Inventors?

[TMW2010]

My dad has a pretty good idea for an invention, and I'm trying to figure out how the whole patent process works for independent inventors. He actually has a whole notebook full of them, but he says when he looked into getting patents for any of them it was just too expensive. I've been browsing around the U.S. Patent site trying to figure out how this works, but I'm a bit overwhelmed. United States Patent and Trademark Office

Has anyone here ever applied for a patent? How does it work?

How much does it cost?

Any advice would be appreciated!

First off, I would avoid the companies out there that offer to get your invention patented for you. There's a bunch of commercials running in my area about companies that will do this for you, but it seems like a devils' bargain to me.

It looks like your father can file as a 'Small entity' and pay $75 for the patent fee (as opposed to $150 for a larger company entity like HP or IBM.)

Here's a pretty straightforward link about the process and what you need to do and how to do it. My browser blocked some popups from it, so you may want to have a popup blocker running before you go there.

Good luck!
-T