Applying for an Australian patent or an international patent with the assistance of an Australian patent attorney will make the application process relatively smooth. Applications that lack patent professional advice are blocked everywhere. Your patent application requires a carefully deployed application strategy.

Several frequently asked questions about application

How can I make money from my patent application?

Filing a patent application does not automatically generate any income. Businesses create income. Therefore, the question is, how does your company use a single filed patent application to generate revenue. This is the so-called commercialization.

Patent applications are usually commercialized in the following ways:

• Sell patent applications and related technology companies once paid
• Licensing patent applications to obtain license fees (for example, calculated based on product sales volume or percentage of product sales revenue)
• Combination of the above methods
• Make and sell your new products
• Let others make and sell your new product

Can my new idea be patented?

There are 3 basic test patent applications that need to be met in order to succeed:

• Must be new
• Must be obvious
• It must be a patentable subject

To determine the first and second points, your patent attorney will usually request the Australian Intellectual Property Office to perform a patent search based on your provisional patent application. This patent search is called an international search. According to our experience, it is by far the most valuable patent search that can be completed in the early stages of the patent process.

As for the third point, in Australia, only a very small number of subjects are not listed as patentable. For example, software patents and medical methods can be patented. All you need to do is to provide your patent attorney with a clear and concise summary, and they can advise you on whether your idea is patentable in Australia.

You may be wondering, how can you trust your patent attorney and reveal your thoughts to them? According to the Australian Patent Act 1990 (Federal Law), Australian patent attorneys have a statutory obligation to maintain the confidentiality of your ideas.

What type of patent application should I file?

Although there are many types of patent applications in Australia, most new entrepreneurs start with a provisional patent application and then file a PCT international patent application. For the sake of completeness, there are four main types of patent applications that can be filed in Australia:

• Australian provisional patent application (valid for 1 year, economical, providing opportunities for further invention development)
• PCT international patent application (validity period of 1.5 to 2.5 years, covering about 50 countries, most attractive to investors)
• Australian standard patent application (valid for 20 years)
• Australian innovation patent application (valid for 8 years, the most affordable, suitable for novel but obvious ideas, only protected in Australia)

How much is the patent application fee?

Tecrich IP provides fixed fee or capped fee quotations for preparing and submitting patent applications. Generally, for a single creative concept:

The fee for a provisional patent application can be between $1,300 and $4,000

Innovative patent application fees are between $1,000 and $3,500

PCT international patent application fees range from $3,000 to $7,000

The specific quotation will depend on the technical field, complexity, level of detail and time investment required.