JP7068112B2 - Industrial property cost estimation system and its method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an industrial property cost estimation system and a method thereof.

Industrial property rights such as patents, utility models, designs, and trademarks incur a reasonable cost before they are acquired, and a reasonable cost is incurred to maintain the industrial property right. Companies are required to manage the costs associated with these industrial property rights. Therefore, for example, as a method for managing the cost over the life cycle of a patent application, the method described in Patent Document 1 is known.

JP-A-2015-502623

By the way, the cost required for the procedure related to industrial property rights is generally not a fixed fee. For example, the cost of requesting examination of a Japanese patent application is determined by the number of claims, and the cost of a European patent application is determined by the number of claims and the number of pages of the specification, or the trademark right is renewed. The cost of the item depends on the number of categories.
However, the user may not manage various items such as the number of claims, the number of pages of the specification, and the number of divisions. In recent years, so-called intellectual property management software has been used to manage the expiration date of industrial property rights owned by the company, but depending on the intellectual property management software, the number of claims and the number of pages of the specification , It may be difficult to output the number of divisions in a list format at once.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and a method capable of easily estimating future costs related to industrial property rights.

According to the present invention, a legal database is recorded for each type of industrial property right, all types of procedures for maintaining the right from application, and a standard time schedule in which each said procedure or its request occurs. A system for estimating future costs for all of the above-mentioned procedures from application to maintenance of one or more industrial property rights, using a cost database that records the agency costs and agent costs required for each of the above-mentioned procedures. And
From the user's terminal via the network, the identification information that can identify a specific industrial property right, the basic filing date, the country of application, and the type of right related to the industrial property right are obtained.
Based on the applicant country and the type, the procedure that will occur in the future for each of the industrial property rights is specified as a scheduled procedure.
Based on the basic filing date and the legal database, the scheduled billing date for which the scheduled billing amount that occurs in the scheduled procedure will occur is calculated.
For all the industrial property rights, the annual billing amount that occurs in each year when the billing amount that the billing date belongs to the same year is added, or the billing amount that the billing date belongs to the same month. It is configured to calculate the monthly billing amount that will occur for each month that is added up.
The billing amount is configured to be calculated based on the cost database and the grade indicating the level of cost for each of the industrial property rights acquired from the user's terminal. The system is provided.

According to the present invention, a legal database is recorded for each type of industrial property right, all types of procedures from application to maintenance of rights, and a standard time schedule in which each of the above procedures or a claim thereof is generated. One or more using a cost database in which agency costs and agent costs required for each of the procedures are recorded, a processor, and a non-temporary recording means of recording computer-readable instructions executed by the processor. It is a method of estimating the future cost of all the above-mentioned procedures for maintaining the right from the application for the industrial property right of the above, and the above-mentioned method applies to the processor.
From the user's terminal via the network, the identification information that can identify a specific industrial property right, the basic filing date, the country of application, and the type of right related to the industrial property right are acquired.
Based on the applicant country and the type, the procedure that will occur in the future for each of the industrial property rights is specified as a scheduled procedure.
Based on the basic filing date and the legal database, the scheduled billing date for which the scheduled billing amount that occurs in the scheduled procedure will occur is calculated.
For all the industrial property rights, the annual billing amount that occurs in each year when the billing amount that the billing date belongs to the same year is added, or the billing amount that the billing date belongs to the same month. Calculate the monthly billing amount that will be generated for each month, which is the sum of the totals.
The billing amount is provided with a cost estimation method for industrial property rights, which is calculated based on the cost database and a grade indicating the level of cost for each of the industrial property rights acquired from the user's terminal.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY According to the present invention, there is provided a system and a method thereof that allows a user to easily estimate the cost of an industrial property right without inputting items such as the number of claims and the number of divisions.

It is a block diagram which shows the cost estimation system of the industrial property right which concerns on 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart of the process executed by the main server in the 1st Embodiment of this invention. An example of the case list input by the user in the first embodiment of the present invention is shown. An example of the grade correspondence table in the 1st Embodiment of this invention is shown. An example of the primary database in the first embodiment of the present invention is shown. An example of the legal database in the first embodiment of the present invention is shown. An example of the secondary database in the first embodiment of the present invention is shown. An example of the cost database in the first embodiment of the present invention is shown. In the first embodiment of the present invention, an example of outputting the estimated billing amount for each year to the user's terminal is shown. An example of the case list input by the user in the second embodiment of the present invention is shown. An example of the primary database in the second embodiment of the present invention is shown. An example of the legal database in the second embodiment of the present invention is shown. An example of the secondary database in the second embodiment of the present invention is shown. An example of the cost database in the second embodiment of the present invention is shown.

Examples of embodiments according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

<First Embodiment>
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a cost estimation system for industrial property rights (hereinafter, simply referred to as system 1) according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The system 1 has terminals 2 of a plurality of users, a main server 10, and a data server 20. This system 1 calculates the future cost of the industrial property right held by the user for the user who has applied for or holds the industrial property right on a monthly or yearly basis.

The costs estimated by the present invention are the costs required for filing patents, utility models, designs, and trademarks, the costs incurred while patent applications, utility model applications, design applications, and trademark applications are pending at the Patent Office, and patent rights.・ It is the cost to maintain utility model rights, design cases, and trademark cases.
In the following explanation, the industrial property right, the industrial property right pending, and the industrial property right for which the application is planned may be collectively referred to as a case.
The first embodiment described below is an example in which the present invention is applied to estimate the cost required to maintain a more predictable right of an industrial property right.

The main server 10 has a processor 11 (central processing unit), a temporary recording device (RAM 12), and a non-temporary recording device (ROM 13 or HDD). When the program (computer-readable instruction) recorded in the ROM 13 (non-temporary recording means) is expanded into the RAM 12 and executed by the processor 11, the industrial property cost estimation method described in detail below is executed.

The user's terminal 2 is communicably connected to the main server 10 via the network 3. The user's terminal 2 may be a terminal owned by the user or a terminal not owned by the user logged in. The terminal may be a personal computer, a tablet terminal, or a mobile phone terminal.

The data server 20 is communicably connected to the main server 10 via the network 3. The data server 20 includes a user database, a matter database, a legal database, and a cost database, which are described in detail below. The data server 20 may be configured to form one device together with the main server 10, or the main server 10 and the data server 20 may be configured as independent devices.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the process executed by the main server 10. As shown in FIG. 2, the main server 10 first performs a login process (step S01).
When the main server 10 executes the login process, the main server 10 acquires the user identification information and the password from the user's terminal 2. User identification information and passwords are recorded in the user database. When the acquired user identification information and password match the user identification information and password registered in the user database, the main server 10 identifies that the user has logged in.
Hereinafter, it is assumed that the user AAA has logged in to the system 1.

Next, the main server 10 acquires the definition of the year (step S02). The definition of a year is the start month (or end month) of the year that the user says. For example, the year referred to by user AAA may refer to the period from April to March next year, and the year referred to by user BBB may refer to the period from January to December. This system 1 is configured so that the cost for each year can be calculated according to the definition of the year as the user says. The definition of the year may be configured to be acquired from the user's terminal 2. Alternatively, the user database may record the definition of the year of the user, and may be configured to obtain the definition of the year of a specific user from the user database.
Hereinafter, it is assumed that the user AAA defines the year as April is the start month of the year.

Next, the main server 10 acquires the year or month that the user wants to display (step S03). The year that the user wants to display is, for example, three years of this year, next year, and the next year. Alternatively, the month that the user wants to display is, for example, December of this year or six months from April of this year. The year or month to be displayed may be configured to be acquired from the user's terminal 2. Alternatively, the year or month that the user wants to display is recorded in the user database, and the year or month that the specific user wants to display may be acquired from the user database.
Hereinafter, in the first embodiment, the 20 years from this year (2018) to 2038 will be described as the year that the user AAA wants to display.

Next, the main server 10 acquires the basic filing date, the country of application, the type and grade of the industrial property right of the matter for which the estimate is calculated from the user's terminal 2 (step S04). In the present embodiment, the main server 10 acquires the user management number as well as the basic filing date of the matter, the country of application, the type and grade of the industrial property right.

The basic filing date is the filing date of the first country. In the case of an application claiming priority under the Paris Convention, it is the filing date of the application claiming priority.

The country of application is the country in which the matter was filed. JP means an application to the Japan Patent Office, and US means an application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The type indicates whether the project is a patent, a utility model, a design, or a trademark. In FIG. 3, P is a patent, U is a utility model, D is a design, and T is a trademark.

The user management number is a number assigned to the matter by each user. For example, if a user wants to know an estimate of the cost of a specific user management number, the estimate can be calculated by specifying the user management number. The user management number may also include alphabets and symbols in addition to numbers.

FIG. 3A is a list of cases owned by user AAA. This matter list may be created by the user AAA on the user's terminal. Alternatively, it may be created in an appropriate file format (for example, csv) from the intellectual property management software used by the user AAA. The user AAA inputs the matter list of FIG. 3A into the terminal 2 of the user AAA who has logged in to the main server 10. Then, as shown in FIG. 3B, the default is first set as the grade of all the cases.

Next, the user AAA appropriately corrects the grade of the matter list displayed on the terminal 2 of the user AAA, and sets the grade for the matter if necessary. In this way, the matter list shown in FIG. 3 (c) is created. The user AAA transmits the matter list shown in (c) of FIG. 3 to the main server. In this way, the main server 10 acquires the basic filing date, the country of application, the type and grade of the industrial property right of the matter for which the estimate is calculated from the terminal 2 of the user AAA.

FIG. 4 is a table showing the grades of projects. In the present embodiment, the grade is an index indicating the degree of high or low of the cost related to the industrial property right. For example, for Japanese patents, the patent fee is determined according to the number of claims. For this reason, patents with many claims are more expensive to maintain than patents with few claims. Alternatively, for Japanese trademarks, the registration fee is determined according to the number of categories. For this reason, a trademark with many categories is more expensive to maintain than a trademark with few categories. Therefore, in this embodiment, the concept of grade is set when estimating the cost.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4, the grades are classified into four stages A to D. It shows that A is the highest price and D is the lowest price. The grade selected by default is C.

The four grades have different meanings depending on the type of industrial property right. For example, Grade A in a patent means that the number of claims is 20, the number of pages of the specification is 15, and the number of drawings is 20. On the other hand, Grade A in the trademark means that the number of categories is 10.

When the main server 10 acquires the basic filing date, the country of application, the type and grade of the industrial property right of the matter for which the estimate is calculated, the main server 10 creates the primary database shown in FIG. 5 based on these.

To create this primary database, first, the number of claims and the number of divisions that the grade means are specified from the types and grades acquired from the user's terminal 2. In addition, the registration date and the actual filing date are calculated from the basic filing date acquired from the user's terminal 2.
The registration date is an approximate date that is the starting date of the payment procedure for maintaining the rights. Each of the industrial property rights is statistically registered after a predetermined date has passed from the basic filing date. Therefore, the main server 10 calculates the registration date using this statistical data. The actual filing date is the filing date in another country when filing an application to another country claiming priority under the Paris Convention. The actual filing date is also a date that can be the starting date of the cost required to maintain the right. Also, the actual filing date is the date after the lapse of a predetermined date statistically obtained from the basic filing date.

Items such as user management number, basic filing date of the case, country of application, type of industrial property right, grade, number of claims specified according to grade, calculated registration date, calculated actual filing date are summarized. The main server 10 creates the primary database shown in FIG.

Next, the main server 10 specifies the scheduled procedure (step S05). The main server 10 estimates the cost of all future procedures for the plurality of target industrial property rights. Therefore, the main server 10 specifies all the procedures that will occur in the future by using the primary database and the legal database. The main server 10 outputs all the identified future scheduled procedures to the secondary database.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a legal database. The legal database records, for each type of industrial property right, all types of procedures for maintaining rights, and the standard time schedule for which each of the above procedures is billed. As shown in FIG. 6 in the present embodiment, the legal database contains all types of procedures for maintaining industrial property rights, the starting date required to calculate the scheduled date on which the procedure will occur, and the starting date. Includes the number of days required for the procedure to be billed. For example, about 1460 days have passed from the basic filing date before a claim for payment of the registration fee for the fourth year occurs in a Japanese patent.

This legal database records how long each procedure occurs after the start date, based on the history of a huge number of applications in the past. This legal database should be updated regularly to reflect the latest situation.

In FIG. 6, it is assumed that the registration date is used as the starting date, but the present invention is not limited to this. Depending on the country, the actual filing date may be the starting date for payment of the registration fee. In this case, the actual filing date is registered on the starting date of the legal database. The legal database may record the standard number of days from the start date to the occurrence of the procedure, or may record the standard number of months from the start date to the occurrence of the procedure. ..

After specifying all the scheduled procedures, the main server 10 calculates the scheduled billing date for each scheduled procedure based on the primary database (or the secondary database) and the legal database (step S06).
For example, for the case of user management number 0001, from the legal database of FIG. 6, the scheduled billing date related to the payment of the patent fee for the fourth year in Japan occurs 1460 days after the registration date. The registration date is May 10, 2014. Therefore, as shown in the secondary database of FIG. 7, the main server 10 specifies that the scheduled billing date related to the payment of the patent fee for the fourth year of the user management number 0001 is May 9, 2018.

Similarly, for the user management number 0001, the main server 10 is involved in the payment of the patent fee for the sixth year on May 9, 2019, 1825 days after the registration date, with the scheduled billing date for the payment of the patent fee for the fifth year. Specify the billing date as May 8, 2020, 2190 days after the registration date. The main server 10 specifies the billing dates for all scheduled procedures for all cases. The primary database shown in FIG. 7 shows the outline, and does not show the payment of the patent fee / registration fee after the 6th year, but the procedure for payment of the patent fee / registration fee in the 20th year. Is the scheduled procedure.

The main server 10 records these specified scheduled procedures and each scheduled billing date as a secondary database shown in FIG. 7.

The main server 10 further calculates a billing schedule for all scheduled procedures (step S07). The estimated billing amount is calculated using the cost database shown in FIG.

The cost database records the agency costs and agent costs required for each procedure. The main server 10 calculates the total cost of the agency cost and the agent cost as the billing amount. The cost database of FIG. 8 records the cost required for each procedure as a direct numerical value or a calculation formula for calculating the cost.

In this embodiment, the cost structure of the agent is classified into ranks A to D and recorded. A is the highest cost system and D is the cheapest cost system. Here, the rank of the agent is determined according to the grades A to D.

The cost database will be updated as appropriate. For example, the agency fee will be renewed in response to the revision of the law. Alternatively, the cost is updated regularly to reflect the latest currency rate. Alternatively, the agent cost is updated on a regular basis to reflect the fluctuation of the agent cost.

For example, the main server 10 first calculates the estimated billing amount required for payment of the patent fee for the fourth year. With reference to the cost database of FIG. 8, the main server 10 is first defined as 15,000 + "number of claims" x 1,300. The number of claims of the user control number 0001 is specified as 5. Therefore, the agency cost is 15,000 + 6,500 = 21,500. Further, the agent rank set in the user management number 0001 is C. With reference to the cost database of FIG. 8, the C rank agent cost required for payment of the patent fee in the fourth year is 8,000. Therefore, the agency fee and the agent fee are added together (21,500 + 8,000), and the estimated billing amount required for payment of the patent fee for the fourth year is calculated as 29,500 and written in the secondary database.
Hereinafter, in the same manner, the scheduled billing amount is calculated for all the scheduled procedures that will occur in the future of the user management number 0001, and the scheduled billing amount is calculated for all the scheduled procedures for all the cases in the same manner. In addition, these calculation results are written in the secondary database.

Next, the main server 10 calculates the billing amount for each year (step S08).
As mentioned above, this example assumes a case where the user AAA wants to obtain an estimate for the 20 years from FY2018 to FY2037. Therefore, the main server 10 calculates the billing scheduled amount for each fiscal year by adding the billing scheduled amounts belonging to the same fiscal year. Here, as mentioned above, the year of user AAA starts in April. Therefore, for example, the scheduled billing amount for FY2018 is calculated by totaling the scheduled billing amounts belonging to the scheduled billing dates from April 2018 to March 2019. The estimated billing amount for FY2019 is calculated by totaling the estimated billing amounts belonging to the scheduled billing dates from April 2019 to March 2020. In this way, the billing amount for each 20 years from FY2018 to FY2027 is calculated.

The main server 10 outputs the calculated annual billing amount to the user's terminal 2 (step S09). The main server 10 may display the annual billing amount as a numerical value on the display device of the user's terminal 2 as shown in FIG. 9 (a), or as shown in FIG. 9 (b). It may be displayed as a graph so that the fluctuation for each year can be easily understood. Alternatively, it may be displayed for each type of industrial property right, or for each type of procedure. Alternatively, the display method may be configured to be customizable by the user.

According to the system and method according to the present embodiment, when estimating the future cost for maintaining a plurality of industrial property rights held by the user, it is necessary to calculate the cost such as the number of claims and the number of divisions, but it is managed. The user does not have to enter items that are difficult and difficult to enter. Therefore, the user can easily estimate future costs related to industrial property rights.

In the above-described embodiment, an example of calculating an estimate for all the cases owned by the user has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this. This system 1 acquires extraction conditions, identifies those that satisfy the extraction conditions as the industrial property rights to be estimated from all the cases input by the user, and bills the industrial property rights to be estimated every year. It may be configured to calculate the estimated amount.
For example, the basic filing date for calculating the estimate and the range of the types of rights may be acquired, and the estimate may be calculated only for the cases belonging to the range.

Further, as shown in the "group" of FIG. 3, the main server 10 may acquire group identification information that can be identified by the group to which the industrial property right belongs from the user's terminal. The system 1 may be configured to be able to calculate the estimated amount of claims for maintaining the rights of industrial property rights belonging to a specific group.
For example, a company may manage industrial property rights for each business or project. Therefore, the user can grant Group 1 to the industrial property right related to a certain business. As a result, only group 1 can be easily extracted and an estimate can be obtained. As described above, the group identification information is information that can be arbitrarily specified by the user.

<Second embodiment>
In the first embodiment described above, an example in which the present invention is applied to an estimation regarding a procedure for payment of a patent fee or a registration fee for an industrial property right has been described. Since the payment deadline for such rights maintenance costs is clearly set by law for each country and each type of industrial property right, it is easy to accurately predict the expected payment date. However, the present invention is not limited to this. Next, a second embodiment in which the present invention is applied to an estimate relating to all procedures for maintaining rights from an application, including procedures for payment of a patent fee or a registration fee from an application, will be described. Also in the second embodiment, the system and the flowchart for calculating the estimate are the same as the system and the flowchart of the first embodiment. Therefore, the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2 as appropriate.

As shown in FIG. 2, the login process (step S01), the acquisition of the definition of the year (step S02), and the acquisition of the year to be displayed (step S03) are the same as those in the first embodiment described above. Omit. In this embodiment, the user AAA logs in, and the user AAA adopts the year starting in April, and estimates the cost required for all procedures related to the maintenance of rights from the application for 20 years from FY2018 to FY2037. It is assumed that you want to get it.

The main server 10 acquires the basic filing date, filing country, type, and grade from the user's terminal 2 (step S04). FIG. 10 shows a list of cases for which the user AAA in the second embodiment wants to estimate the cost. FIG. 10 is similar to the list shown in FIG. 3 (c). That is, FIG. 10 shows a list in which a grade is added to the matter list created by the user AAA. The user AAA creates a list including the user control number, the basic filing date, the country of application, the type, and the group identification information (if necessary), and sends the information to which the grade is added to the main server 10.

The main server 10 creates the primary database shown in FIG. 11 based on the acquired information such as the basic filing date, the country of application, the type, and the grade. That is, the main server 10 inputs numerical values corresponding to items such as the number of claims, the number of pages of the specification, the number of drawings, and the number of divisions from the type and grade and the grade correspondence table of FIG. 4, and creates the primary database. create.

Next, the main server 10 specifies the scheduled procedure (step S05). The main server 10 estimates the cost of all future procedures for the plurality of target industrial property rights. Therefore, the main server 10 specifies all the procedures that will occur in the future by using the primary database 22 and the legal database shown in FIG. The main server 10 outputs all the identified future scheduled procedures to the secondary database shown in FIG. In the illustrated example, all scheduled procedures for user management numbers 1001 to 1006 are output to the secondary database.

FIG. 12 shows an example of the legal database used in this embodiment. The legal database records, for each type of industrial property right, all types of procedures from application to maintenance of rights, and the standard time schedule in which a request for each of the above procedures occurs. In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 12, the legal database contains all types of procedures from application for industrial property rights to maintenance of rights, and the starting date required to calculate the scheduled date when the procedures occur. The number of days from the start date to the occurrence of the procedure is included. For example, it takes about 900 days from the basic filing date to claim the cost of requesting examination in a Japanese patent.

This legal database records how long each procedure occurs after the start date, based on the history of a huge number of applications in the past. This legal database is updated regularly to reflect the latest data.

In FIG. 12, it is assumed that only the basic filing date is used as the starting date. Further, in the legal database shown in FIG. 12, only one response to the directive (notification of reasons for refusal) is registered, but for example, it is assumed that the directive is notified multiple times. You may register the correspondence of the book. Further, although only typical procedures are shown in FIG. 12, in reality, all necessary procedures are registered based on each country or the type of industrial property right.

FIG. 13 shows an example of a secondary database. As shown in FIG. 13, all procedures are listed for each case in the secondary database.
For example, user control number 1001 is a Japanese patent application. Therefore, the main server 10 lists the scheduled procedures that will occur in the future for the user management number 1001 using the legal database of FIG. According to the legal database, Japanese patents will be subject to procedures such as application, request for examination, notification of reasons for refusal, registration, fourth year patent fee, and annual patent fee thereafter. Therefore, the main server 10 writes these procedure names in the secondary database as scheduled procedures for the user management number 1001.

Next, the main server 10 calculates the scheduled billing date for the scheduled procedure (step S06). For example, according to the legal database, patent applications in Japan will be claimed 5 days after the basic filing date. Therefore, the main server 10 calculates the scheduled billing date as April 25, 2014 for the procedure for applying for the user management number 1001.

Similarly, the main server 10 calculates the scheduled billing date for the other scheduled procedures of the user management number 1001, and calculates the scheduled billing date for all the scheduled procedures of the matter of the other user management number. The main server 10 writes each calculated billing date in the secondary database.

Next, the main server 10 calculates the estimated billing amount (step S07). The billing amount is calculated using the secondary database and the cost database shown in FIG.

In the cost database shown in FIG. 14, the agency cost and the agent cost required for each procedure are recorded. The main server 10 calculates the total cost of the agency cost and the agent cost as the estimated billing amount. The cost database of FIG. 11 records the cost required for each procedure as a direct numerical value or a calculation formula for calculating the cost.

In the present embodiment, the cost system of the agent is generally classified into A rank, which is higher than A rank, B rank, which is cheaper than A rank, C rank, which is cheaper than B rank, and D rank, which is cheaper than C rank.

As shown in FIG. 14, the agency fee and the agent fee are determined by the number of claims, the number of pages of the specification, the number of drawings, the number of divisions, and the like. Although not shown in FIG. 14, for example, the filing cost in an EP patent application is determined by the number of claims and the number of pages of the specification. In addition, the maintenance pension for European community designs is determined by the number of designs.

The cost database will be updated as appropriate. For example, the agency fee will be renewed in response to the revision of the law. Alternatively, the cost is updated regularly to reflect the latest currency rate. Alternatively, the agent cost is updated on a regular basis to reflect the fluctuation of the agent cost.

Next, the main server 10 calculates the estimated billing amount for each year based on the secondary database (step S08). As shown in FIG. 13, the scheduled billing date and the scheduled billing amount are summarized in the secondary database.

As mentioned above, this example assumes a case where the user AAA wants to obtain an estimate for the 20 years from FY2018 to FY2037. Therefore, the main server 10 calculates the scheduled billing amount for FY2018 by adding the scheduled billing amounts for the scheduled procedures whose scheduled billing date belongs to FY2018. Similarly, the estimated billing amount for each year is calculated for each year.

The main server 10 outputs the calculated annual billing amount to the user's terminal 2 (step S09). The main server 10 may display at least one of the annual billing amount and the monthly billing amount as numerical values on the display device of the user's terminal 2 as shown in FIG. 9A. As shown in (b) of 9, it may be displayed in a graph so that the fluctuation for each year can be understood. Alternatively, it may be displayed for each type of industrial property right, or for each type of procedure. Alternatively, the display method may be configured to be customizable by the user.

According to the present embodiment, the user can estimate the cost without inputting the number of claims and the number of divisions for each of the cases.
For example, in Japan, a single design application may be permitted to have only a single design, whereas in other countries, a single design application may be permitted to include multiple designs. For this reason, it may not be possible to output a list of projects including the number of designs from IP management software created assuming only Japanese designs.
Alternatively, in patents, the number of claims increases or decreases at the examination stage, and IP management software often does not control the number of claims. Therefore, it may not be possible to output the case list including the number of claims from the IP management software.
Alternatively, the intellectual property management software that manages patent rights and the intellectual property management software that manages trademark rights are often different software. For this reason, it is difficult to combine the lists output from each IP management software into a single project list. However, there may be times when you want to estimate future costs for all industrial property rights, including patents and trademark rights.
Although it cannot be output from these IP management software, it is difficult for the user to manually input the items required for cost estimation. As the number of industrial property rights held by the user increases, the workload becomes significantly greater.
Therefore, according to the present embodiment, by setting an index called a grade for each of the industrial property rights, the burden of work such as inputting the number of claims of the user is reduced.

In the first and second embodiments described above, the configuration in which the main server 10 acquires information indicating the grade from the user's terminal 2 has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this. The main server 10 may set parameters such as the number of claims and the number of divisions based on the default grade for all cases. In this case, the main server 10 does not have to acquire the grade from the user's terminal 2.

The grade correspondence table shown in FIG. 4 may be configured to be editable by the user. The grade correspondence table edited by the user may be saved in the user's terminal or may be saved in the user database. Thereby, the average number of claims of the user's patent right can be selected as the default grade, and an accurate estimate that is more in line with the user's substance can be provided.

In the above embodiment, the configuration for outputting the primary database and the secondary database has been described for convenience of explanation, but the billing amount for each year or month is calculated directly without outputting the primary database or the secondary database. It may be configured as follows.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, an example of calculating an estimate for all the cases owned by the user has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this. This system 1 acquires extraction conditions, identifies those that satisfy the extraction conditions as the industrial property rights to be estimated from all the cases input by the user, and bills the industrial property rights to be estimated every year. It may be configured to calculate a scheduled amount or a monthly billing amount.
For example, the basic filing date for calculating the estimate and the range of the types of rights may be acquired, and the estimate may be calculated only for the cases belonging to the range.

1 System 2 User's terminal 3 Network 10 Main server 11 Processor 12 RAM
13 ROM
20 data server

Claims (8)

For each type of industrial property right, there is a legal database that records all types of procedures from application to maintenance of rights, and the standard time schedule for each of the procedures or the standard time schedule in which the request is made, and in each of the procedures. It is a system that estimates future costs for all the above procedures from application to maintenance of one or more industrial property rights using a cost database that records the required agency costs and agent costs.
From the user's terminal via the network, the identification information that can identify a specific industrial property right, the basic filing date, the country of application, and the type of right related to the industrial property right are obtained.
Based on the applicant country and the type, the procedure that will occur in the future for each of the industrial property rights is specified as a scheduled procedure.
Based on the basic filing date and the legal database, the scheduled billing date for which the scheduled billing amount that occurs in the scheduled procedure will occur is calculated.
For all the industrial property rights, the billing amount for each year that occurs in each year when the billing amount for which the billing date belongs to the same year is added, or the billing amount for which the billing date belongs to the same month. It is configured to calculate the monthly billing amount that will occur for each month that is added up.
The billing amount is configured to be calculated based on the cost database and the grade indicating the level of cost for each of the industrial property rights acquired from the user's terminal. system. The system according to claim 1, wherein at least one of a number of claims, a number of pages of a specification, a number of drawings, and a number of divisions is set according to the grade. The system according to claim 1, wherein the number of responses to the notice of reasons for refusal is specified according to the grade. The system according to claim 1, wherein an application table of agent costs is set according to the grade. The system according to claim 1, wherein as the grade, a default grade and one or more cheaper grades indicating that the grade is cheaper than the default grade can be selected. The system according to claim 5, wherein the default grade is set as each of the acquired grades of the industrial property right. The system according to claim 6, wherein the grade is configured to be modifiable by the user after setting the default as each of the acquired grades of the industrial property right. For each type of industrial property right, there is a legal database that records all types of procedures from application to maintenance of rights, and the standard time schedule for each of the above procedures or the request for which they occur, and in each of the above procedures. Apply for one or more industrial property rights using a cost database that records required agency costs and agent costs, a processor, and a non-temporary recording means that records computer-readable instructions executed by the processor. A method of estimating future costs for all of the procedures for maintaining rights from the processor.
From the user's terminal via the network, the identification information that can identify a specific industrial property right, the basic filing date, the country of application, and the type of right related to the industrial property right are acquired.
Based on the applicant country and the type, the procedure that will occur in the future for each of the industrial property rights is specified as a scheduled procedure.
Based on the basic filing date and the legal database, the scheduled billing date for which the scheduled billing amount that occurs in the scheduled procedure will occur is calculated.
For all the industrial property rights, the annual billing amount that occurs in each year when the billing amount that the billing date belongs to the same year is added, or the billing amount that the billing date belongs to the same month. Calculate the monthly billing amount that will be generated for each month, which is the sum of the totals.
The billing amount is a cost estimation method for industrial property rights, which is calculated based on the cost database and a grade indicating the level of cost for each of the industrial property rights acquired from the user's terminal.

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