an average cost of an European patent

An average cost of an European patent
A survey showed that registering a patent in eight countries for a ten-year period costed on average around 30,000 EUR. Four key factors determined this amount:
  1. costs relating to the registration procedure (4,300 EUR)

  2. the cost of professional representation (attorneys) that accompanied the request for a patent (5,000 EUR)

  3. costs relating to the translation of patents into the languages of the countries where the patent was registered (11,000 EUR or 40% of the total cost!!!)

  4. renewal of patent registrations in the relevant national patent offices (9,000 EUR)

The translation costs have been the main reason why an European patent has been much more expensive than a comparable US or JP patent. See also an analysis of the European Commission. However, translation lobby has been quite powerful. Numerous attempts to enable maintaining an European patent in a single language until a further translation were legally needed (court injunction, patent infringement, etc.) failed till very recently. For further details I recommed personally a very recent free available publication Lost property: The European patent system and why it doesn't work by Bruno van Pottelsberghe.

At last, on December 11, 2012, it has been finally decided to abolish the above praxis. That was the day when EU Parliament approved EU unitary patent rules.

See also European Parliament breaks patent translation deadlock .

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