Fourth-quarter patent annuity invoices will be arriving in one month. Most organizations just pass the invoice along for payment – but you can be different.
Use these five free tips to gain the superpower to identify tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands in dollars or euros of excess charges. It’s not as cool as being able to fly, but this is IP, so chill…
Tip # 1: read your Patent annuity maintenance contract
Most organizations don’t know what they are being charged for currency. Find your contract. Read the currency clause. No cap on currency costs? You are almost certainly paying way too much.
tip #2: ask for a detailed Patent Annuity invoice
Your vendor hasn’t produced your invoice yet – ask them to include the official fee, agent fee, and currency costs in your 4th quarter invoice. They say they can’t? You are almost certainly paying too much.
tip #3: actually look at your invoice
You’d be surprised how many organizations receive detailed invoices and don’t even look at them. You only need to check a few cases to know if something is up. If one German case is too expensive, all will be. If you don’t check your invoices, you will pay too much.
tip #4: take advantage of free resources
We have all kinds of resources to help you control costs. Our website has a free tool (www.prokurio.com/solo) that will help you estimate your currency costs, and we have dozens of blog posts on cost-saving strategies. Our free tools are a great way to identify excess costs and not pay too much.
tip #5: start small - but start!
Even if you can’t do everything above, you can probably tackle one or two things this quarter and prepare for Q1 invoices. Review your contract or ask for a more detailed invoice – anything is better than nothing. Start now, and you’ll be a cost superhero before you know it!
