Seeking Prior Art Before Filing Patent?

An anonymous reader asks: "I had a sort of out-there idea for computer hardware, and wanted to investigate design and manufacture. I figure the first step would be to patent the idea so that I am protected from it being stolen, while I confer with contractors about fabrication and circuit design. Does anyone know of ways to check for prior art, other than hitting up Google for something similar? I believe this idea is unique, but you never know what could have been out there, and I didn't know if there were any good resources on the web. Since the readership seems to be an inventive bunch, I think discussion on this topic may help more people than myself."

Comments

Attorney

[GigsVT]

You can search a list of all registered patent attorneys in the US here.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/ros ter/

This is pretty much the only valid answer to this question, so we might as well shut the story down now.

Want the patent to be worth anythng? Hire a lawyer

[JoeShmoe]

Patents are something that you would be an idiot to cheap out on. Patent searches are important not just to find out if what you are trying to patent has already been patented because 99% of the time, no kidding, it has. You can't find anyone who makes the damn thing, or anyone who's ever written about it, but if it's technology-related, then you're going to find that five years ago someone with deep pockets fired the patent shotgun at everything related to your idea. The real important to patent searches is that they can help you find specific claims that can coexist with all of the other patents out there. By avoiding the landmines you find in other patents, you can figure out something that is a real "gotcha" moment that qualifies as novel and non-obvious to the patent office.

Each patent is really a bunch of little patents called claims. Patenting something like one-click shopping may have dozens of claims related to the interface, the backend processing, the operation, etc. The more claims you have, the more likely that you patent will infringe and the claims will be reject. The fewer claims you make, the more worthless your patent as someone can easily engineer around it. Given the cost of a patent from a reputable source ($8000-$15000 as high as $50000 depending on number of claims) why bother if you only want to patent something trivial?

If you are cheap, but want some level of protection, get a patent pending. You typically draw up some diagrams and descriptions, then pay between $500-$1500 to have a patent mill or patent lawyer file a provisional patent. This gives you the ability to boldly put "Patent Pending" on your documentation and it gives you a reservation in the patent line. Then you go out, market your idea and hope that a) anyone who thinks of stealing will be discouraged by the risk that your patent is granted and you come back and screw them or b) the money you make marketting your idea can pay for the costs to get the real patent filed.

If you are willing to invest the money, then spend a good amount to get a thorough patent search by someone who's actually there at the USPTO and can go through everything they have, not just what as been digitized. With some legal analysis and comparision of the existing claims to your idea, you can figure out what is missing and concentrate your patent on that.

-JoeShmoe
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You can do some google searches, or pay one of those patent mills $99 to run basically the same type of keyword search but that's really not going to give you much of a guide. The patent doesn't generally matter, it's the claims. If you are trying to get a utility patent on a widget, it's worth thinking...how can someone