3 ms·

Increase the filing fee, to pay for better examiners directly? Patents that cost a few thousand dollars?

• pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  This weighs against individuals too heavily. The UK for a time had a zero filing fee but they've gone back to a small fee again (to avoid getting so much chaff). It's the renewal fees where you should be charging highly IMO; hyperbolic year-on-year increases would be an interesting option to model.
  • xmodem 13y ago
    I know this sort of thing is unpopular in the United States, but how about a pay-according-to-your-means model? So individual inventors working for themselves could file quite cheaply, but a publicly held corporation with a >$1b market cap pays a much bigger fee for the same thing.
    • bstpierre 13y ago
      Or perhaps even a pay-based-on-number-of-filings model. First application is $500, with a doubling for each filing, up to a max of $10k. (Or whatever multiplier and ceiling you want to have.) For small filers, the legal fees will dwarf the USPTO fees; for large filers with dedicated legal assets, the USPTO fees are still fairly minor but might start to be large enough to deter some of the frivolous filings.
      • pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        How much does it cost to set up a shell corp, $50? >For small filers, the legal fees will dwarf the USPTO fees // You can self file; though it's not generally advisable. $10k isn't even a blip for someone like HP who (at least in the past) markets themselves on the number of patents they have.