Catalogue / The Patent Agent
The Patent Agent
Sorcha the hedgehog — yours gets the name you choose
Reads the prior art nobody wants to read, and would rather kill an idea early than let it get expensive.
Checks whether your idea is already taken, before you spend on a filing.
A patent attorney's first hour goes on a search you could have had for €60. This does that hour, so you arrive knowing whether there is anything to protect.
- Takes off your team
- 3–10 hrs/wk
- Pays per result
- €60 per patent search delivered
- Live in
- 14 days
About €450–€1,500 a month of staff time at €35/hr
Quiet month: €45 minimum. Busy month: never more than €350. No monthly plan to sign. Setup €300–500 once, credited back at month 3.
Built to order for your stack, then a week in draft
- Sorcha searching the registers for what already covers your idea
- A one-page answer with the documents it found, cited and linked
- A plain verdict: room, no room, or too close to call without a solicitor
- The specific claims that would block you, quoted rather than summarised
- A named next step, including when that step is to stop
Sorcha at work
What it does
- 01
Searches the patent registers for what already covers your idea
- 02
Says plainly whether there is room, in one page, with the citations
- 03
Tells you when the honest answer is a solicitor, and finds you one
Plugs into
- Gmail
- Outlook
- Google Drive
- Notion
On something older or in-house? It reads a shared sheet instead — how it plugs in.
Questions people ask
Is this legal advice?
No, and it says so every time. It is the search a solicitor does first, done faster and cheaper, so the expensive hour is spent on judgement instead of reading. Anything that turns on interpretation goes to a qualified attorney by name.
What does a patent search cost?
€60 per search delivered, with a €45 quiet-month minimum and a €350 ceiling. A professional prior-art search typically runs several hundred to a few thousand, so this is the step before that one, not a replacement for it.
What if my idea turns out to be taken?
Then you learned it for €60 instead of after a filing fee, and the report shows exactly which claims block you — which is often enough to design around rather than abandon.
Hired most by startups.