NRI Cyber Patent to Start US Patent Application Package Service Flat-Rate Pricing with No Additional Fees and No Currency Risk

NRI Cyber Patent, Ltd. (NRI Cyber Patent: Tokyo, Japan; Seiji Takano, President) today announced the start of a US patent application package service in alliance with multiple law firms in the US.

According to statistics published by the Japan Patent Office, in recent years, the number of patent applications filed in the US from Japan has been increasing, reaching about 79,000 in 2007, which accounted for more than 17% of all patent applications filed in the US (about 460,000). The expenses required to file a patent application in the US usually include those for translation from Japanese to English, those for a patent agent in the US and the patent application and related fees charged by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Because the fees for a patent agent in the US are generally billed afterward based on the time required to do any necessary work, it is difficult to obtain a prior estimate of the total cost that will be involved. Furthermore, it is likely that unexpected costs might be incurred during the patent prosecution process, and the issue of fluctuating currency exchange rates is also involved.

The package service announced by NRI Cyber Patent today is offered at a fixed rate that includes all basic fees for the work and procedures necessary to file a patent application in the US. Regardless of the area of technology, a common pricing schedule is set, and the amount charged is determined in advance based on the number of characters contained in the Japanese statements submitted to the Japan Patent Office, which serves as the base for filing an application in the US. On top of this, because no success fee is required when the decision is made to grant a patent, no additional fees are incurred. It is possible to complete all necessary procedures in Japanese. Furthermore, NRI Cyber Patent also offers a package service for the prosecution process such as submitting amendments and/or response documents to the USPTO. In addition to requests made from the initial stage of a patent application, we also offer services for requests made during the prosecution process and assume cases in which patent agents other than our partner patent agents are involved.

Upon selecting a law firm in the US according to the type of technology for which a patent application is made, NRI Cyber Patent offers one-stop service to our clients including deadline management for various procedures. Our package service for a patent application in the US is unprecedented; no such services have been offered by international patent firms in Japan or by overseas patent application support organizations.

The basic fee for this service is JPY 740,000 per case regardless of the currency exchange rate at the time an order is placed. By way of example, if the number of characters contained in the Japanese statements is 30,000 (which corresponds to 20 pages of an application document in Japan), the fee is JPY 980,000. NRI Cyber Patent plans to receive 100 orders for this service monthly within three years.

In addition to filing applications in the US, NRI Cyber Patent also plans to offer overseas patent application support services in the future for filing applications in China and other countries.