It wouldn’t hurt to see how it goes with your friend first, I think? I assume you’re qualified for this and know what you’re doing?
Can’t comment on the legalities of this in Taiwan, e.g., if this profession is somehow protected. Are you talking about doing this in English or Chinese?
I don’t see this as excessive if you know what you’re doing (consider what lawyers and stuff charge!). And if you don’t know what you’re doing, I suspect you’d want to find out to make sure you’re not exposing yourself to potential legal issues.
If you’re talking about doing this for international companies, I wouldn’t regard your location as a reason to charge less.
I wrote the above before you clarified this, but in this case you presumably know what the going rates are?
I’m going to do it in English. My friend wants my help because of my qualifications.
In the uk a qualified patent attorney would charge at least double that. I’d charge less because I have similar expertise but haven’t taken the attorney exams.
Definitely seems like something you’d want a company for to protect yourself legally then — I assume any errors could get expensive if you’re held liable for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if that means additional requirements above those for a regular company (just speculating — don’t take this as gospel).
I assume that Taiwanese companies sometimes need to write patents in English so there’s some kind of market for that. I think I’d start by doing some research into companies that already offer this service — they presumably exist. Wouldn’t one concern be doing this without being a qualified patent attorney?
What I was getting at there is who Taiwanese companies typically hire when they need English patents written, what those companies charge, how easy or difficult it would be to compete with them, and what the rules are for doing this in Taiwan.
The Taiwan IPO has a list of laws relating to patents. Might be worth going through its English website to see if there’s anything relevant there.
I’m a bit confused about the law on this. You can’t legally call yourself a patent attorney without a licence, and you also can’t represent other people without a licence either.
Does that extend to drafting applications for other people for the purposes of filing abroad though?
I did notice they’d also used “patent agent” in some places, which I guess is what you would be?
This is what I was talking about though — it seems like something that could be fraught with potential issues doing locally.
Would it be worth considering trying to affiliate yourself somehow with a local company already doing this (e.g., on a part-time/freelance basis), at least initially? Or even an international company that hires remote freelancers? Or are you committed to doing it through your own company?
When you draft these for your friend, is this going through his/her company where he/she has the ultimate liability?
I want to ask, does this lawyer have any area of expertise? What is his practice? Does he deal with family law, business law, tax, patent, criminal defense, or whatever? I see you keep pushing this lawyer (over a fairly wide variety of legal questions) but I think it would be helpful for us to know what area of law he deals in.
