416-239-1361

or from outside the Toronto area call us at:
1-800-266-3844

Canadian Patent Act, Section 29(1) states:
An applicant for a patent who does not appear to reside or carry on business at a specified address in Canada shall, on the filing date of the application, appoint as a representative a person or firm residing or carrying on business at a specified address in Canada.

INTELLIGUARD CORP. is willing to act as a foreign inventor's representative for service in Canada. Our initial fee for this service is $300, plus $75 per year thereafter, for the life of the patent application/registration. The inventor(s) or their assignees must keep us updated with their email and street addresses. We will efile an inventor's Canadian patent application for $250 plus GST (7% Good & Services Tax), plus the Patent Office's filing fee of $200. A quote on amendments required for a written description in an application can be provided upon request.

You may send us your home or other foreign country priority information and previously filed patent application by email or fax at 1-416-239-0686

Canadian Patent Application Process and fees

USPTO Patent fees

There are few tasks more difficult than that of preparing a patent application for an important invention. To prepare a perfect patent application, the practitioner must be all-knowing in the relevant technology, in patent law, and be able to predict future developments. In most cases, a perfect patent application is unrealistic. An excellent patent application  needs to realize many objectives, including:

1. Describing the invention so that those of ordinary skill in the art to which the invention pertains can understand it.

2. Teaching how to practice the invention.

3. Explaining the invention in such terms that a judge and a jury will be impressed by the value of the invention. 

4. Claiming the invention sufficiently broadly so that the most talented experts in the field cannot design around the claims for the next twenty years, even when millions of dollars in sales and royalties are at stake.

5. Claiming the invention sufficiently narrowly so that all prior art is not encompassed by the claims. This includes the prior art already known to the patent practitioner, and unknown prior art. The unknown prior art can include existing documents not found by a novelty search and "incubating" prior art such as pending United States patent applications and inventions by others under 35 U.S.C. § 102(g).

6. Claiming the invention so that those elements that render the invention ”non-obvious" are set forth in the claims.

7. Claiming the invention so that a patent will be issued by the Patent Office, and its validity will be sustained by the courts, even though the Patent Office will give the claim language its "broadest reasonable interpretation" and the courts will not.[1]

8. Including only truthful and accurate statements in the application, so that none of the statements could possibly mislead the examiner, and the inventors will not be embarrassed by cross-examination during litigation.

9. Describing all features of the invention that may be needed to obtain allowance of the claims, even when the inventor does not appreciate the importance of those features. 

10. Describing the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out the invention.

11. Preparing an application suitable as a vehicle for foreign filing.

12. Last, but not least, having the application issue as a valid patent.

It is no wonder that skilled patent attorneys and patent agents are so much in demand. It is no wonder that the ability to write a good application is considered by many practitioners to be an "art."

How is this art taught? The art of writing patent applications is taught by a combination of the "mentor" system and osmosis - learning the hard way - by writing applications. Typically, a new attorney or agent is handed a stack of prior art, an invention disclosure, and starts writing.

Many law schools provide a course in patent law. The purpose of most of these courses is not to teach how to write a patent application, but rather to understand the substantive law of patents. It is, of course, necessary to know patent law to write a good patent application. The requirements of 35 U.S.C. §§ 101, 102, 103, and 112 need to be fully appreciated in order to write a good specification. However, knowledge of the substantive law of patents is not the same as knowing how to write a competent patent application. In fact, there are many excellent patent lawyers who litigate patent issues with great skill. Many of those lawyers, if pressed into service to write patent applications, would be lost.