Listen to this articlePatent Hacks is an online educational platform designed to teach you how to search, draft, and file patent applications free of costly legal fees. We sat down with Trevor Skene, Co-Founder and CEO of Patent Hacks, to learn more about the business and how it is changing the landscape of the patent industry:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Patent Hacks?
Trevor Skene: Well, Patent Hacks was created by a group of patent agents, patent analysts, and inventors with a collective 40+ years of experience in the patent industry. We created Patent Hacks because we wanted to shift the balance of power in the patent industry. As currently constructed, the patent industry mostly benefits large businesses, large organizations, and wealthy individuals. This is due in large part to the costly, time-consuming, and complex nature of the patent industry. Unfortunately, this often leaves small businesses, entrepreneurs, students, and everyday inventors without a reasonable pathway towards earning patents.
That’s where we can help. At Patent Hacks, we have created an online educational platform designed to teach you how to search, draft, and file patent applications on your own free of costly legal fees. By guiding you through the entire patenting process from start to finish, we make it possible for anyone to earn a patent. Ultimately, we wanted to create an opportunity that makes it possible for small businesses, entrepreneurs, students, and everyday inventors to earn patents just as easily as large entities. Put simply, we just want to put the power back in the inventor’s hands.
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Q: Can you give us more insights into your services?
Trevor Skene: We provide many free resources on our website to provide a wide range of patent and intellectual property education. The articles we post are geared towards answering some of the most common questions about the patent and intellectual property industries. These articles are designed to help our users build a solid foundation of knowledge before entering the patent industry. We are constantly publishing new articles and looking for new topics to cover for our users. If you head over to the Free Resources section of our website, you can make suggestions for the next articles we cover.
Once our users are ready to take the next step, they can purchase a subscription to the Patent Hacks Learning Center. Our Learning Center is designed to walk our users through the entire utility patent application process from start to finish. You never have to worry about getting the wrong information through Patent Hacks. We are constantly updating our content with the newest information coming out of the USPTO. We guide our users through every aspect of the patenting process, including but not limited to:
- Performing Prior Art Searches
- 11 Different Searching Strategies
- 3 Non-Patent Database Guides
- 8 Patent Database Guides
- Drafting Patent Drawings
- USPTO Requirements
- Common Practices
- Drawing Options
- Drawing Views
- Drafting Your Applications (Easy-to-Follow Guides)
- Drafting Your Abstract
- Drafting Your Specification
- Drafting Your Claims
- 11 Different Claiming Strategies
- Filing Patent Applications
- Utility Patent Application Requirements
- 15 Patent Related Forms
- Electronic Filing Using the Patent Center Guide
- Electronic Filing Using the EFS-Web System Guide
- Paper Filing Guide
We also provide real-life examples every step of the way to help our users visualize how to bring these patent concepts to life. The Patent Hacks Learning Center also includes:
- 500+ Visual Aids (images, tables, videos, etc.)
- 50+ Step-By-Step Guides
- 15+ Patent Forms
- 28+ Patent Application Templates
Q: Who is your ideal client and why?
Trevor Skene: Our goal is to make it possible for anyone to earn patents. However, we created the Patent Hacks Learning Center with small businesses, entrepreneurs, students, startups, everyday inventors, etc. in mind. This is because we believe they are the most underserved population of the patent industry. We believe that a small entity’s inventive concepts are just as valuable to the world as a large entity’s, and we think it’s time they had a fair chance. That being said, anyone who would like to file patent applications and save thousands of dollars along the way is welcome to join us.
Q: How much of a cost difference is there between Patent Hacks and conventional patent professionals?
Trevor Skene: I’m glad you asked, a subscription to the Patent Hacks Learning Center is a fraction of the cost of using patent professionals. Since patents are very diverse, I like to use a range to display how much someone can save by using our Learning Center vs. using patent professionals. Per studies from third party sources, patent professionals typically cost anywhere from $5,000-$16,000.
The price to prepare and file a patent application with a patent professional will vary depending on many factors, including:
- The complexity of your invention
- If you need a prior art search
- The amount of detail you want in your specification
- The number of claims you want
- Whether or not you need patent drawings
- The experience level of your patent professional
The price of a subscription to the Patent Hacks Learning Center is only $249.99 for the first year and $19.99 each month thereafter. This makes our Learning Center subscription 95%-98.5% cheaper than working with patent professionals. In other words, it would take 20-64 years of subscribing to the Patent Hacks Learning Center before you reached the same cost of filing one patent application with a patent professional. With numbers like that, it’s no wonder that more people are choosing Patent Hacks every day.
Q: What’s the best thing about Patent Hacks that people might not know about?
Trevor Skene: Our platform is constantly evolving and changing to best suit our users. The patent industry changes over time, and that makes it important to update your information regularly. We are constantly monitoring the USPTO for any changes to patent law, forms, filing systems, etc., so we can ensure that our users are always receiving the most up-to-date information.
Many people don’t realize that written text can become outdated quite easily. That’s one of the major things that separates our platform from other patent education resources. When your platform can change and evolve, you can provide a better and more reliable overall experience to your users.
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Q: What can we expect from Patent Hacks in next 6 months?
Trevor Skene: Growth, a lot of growth. We have tons of plans in the works, and we are constantly brainstorming and developing new ways of optimizing our platform for our users. Although we do not have any set release dates for our future plans, we can give you a sneak peek of what’s to come. Inside the Learning Center, you can look forward to new ways of interacting with our content, updates to the existing content as the USPTO evolves, and brand new content. Outside the Learning Center, you will find new Free Resource articles and a community group. We hope our users are excited about what’s to come, and we look forward to working with you to revolutionize the patent industry.
Q: How much value does a patent provide an entrepreneur, inventor, business, etc.?
Trevor Skene: This is a question I get asked a lot. Patents provide a tremendous amount of value to a business by allowing its owner(s) to protect their intellectual property. This gives the patent owner(s) the right to sue anyone who infringes upon their patent rights. This protection ensures that no one will be able to make, use, or sell your intellectual property without paying a hefty price in infringement lawsuit payouts.
However, there a several other equally important benefits of patents that most people don’t know about. Patents can also be used to:
- License or sell your intellectual property to others.
- Block competition from entering your industry.
- Scare off competition by applying a patent pending label to your intellectual property.
- Establish legitimacy for yourself in your professional career.
