this product and exclude the actual inventors from that national market. If the necessary financial resources are available, it can therefore be worth­while applying for cross-border patents in order to prevent product piracy.

If you would like to register your patent in different countries sep­ar­ately, be sure to inform yourself about the re­gis­tra­tion re­quire­ments of the re­spect­ive countries. As a rule, you will always need a trans­la­tion of all your documents into the official language of the re­spect­ive country, although this may not be the case for English. Each time it will cost you for the ap­plic­a­tion, eval­u­ation and admission of the patent, and the fees vary in each country. The annual fees must be paid in the local currency. Otherwise, there is a risk that the patent will expire.

The Global Patent Pro­sec­u­tion Highway (GPPH) is a mul­ti­lat­er­al project designed to improve the exchange of in­form­a­tion between patent offices. If you apply for a patent in one country, you can expect the same re­quire­ments from the others, if they are part of GPPH. If the invention has already been examined in one of the countries involved and the patent has been permitted, you can file your patent ap­plic­a­tion in any member state using the available in­form­a­tion of the first ap­plic­a­tion. Whether or not this patent is then granted in the member country is another matter, but at least some ad­min­is­trat­ive effort can be saved!

The project aims to make it easier for inventors to protect their in­tel­lec­tu­al property and to promote in­nov­a­tion by making ap­plic­a­tion pro­ced­ures simpler and more efficient. The GPPH ap­plic­a­tion is free of charge.

The European Patent Office has its headquar­ters in Munich, Germany. Its official filing languages are English, German and French. If you apply for a patent at the European Patent Office, you can select the countries where you want to apply – this will be your first step. By paying the patent fee in the re­spect­ive countries, you confirm where your ap­plic­a­tion should be made to. If the re­spect­ive national patent law allows it, the EPO allows your ap­plic­a­tion to be made in a single language - either via the Patent Office in one of the con­tract­ing states, in one of the official branches of the European Patent Office or via an online form.

A European patent does not auto­mat­ic­ally cover all EU states. Each patent eval­u­ation service will grant or reject a patent. This applies to in­di­vidu­al EU member states, i.e. those which you selected when filing the ap­plic­a­tion. The patent is equi­val­ent to a locally filed patent once it has been published in the European Patent Spe­cific­a­tion.

The World In­tel­lec­tu­al Property Or­gan­iz­a­tion (aka WIPO) makes it possible to make an in­ter­na­tion­al ap­plic­a­tion for 152 member states at once. The Patent Co­oper­a­tion Treaty works in two phases: in­ter­na­tion­al and national. In the in­ter­na­tion­al phase, the in­ter­na­tion­al authority examines the invention for the criteria listed above. You have to kick off the national phase yourself. In this case, you’ll need a trans­la­tion of your ap­plic­a­tion into the official language of the countries you’re filing in. Reg­u­la­tions and fees also depend on the country of ap­plic­a­tion. National patent ap­plic­a­tions must be received within 30 months.

The cost of a patent varies hugely. First, you need to consider how many patents you’re filing for. Each one will cost something, and each one will require main­ten­ance whilst you’re making the ap­plic­a­tion. There are several different fees and forms, which all have charges up to around £600, an overview of which can be found at the fees and forms down­load­ables page at the UK IPO’s gov.uk page. Generally speaking, however, you will be able to make your ap­plic­a­tion for around £230-280.

However, these ad­min­is­trat­ive costs are not the only thing that you need to factor in. The cost of filing the ap­plic­a­tion costs from £3,000 to £5,000 in a usual case when you hire a patent attorney, but if you want to file an in­ter­na­tion­al patent, you’ll have to cough up another £4,000. Filing a patent in the US is par­tic­u­larly pricey – adding around £4,000-10,000 to your expected costs. Some people may be happy to just make a patent ap­plic­a­tion in the UK, but in­ter­na­tion­al markets are often where greater profits are to be made.

Another con­sid­er­a­tion is legal fees – and not those which are aiming to get your patent re­gistered. If you end up in a legal dispute, this can quickly rack up a bill into the six-figure bracket, and so doing research and keeping your idea con­fid­en­tial is really of vital im­port­ance, as well as ensuring you’re not in­fringing on someone else’s patent.

There may be potential schol­ar­ships for you and your patent ap­plic­a­tion, but this depends not only on where you live and where you’re filing for your patent, but also factors such as patent category. It is worth investing time into re­search­ing these pos­sib­il­it­ies, because they may help you down the line.

Not all patents are the same, and for good reason. Lots of important factors determine how much you have to pay for your patent ap­plic­a­tion. Take a look at the following:

• The type of patent. This is the part that affects costs the most, so a simple invention such as a coat hanger will cost less than advanced tech­no­lo­gic­al in­ven­tions such as brain imaging machines.
• Who is applying for the patent? An in­di­vidu­al will generally pay less than a business, and busi­nesses will pay varying amounts too. It makes sense that small busi­nesses have to pay more than an in­di­vidu­al, but less than a big business.
• The level of tech­no­logy. Similar in de­term­in­ing the type of patent, the level of tech­no­logy will also play a role in the price. An invention which is highly tech­no­lo­gic­al, requiring lots of research will be more expensive than something which is simpler, and didn’t need as much research put in.
• How many ap­plic­a­tions and where? As mentioned before, making several ap­plic­a­tions in several countries incurs more costs, not only because of the patent fees, but also because of admin fees such as trans­lat­ing your documents.

A patent ap­plic­a­tion is a time-consuming and often costly procedure. Making mistakes in the ap­plic­a­tion forms or missing a deadline puts you at risk of your ap­plic­a­tion being rejected. The following checklist is helpful as a summary of the most important points for filing a patent.

First and foremost, you have to make sure that your invention meets the patent criteria. Depending on which country you are filing in, this might be a little different, not only because different products exist in different markets! Make sure your patent is new and con­fid­en­tial. This can be hard if you’re excited about your invention or want to market it right away, but it is a crucial step to remember!

The next step is deciding whether you want to apply for the patent all on your own, or getting help from a patent attorney. It is not a re­quire­ment to get help from an attorney in the UK or Europe, but if you are filing for a patent in the US from overseas, it is now a re­quire­ment to enlist a patent attorney, which is why US ap­plic­a­tions are more costly. However, because patent ap­plic­a­tions can get com­plic­ated quickly, and because you’ll sometimes have to use par­tic­u­lar wording in order for your ap­plic­a­tion to be approved, it is a good idea for anyone filing a patent to get expert help.

Another thing you’ll need to do before you can make your patent ap­plic­a­tion is to make sure your financial base is covered. How are you financing your invention? How are you financing the patent? These are really important elements of your product planning, because people may be curious to know about this in the future, let alone attorneys and those part of the path to your patent ap­plic­a­tion. Ways of financing your patent include schol­ar­ships, grants, investors, and savings. Be clear on how you want to do this, as attorneys in par­tic­u­lar may need to know this for your ap­plic­a­tion.

It can’t be stressed enough that research and con­fid­en­ti­al­ity are the corner­stones of a suc­cess­ful patent ap­plic­a­tion. Do internet searches, look through the database of published patents, and check trade booklets and cata­logues. If you feel that this is over­whelm­ing, or that you are too busy, don’t skip this step, and pay an IP attorney to do the research for you.

Con­fid­en­ti­al­ity is perhaps one of the most difficult re­quire­ments to keep. After all, you’re most likely working on your idea with a team of people, even if the idea was yours alone. Man­u­fac­tur­ers, investors, co-workers; all these people need to be in agreement that the idea cannot be public knowledge. The IPO suggest drawing up con­fid­en­ti­al­ity agree­ments, to ensure that your idea doesn’t get put into the public realm un­wit­tingly. Attorneys will always be con­fid­en­tial, it is more investors and invention promotion firms that you have to be diligent with – although these can often be the best help if and when your patent is granted!

Part of a patent ap­plic­a­tion is actually also deciding whether a patent is really the best thing for your invention on the market. Filing a patent is expensive and tech­nic­ally chal­len­ging; getting the help of an IP advisor is strongly re­com­men­ded by the IPO. This may save you going through the ad­min­is­trat­ive hassle, and financial burden that is patenting a product, par­tic­u­larly as a small business. A good IP advisor will tell you whether they think that filing a patent ap­plic­a­tion is a good idea, par­tic­u­larly in your case for your invention. If not, they should recommend an al­tern­at­ive course of action to protect your idea.

If you decide to file a patent, you can choose whether to get the help of an IP advisor, or file it yourself. An IP advisor will do the ap­plic­a­tion for you, whereas if you choose to do it yourself you will have to spend a lot of time filling out the right forms. Your patent ap­plic­a­tion needs to include in­form­a­tion on:

• What your invention is: You need to include a written de­scrip­tion of what your invention is, meaning that other people un­der­stand how it works and how it can be made.
• What your invention looks like: Include drawings in your ap­plic­a­tion in order to il­lus­trate the written de­scrip­tion in your ap­plic­a­tion.
• Claims: You need to define what your invention is in clear, short sentences that form a legal de­scrip­tion of what your invention is and does on a technical level.

Finally, your ap­plic­a­tion needs to include an abstract, which is like a summary, outlining everything that you have mentioned in your ap­plic­a­tion, so those who are reviewing it get a good overview. Par­tic­u­larly because of the specific wording needed in your ap­plic­a­tion, it is not re­com­men­ded to file a patent without a pro­fes­sion­al advisor.

Once your patent ap­plic­a­tion form has been filled out, and any other patent ap­plic­a­tions have been made abroad, you or your IP advisor will receive a receipt of ap­plic­a­tion. Around a year and a half after this point, your patent ap­plic­a­tion will be published by IPO, as long as all the re­quire­ments have been met. During this year and a half period, your IP advisor will request a search within the first 12 months of filing the ap­plic­a­tion. This prompts the IPO to examine your ap­plic­a­tion against published patents, in order to make sure that the patent fulfils the re­quire­ments of being a novel invention, which has not been patented before. In order for this to happen, your IP advisor must have paid the ap­plic­a­tion fees.

An important thing to note at this stage is personal privacy. Your invention will be re­gistered under an address, and if you file an ap­plic­a­tion without an IP advisor, your address will be on this register. To avoid this, and maintain your personal privacy, it is worth using a PO Box, for example, where you can be reached, that isn’t your home address.

Once your patent has been examined, you will be informed whether it has been granted or not. Once granted, your ap­plic­a­tion will be published in its final form, and you will receive a cer­ti­fic­ate of con­firm­a­tion. Each year you will have to pay to renew the patent.

Please note the legal dis­claim­er relating to this article.