I had an epiphany the other day!

so now I'm wanting to do a preliminary patent search but not waste too much $. can anybody recommend a good *honest* attorney to have do a search for a simple consumer item? better yet, are there any patent attorneys on s2ki?

this is for a fairly simple, straight-forward electronic consumer item. not intellectual property, biotech or anything complicated like that. I'm not that bright.

I live in the SF Bay Area, so a local attorney would work best, but I don't have any problem faxing or mailing documents to an established law firm out of my area if it means I'll save a few hundred dollars in the end.

I'm aware that I can do searches at the USPTO.gov website, but either I'm terrible at selecting proper boolean search terms, or they make their search engine intentionally crappy to keep patent attorneys in business.

I had an attorney in SF once do a patent search for a very straight-forward item... and in no time flat the expenses were ballooning well beyond what his initial price estimate was-- even though the process was moving forward as normal, with no complications. I strongly contested, and he eventually stopped billing me. (if anybody wishes to know which asshole to avoid in SF, send me a PM. and no I'm not worried about soiling his reputation; it's only libel if it's not true. )

thanks in advance for all input.

 

I think it's not USPTO that makes the searches difficult on their website... (although maybe they should by some google solutions). Patent Lawyers do all the work to label the patents with totally whacked-out names: Spoon = Apparatus and Method for Enabling digestive process of multi-ambulatory creatures without getting said Appendages Soiled.

I don't really know any honest lawyers (at least none that have any time to take on new clientele), but I'd do a thorough google and dejanews search for your idea/parts of your idea to see if any hits come up. Dunno if you've already done that or not.

 

Snap your fingers, Turn on a light. That was my idea!

 

PM me with the details of your idea and I'll refer you to a good patent attorney.

 

Ive wondered the same type of thing. I have had a few idea that I was wondering would it would take to pursue.

 

that patent description for a spoon is pretty close to the truth. and yes, I've already done a google search n such, but thx for the reminder.