Procedure and Costs for Patent Registration

There are many considerations here, but it starts with consulting a patent attorney to go over your options. First, you want to make sure you have clearly documented what it is that you want to protect. There are utility patents and design patents, so one or both may apply, and the costs are very different and vary based on complexity, amount of work required and the person doing the work (including what part of the country they are in). There is no way to say what the "whole process" will cost because that is purely an unknown and the patent process takes several years. Once the patent is filed, it gets examined by the PTO and there is back and forth between the Examiner and your patent attorney wherein your attorney must argue and/or amend the application. Preparation and filing of the application will usually cost at least $6000 but it varies on several factors....and there will be some "prosecution" costs after filing as mentioned above.