an average cost of an European patent

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

  2. the cost of professional representation (attorneys) that accompanies 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 is 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 are the main reason why an European patent is much more expensive than a comparable US or JP patent. Translation lobby is however quite powerful and numerous attempts to enable maintaining an European patent in a single language until a further translation is legally needed (court injunction, patent infringement, etc.) have failed so far.

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.

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