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Hello,
I initially wrote this as a comment to another thread, but then I though this could be a thread on its own.
I recently called an agent from a patent company and told them about an idea of mine. We signed a contract before revealing the idea and they told me that they would let me know in the following 24h if they accept to go forward with my idea.
The manager then called me and said they’re accepting, and that the first step would be to make a prototype drawing, for which I would have to pay $400. I paid, they had the drawing done but now they’re saying the next step is to license a provisional patent and show it to investors, and they’re asking me to pay $4500 for that. To me it seems a bit over the top.
Please give me some advice on what I could do at this point. Thank you!
As I said on the other thread, you’d want to ask them the following questions:
– what exactly will the $4,500 get you?
– ask for a list of things they will do for that money.
– is there a refund if they aren’t able to license your idea?
– how many products have they tried to license and how many have they actually licensed?My guess is that less than 1% of all their projects ever get licensed so they make most of their money by charging people like they’re trying to charge you. Maybe they don’t even try too hard to get anything licensed.
Thank you so much for your advice, I will do this right away. If it ends up being a scam, at least I didn’t lose too much money. $400 still sounds a lot for a prototype drawing, but at least I got something in return for that money, right?
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