A patent is a temporary monopoly that a government provides to an inventor who has come up with an original technical invention. Most countries have this system, although the requirements differ slightly from country to country. Once a patent right has been approved by the government, it will allow you to stop other people or companies from copying the principle on which your idea works.

If your invention meets the general requirements then a patent can usually be granted for the invention in most countries once it has undergone some form of examination by that country's Patent Office.

patent requirements

Although novelty can never be determined conclusively, an indication of the novelty of your invention may be found by conducting patent and literature searches.

Most countries have a so-called “absolute” novelty requirement, which implies that any disclosure anywhere in the world before filing your patent application will destroy the novelty of your invention, thereby also destroying or curtailing your patent rights.

An inventor may sometimes unwittingly destroy the novelty of his/her own invention by disclosing it prior to filing a patent application. You must keep it secret until you have filed a patent.

Even if your invention is new, there may be other similar inventions that have been disclosed to the public in patent specifications or other literature or disclosures. All such disclosures are known as “prior art”.

The test for inventiveness under our patent law is to conjecture whether someone skilled in the field of the invention (called a person “skilled in the art”) would consider your invention to be obvious or not – it follows that an invention that is obvious to a person skilled in the art is not considered inventive.

This test is by its very nature highly subjective, and therefore the decision to file a patent application is often dictated more by business strategy than by considerations of the inventiveness of the invention. We can help you with this decision, based on our experience of filing patent applications all over the world.

Abstract inventions with no application in trade, industry or agriculture cannot be the subject of a patent in terms of patent law. However, if an invention has a practical use and has a technical aspect to it, then it will be considered utile, and may thus be protected by way of a patent, if it also meets the novelty and inventiveness requirements set out above.

Anything that is of an artistic, literary, or musical nature is usually protected by copyright, while brands, logos, and slogans are protected by way of trademarks.

Your patent attorney should be the first person you speak to about your idea. And no, we're not here to steal your idea - we're registered patent attorneys and we're here to help protect your idea.

After spending time with you and helping you select the best patent package for your requirements, we will do a detailed technical write up along with technical drawings for your invention typically within a couple of weeks after receiving the information and a down-payment.

story

There is an immense amount of work involved and it can take days, sometimes weeks to get the invention and the drawings just right. It's important that you get a patent attorney to help with this, because statistics show that less than 0.5% of patents self-filed by inventors ever get granted. Your idea is important, so it's worth spending extra to get our services.

It takes 8-12 years on average to qualify as a patent attorney and all patent attorneys have engineering or science degrees as well as legal qualifications, backed up by years of intense training. Writing a patent is part science, part art, and much like heart surgery, it's best left to the professionals.

Our pricing starts at $4500 for a provisional patent application, which lasts for 12 months, and is usually the first step in the patenting process and allows you the opportunity to get feedback on your idea and fine tune it before a "complete" application.

If you don't want the hassle of doing a patent availability search yourself, then we can do that and write you a report of your prospects of success, with pricing starting from $3500.

If you feel that the invention is ready to go right from the start, then we can write and file a so-called "complete" patent application for you and skip the provisional stage. This is more expensive and we are one of very few patent firms in the country that quotes a fixed price for getting your idea into a granted patent (which can easily take 2-4 or more years, given the delays at the patent office and depending on how many times we have to argue with the patent examiner).

Once you have conducted a patent search we can file a patent application for your invention if it is new and inventive over any prior disclosures that you may have found. Of course, you can also instruct us to do a patent search on your behalf, as mentioned above, but most clients do a great job using the links to free patent databases that we send them.

No search is fully exhaustive or conclusive, so for this reason it is important to include as much information as possible in the provisional patent application, so that you have as many fallback positions as possible, if it turns out that certain aspects of your invention have been done before. For this reason, we believe in writing your patent document to global best practice quality levels (We can also get the Patent Office to conduct an International Type Search on your behalf for the same amount of money or slightly less once a patent application has been filed).

Once we’re done with it, your provisional patent application can serve as the basis for patent applications in nearly every country of the world.

A provisional patent application is a technical, legal document which we draw up which describes your invention in words and drawings. It is designed to make it clear to the reader thereof what your invention is and what the patent monopoly is that you want to claim for yourself. A lot of hard work and time goes into describing and drawing your invention when we write a patent. It's really hard to get it right and we train for many years under intense supervision to be able to do this accurately and perfectly.

Patent laws differ from country to country and we are able to file globally. Get in contact to discuss your plans in more detail. We instruct some of the best patent attorneys in the world to look after your invention, no matter where you want it protected.

pricing

Believe us if we say: leave it to the experts. Our patent services are among the very best in the industry.

Low Complexity (Simple Inventions):
$4500+
  • Simple mechanical or general household-type inventions
  • Technical description of 10 + pages
  • Three + sheets of drawings
  • Keeps your rights open in 176 countries for 12 months
  • Allows you to start marketing immediately, once filed
  • Includes all AU government fees and taxes
Intermediate Complexity
$5500+
  • Electromechanical, complex mechanical, simple chemical process, agrochemicals
  • Technical description of 15 + pages
  • Five+ sheets of drawings
  • Keeps your rights open in 176 countries for 12 months
  • Allows you to start marketing immediately, once filed
  • Includes all AU government fees and taxes
Highly Complex
$6500
  • Software, business method, biotech, complex chemicals and pharmaceuticals
  • Technical description of 20 + pages
  • Eight+ sheets of drawings
  • Keeps your rights open in 176 countries for 12 months
  • Allows you to start marketing immediately, once filed
  • Includes all AU government fees and taxes

Our Pricing For Australian provisional patent applications is dependent on how much time we need to spend in describing the invention and is thus dependent on the complexity of the invention. We will always do an upfront quote first, which ensures you remain in total control of the process throughout.

additional information

global patents
australian patents
Advice from the
Patent Office
design registrations

articles

How to protect your invention by way of a patent?

Can I be sued if I have a patent?

How to do a patent Search?

What can we learn from patent searches?

Patent Search Tips

What does Novelty, Inventiveness and Utility mean?

How to prototype cheaply and easily?

Is my idea new?

Freedom to operate

Biotech patents