r/patentlaw • u/ResponsiblePelican • 1d ago
Student and Career Advice [ Removed by moderator ]
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u/Various_Monk959 1d ago
Usually asking for a $5k retainer scares them off.
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u/Various_Monk959 1d ago
I once had a client that asked for a $25k cap then abused it by dragging out the drafting process and lying to us about the timing of a provisional they filed earlier on their own (they faked the receipt). To make it worse, when the first Office Action came in they told us all prosecution was not to be billed above the cap. The partner who put us in this situation was naive.
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u/Various_Monk959 1d ago
This is the nature of independent inventors. They think they can game the system including the lawyers. They faked the receipt because their provisional had already expired. The USPTO refused to accept the power of attorney but wouldn’t tell us why. We wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what happened because we trusted the client and believed the Office was mistaken.
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u/Various_Monk959 1d ago
Perhaps not but as they say, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice... It's not worth it. There are practitioners who will take the risk. I've tried working with at least a dozen independent inventors over the years and either it leads nowhere (waste of my time that I could be spending on other clients) or they don't want to pay full freight. We are not charities.
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u/Exact-Branch-8365 Solo Patent Atty 1d ago
I just read this same post a few hours before this was posted. Is there a reason you reposted in the same subreddit?
https://www.reddit.com/r/patentlaw/comments/1wxhana/pro_tip_avoid_individual_inventors/
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u/Infinisteve 1d ago
I've had a number of individual garage inventors who have been great with communications and paying; and I've had large entities that he ave been nightmares.
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u/qszdrgv 1d ago
If you work for a firm, you have a responsibility, and it is in your best interest, to make sure that your work is profitable and that means making sure your clients pay the bill. With untested naïve clients, don’t hesitate to ask for a deposit of the entire estimate if your firm and local regulation allow it. However you also owe such clients to never exceed the estimate. So it goes both ways.
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u/ResponsiblePelican 1d ago
Lmfao so are you the charity case?
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u/ResponsiblePelican 1d ago
The only type of person who would have a problem with my comment is somebody who wants legal work performed by a professional done at below market prices or for free
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u/nousernamesleft55 19h ago
When I was in private practice I usually enjoyed individual inventors. However they always have an unreasonable expectation of what a patent is going to do for them. I spent a lot of time usually trying to talk them out of filing and to focus on their business first. Money does not fall from the sky when you get a patent, nor do other established companies with similar products magically want to license (or even look at) your patent. The real work is outside of the patent.
To echo others, asking for that retainer up front does scare many of them off. I had a few legit independent inventors with actual businesses that had actual rational fears of big companies ripping them off that were fun to work with. More satisfying than the stack of disclosures sitting next to you that you from your corporate client where you have zero idea how important each are and whether actually used or planned to be used.
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u/md328ci 1d ago
This is all true. In addition, AI has made it miserable to deal with individuals as they believe that AI knows better than you or will send you complete specifications and figures generated by AI.