The PROSECUTION MODULE applies to Patent applications. The module adds a Prosecution stage between the Examination and Grant stages as shown in an example for a Brazilian estimate below:

The numbers used in the estimate for the Prosecution stage are based on surveys of Foreign Associates. They typically do not appear on the fee schedules sent out by associates. We surveyed Foreign Associates and asked how many Office Actions were to be expected in a straightforward case. This is the number to be expected in addition to filing, examination, publication and granting. We then calculated an average number of Office Actions for each country.

For each Office Action there are charges for preparing a response (which incurs fees for a professional's time); charges for processing the response in the Patent Office; translation costs, if any; and In-House Charges for each response.

In addition, the program uses a Prosecution Cost Multiplier to reflect any anticipated difficulty with the application. This multiplicative factor is set to one initially, and is an Application Information item entered when running the estimate.

These Prosecution cost items may be further described as follows:

The database contains a number of Office Actions for most countries, based on the Associate survey. There is a "default number" that applies to countries without a specific number.

The user may enter a number of Office Actions for any country, which will be used in place of the system-defined value. The user may also enter a default number of Office Actions.

The Associate charge for preparing a response is not always clearly defined in Fee Schedules. The amount that has been entered into the database is close to the amount the Associate charges for handling the initial application. This approach therefore approximates the different levels of costs in each country. This amount (the Associate Charge for preparing a response for each Office Action) can also be set by the user for any country.

The Associate Charge and (sometimes) Official Fee for handling each office action are often specified in Fee Schedules. These amounts are averaged just as other Associate amounts are averaged in the database.

The cost per page for the translation (if any) associated with each Office Action is calculated exactly as the translation of the initial application itself. The number of pages for each Office Action is an Application Information item entered by the user when running an estimate. A default number of pages is set in the program, and may be changed by the user.

There are In-House Charges items for Prosecution costs.

This factor simply multiplies the cost for preparing each response. It does not affect the processing cost, the translation cost, or the In-House Charges.

For users with the Timeline Module, the Prosecution Costs are all allocated to the point in time halfway between the month/year calculated for the Examination stage and the month/year calculated for the Grant stage.