I am interested in researching and applying for some patents on both
products and ideas I have. My question is regarding the best procedure
and sites to use to both search for the prior existence of the
products/ideas and file for the patent itself. My experience with
searches I've done with US patent office sites in that they either
return volumes of unrelated info or even if I attempt to search for
products/ideas I know are already patented I get inconsistent results.
So the insrtuctions for doing a accurate and thorough search are very
important to me.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 14 Apr 2004 13:12 PDT

nealvid-ga,

This is a hard question to answer in the abstract.  A good patent
search depends an awful lot on what, particularly, you're looking for.

Have you tried searching at the Patent Office site on particular
fields (such as the patent title or abstract) rather than on the
entire text?  This can be a good way of focusing your results.

If no one answers your question after a day or so have passed, you may
want to consider posting a new question asking a researcher to conduct
a specific search for you, and explaining how they conducted their
search.

In the long run, this might be a more beneficial approach.

---

Clarification of Question by nealvid-ga on 14 Apr 2004 15:02 PDT

Without revealing the idea to the world let me explain what I am
attempting to do in a broad sense. The idea involves the retrieval of
email using a non PC based device, an example of an exisitng non
traditional method would be using your phone and having the email
audibly presented or even the retrival of email with a cell phone.
These are existing methods of retrieval that do not use the
traditional PC retrieval method. Lets say I was searching to see if
any prior work had been done with the retrieval of email everytime you
opened your refrigerator door. My question is "how would it be best
structure the search to identify if there was prior work that
described the process of integrating email technology with
refrigerators." That's where my patent search skills fall apart and I
doubt their accuracy. From my inexperienced search perspective I would
search for all references to email combined with refrigerators. I
would suspect that I would be returned something related to smart
house technology where you are emailed if your refrigerator is broken.
But how do you best describe the search paramenters to insure accuracy
; email can be described several ways - email, e-mail, electronic mail
and refrigerators can be described as - refrigerators or food storage
and chilling devices. So the real question involves structureing the
search in a way that so I can belive I am doing an accurate enough
search to warrant investing further in the idea. So far I am not
comfortable with the thoroughness of my results.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 14 Apr 2004 18:04 PDT

OK...so I went to the Patent Office site, searched on [ email
refrigerator ] and got a list of 47 patents:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=email&FIELD1=&co1=AND&TERM2=refrigerator&FIELD2=&d=ptxt

From a quick glance, most of these seem to be on-target, and 47 is a
pretty workable number to sort through.

So...I'm still not totally clear what the issue is....?  Sorry to seem
obtuse, but I don't want to offer an answer that simply wouldn't meet
your needs.

Is there anything else you can tell us in the way of clarifying what you need?

---

Clarification of Question by nealvid-ga on 14 Apr 2004 20:04 PDT

To respond to pafalafa-ga's clarification request:

  Your results for the refrigerator AND email query are demonstrative
of my dilemma - you say most seem to be on target but I take exception
with that. I see 47 mostly irrelevant patents to my original "email
delivered by refrigerator" premise....which leads me to believe that:

 1) Refrigerator AND email are not the right terms to search or
 2) There are no patents for the delivery of emails via the refrigerator
 3) I am getting garbage back from the search engine

The dilemma again is how am I to know which is the most likely correct
of the three? I suspect that 2 is most likely, but how am I to be
sure? When I search using the terms for my actual concept combined
with email I get a big zero and I am actually flabbergasted that email
AND refrigerator return 47 when my search premise seems much more
logical and returns none.

I guess with the info I have now and assuming I do my educated due
diligence on my idea myself and want to take it to the next level, let
me add this clarification to the original question -

Assuming that I am satisfied that there is a reasonable chance that my
idea is original, what are the next business steps in commissioning an
accurate search, and proceeding to protect the idea. And what can I
expect to invest for each step in the process.

And thanks in advance for the already great information!

---

Clarification of Question by nealvid-ga on 23 Apr 2004 11:50 PDT

In response to Chris's comment:

First - thank you very much for the free advice! This is helping me
very much. But am I to believe that all good ideas are already "prior
art" somewhere. And if so, lets say the idea is patented in some lose
form - do I then go to the holder of the "process patent" (since I can
find no evidence of this idea in practice after exhaustive searching)
and negotiate a license fee for the practical implementation.

There are really only two ways to search.  Have someone search for you
or search yourself.  I work for a research company here in Crystal
City.  We provide searches for people such as you.  In lieu of hiring
us, you might wish to find a public depository of US Patents.  A
directory can be found at the USPTO web site http://www.uspto.gov. 
Once there you can search by class and subclass.  By doing so you
avoid using key words.  Key words are mostly evil in as much as Patent
Attorneys and the like tend to hide what they are patenting by using
alternate words.  In your case, they might not use the word(s)
"e-mail".  They might call it "direct electronic interconnected
addressed communication means".  While you are searching "e-mail", you
missed that patent.  No, the best way is to search the way the
examiners do.  Class and subclass how it works, not what it is called.
 Now, you can do this at the USPTO web site.  It is a little pokey,
but it does work.

Now as for the second part of that question.  Filing a patent
yourself.  No, don't do it.  You will screw it all up and you will
lose any chance of getting a useful patent.  No, you really should use
a patent agent or attorney.  I am not one so I could not help you, but
you can look-up (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/roster/index.html#attorney_agent_search)
 a patent agent in your area that might be able to assist you.  Go and
talk to them for free.  Tell them your idea.  If you want them to sign
a non-disclosure agreement, knock yourself out.  They're all use to
it.  They can not steel your idea or they will get disbarred.  It
would be "bad" for them.  If you like talking to them, chances are you
will enjoy working with them and will be able to get your patent
application moving.

Now, moving on to your idea.  E-mail related...try a goggle search
first to see if anyone else is doing.  I hate to tell you, but, I bet
you will find it.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

Chris

nealvid-ga:

You're in great hands with pafalafa-ga's involvement, he is quite
adept at finding the needles in the haystacks of data maintained by
the various patent offices globally.

One comment that you may wish to consider, is the old adage "garbage
in, garbage out". I'm referring to the patent documents themselves,
not anyone's search capabilities. :)

Patent authors walk a very fine line between the obtuse and the inane;
they are trying to capture the full essence of the invention that they
are patenting in a precise enough manner such that the protected
concept is beyond question, yet at the same time they are trying to be
broad enough to block any attempt at copying the majority of the
functional solution by simply changing one simple aspect of the
invention. Patent examiners are human, and sometimes let things slip
through that are not necessarily valid. This means that the language
used in patent applications sometimes has nothing to do with the
commonly-used language that describes what the invention actually
does.

In the case of an e-mail retrieving refrigerator, it may well be
possible to describe it without ever using the words "e-mail" and
"refrigerator". Therefore, the experienced searcher will simply start
with an advanced search on, for example, 'e-mail AND refrigerator', to
get a feel for the various categories and classifications that such an
invention would fall into. Then, the searcher would target those
categories and classifications with multiple searches based on other
terms that are similar to "e-mail" and "refrigerator", such as
"electronic message" and "chiller", to see what else comes up. After
compiling a list of likely prior art patents, the searcher would then
look at the prior art listed in these patents, to see if there are
other categories that need to be examined in the same way.

This method is not infallible; even the patent office will admit that
their patent examiners, who are some of the best patent searchers out
there, will and do make mistakes. There is so much dependence on the
applicant having done their homework in identifying prior art, that
the examiners can sometimes miss something because they simply weren't
expecting there to be a problem.

I realize the difficult situation you are in; you have a potentially
lucrative idea, but need to ensure that it is patentable before you
invest the sizeable amounts of money needed to put together and file a
patent application. Unfortunately, short of engaging the services of a
patent lawyer to help with your searching, you will just need to
invest time and more time repeating the cycle of identifying keywords,
searching on those keywords, tracing the categories and prior art
listings of the relevant results, then repeating.


Good luck,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Start with USP class 700/213 and class 700/231.  Then try 455/556.1

See the problem is you and others think you can do a "key word" search
and find the patent you are looking for.  Doesn't work that way.  Oh
sure, you may stumble across your idea by accident, but the USPTO
Classification system is set-up to display patents by how the work,
not by what they are called.

This is FREE advice. Search the Class/Subclass listings I just
provided.  You can link to the USPTO search engine at:

http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/search-bool.html

If all else fails, stop beating around the bush and hire a reputable
search firm in the DC area to perform your search.  You will most
likely be charged around $300 to $900.  You will get back a listing of
7-20 patents that are either exactly like your idea or real similar. 
DO NOT USE INVENTION SUBMISSION COMPANIES.  They are for the most part
thieves.

You are looking for $20.00 worth of advice.  I just gave you hundreds
of dollars worth.

Best regards,

Chris

I guess the short answer is yes.  

Before plunking down any money to the inventor, you should have a
validity search performed on the invention.  This will run you around
$1000.00 to $3000.00 or more.  Why so much and what is it?  The idea
is to see if the idea you are buying is worth the money.  If the
fellow (inventor) was clever enough to get an invention on a self
enclosed metal heating device (let's say) used for sterilizing small
strips of metal.  You might think that was an interesting invention
and falls within the scope of your needs.  The validity search
uncovers the Edison light bulb.  How foolish you would feel finding
out that you just purchased a useless (invalid) patent.  They pulled
one over on the patent examiners, but those of us well versed in the
fields will identify it for what it really is...a useless patent. 
They cost a lot more because when we do the search, we try to "kill"
that patent.  That is what searchers in our field live for.

Now you spent the 1-3 grand...the patent looks solid (assuming we
didn't find anything).  Now what?  Now you need to get yourself an
attorney who deals with selling intellectual property.  Just like
selling or buying a house.  A patent is a piece of property that needs
to be checked out very carefully.  You might find that the inventor no
longer owns the patent.  You just gave him "X" number of dollars for a
patent he sold YEARS ago.  Or maybe he let the maintenance fees
expire.  You just bought a "dead" patent.  You don't want that!  You
need to hire an attorney who is looking out for your interests.  Cost?
 You will need to hammer that out with an attorney you like.  Go down
and "chit chat" with them.  Most offer free consolations.

I think that answers your follow-up statement about an existing
similar patent...yes?

If not, let me know.

Chris

I have used the process at:

How to Conduct a Patent Search
http://www.virtualpet.com/industry/howto/psearch.htm

dozens of times and it works great for me. Yes, it takes time and
work, but if you stick with it, you will find what you are looking
for.

Digger