Who are the responsible people? The examiner? with his limited time to examine a patent application and a limited library or resource materials to work from? The commissionier? who must deal with a Congress that already takes fees paid to the Patent Office and uses them to fund non-PTO matters? The citizen? such as yourself who only criticizes rather than calls his congressman to complain about quality and states a willingness to be taxed more if that is what it takes?
Prior art can be cited to the Patent Office pursuant to 35 USC Section 301 and 37 CFR Section 501. These sections specifically relate to issued patents, however, so it is unclear whether anything sent to the patent office would be placed in the file wrapper of the application. It is worth a shot, anyway, and should also be sent directly to the applicant so there can be no claim that the applicant wasn't aware of it during prosecution.
I glanced at the published application and at least the first claim seems to be related to paying for "content" with the one click system through an external service provider.
IF your invention is marketable, a patent obtained with the services of a patent attorney will be worth the cost, as will be explained below.
Obtaining a patent isn't cheap, but the cost needs to be put into perspective. Question: Why do you want a patent to begin with? Answer: Because you want to use it to protect your market so you can make millions (hopefully). With that perspective, is a $10,000 investment in obtaining a good, solid, enforceable patent a bad deal? Typically, though not always, the costs of obtaining a patent will be a small fraction of the cost of ultimately getting a product to market. For example, one fairly simple mold for a plastic part can cost several times the cost of obtaining a patent.
Once again, obtaining a patent isn't inexpensive (unless you compare the cost of getting a U.S. Patent with getting a patent in other developed countries), but as you gripe about the cost, you should remember that you and your fees alone are supporting the lawyer and his family, his secretary, his bookkeeper, his library, his landlord, etc., etc., etc. The costs of all that support are not spread out over hundreds and thousands of people like they are when a product is marketed and being bought by all of those people.
All that said, you can do your own filing, though it isn't recommended. Writing good, solid applications is a skill. I personally went through a training program with a major company that lasted for six months. After the training, new attorneys weren't allowed to make filings on their own until there had been a review of the application by a more experienced attorney. Why? Because it is easy to do wrong and hard to do right. And two heads are always better than one at nearly anything.
If you want to do something yourself, there is a procedure in the USPTO known as a provisional patent application with a small filing fee. It is basically a procedure where an individual inventor can get a filing date for an idea. There are no formal requirements as to form so photos, sketches, etc. can be submitted with a written description - and no claims - setting forth the basic idea. A regular patent application must be filed within one year to keep the original filing date. A provisional application is good only for the information disclosed in it, however. New information appearing in a regular application will be given the new filing date.
Based upon my experience, the fees you quoted in your post did not sound out of line. It should not take six months to get a filing, however. Three months should be normal, with most of that time being taken up in waiting for a patent draftsman to get the necessary patent drawings completed. You have to take your place in the line for these services unless you are willing to pay more to bump up your place.
Deciding to obtain a patent requires you to balance several considerations - cost versus future earnings, for example. You should remember, however, that without a patent, everyone in the world will be able to rip you off and your idea will likely not be profitable to you under any circumstance in the future.
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Who are the responsible people? The examiner? with his limited time to examine a patent application and a limited library or resource materials to work from? The commissionier? who must deal with a Congress that already takes fees paid to the Patent Office and uses them to fund non-PTO matters? The citizen? such as yourself who only criticizes rather than calls his congressman to complain about quality and states a willingness to be taxed more if that is what it takes?
Prior art can be cited to the Patent Office pursuant to 35 USC Section 301 and 37 CFR Section 501. These sections specifically relate to issued patents, however, so it is unclear whether anything sent to the patent office would be placed in the file wrapper of the application. It is worth a shot, anyway, and should also be sent directly to the applicant so there can be no claim that the applicant wasn't aware of it during prosecution. I glanced at the published application and at least the first claim seems to be related to paying for "content" with the one click system through an external service provider.
IF your invention is marketable, a patent obtained with the services of a patent attorney will be worth the cost, as will be explained below. Obtaining a patent isn't cheap, but the cost needs to be put into perspective. Question: Why do you want a patent to begin with? Answer: Because you want to use it to protect your market so you can make millions (hopefully). With that perspective, is a $10,000 investment in obtaining a good, solid, enforceable patent a bad deal? Typically, though not always, the costs of obtaining a patent will be a small fraction of the cost of ultimately getting a product to market. For example, one fairly simple mold for a plastic part can cost several times the cost of obtaining a patent. Once again, obtaining a patent isn't inexpensive (unless you compare the cost of getting a U.S. Patent with getting a patent in other developed countries), but as you gripe about the cost, you should remember that you and your fees alone are supporting the lawyer and his family, his secretary, his bookkeeper, his library, his landlord, etc., etc., etc. The costs of all that support are not spread out over hundreds and thousands of people like they are when a product is marketed and being bought by all of those people. All that said, you can do your own filing, though it isn't recommended. Writing good, solid applications is a skill. I personally went through a training program with a major company that lasted for six months. After the training, new attorneys weren't allowed to make filings on their own until there had been a review of the application by a more experienced attorney. Why? Because it is easy to do wrong and hard to do right. And two heads are always better than one at nearly anything. If you want to do something yourself, there is a procedure in the USPTO known as a provisional patent application with a small filing fee. It is basically a procedure where an individual inventor can get a filing date for an idea. There are no formal requirements as to form so photos, sketches, etc. can be submitted with a written description - and no claims - setting forth the basic idea. A regular patent application must be filed within one year to keep the original filing date. A provisional application is good only for the information disclosed in it, however. New information appearing in a regular application will be given the new filing date. Based upon my experience, the fees you quoted in your post did not sound out of line. It should not take six months to get a filing, however. Three months should be normal, with most of that time being taken up in waiting for a patent draftsman to get the necessary patent drawings completed. You have to take your place in the line for these services unless you are willing to pay more to bump up your place. Deciding to obtain a patent requires you to balance several considerations - cost versus future earnings, for example. You should remember, however, that without a patent, everyone in the world will be able to rip you off and your idea will likely not be profitable to you under any circumstance in the future.