The issue of fees is actually a fundamental problem in the field of patent agency, and many other issues can be traced back to this problem. Chinese patent applications are generally charged on a case by case basis, while in the United States, they are mostly charged on an hourly basis. On the surface, there may seem to be no problem, but in reality, the problem is significant. The reason is that if it is a case fee, the only way for engineers or agents to increase their income is to do more cases per unit time, because the cost of each case is set at the beginning. To increase income, if a case that should have been completed in three days can be completed in one day, they will earn more; And hourly charges, agents or engineers do not need to consider rushing the construction period, because the cost per hour is guaranteed; Will there be agents or engineers in the United States who intentionally delay or falsely report time in order to make more money? There is definitely a possibility of this, but relatively speaking, the hourly fee system is generally easier to produce good cases. Patent agents pay more attention to the quality of cases in order to increase their hourly rates, because the cases they represent are all public. If they do not do well and are expensive, they will gradually lose competitiveness.
