Q: Want file for patent but not sure if my invention can be patented, what do I do? Can someone check my invention detail?

A: It is hard to answer the question of whether something can be patented until you see all the details and make some searches of the prior art to see what aspects of the new design could be argued to be a non-obvious step over any reasonable combination of things that previously existed. This recombination would be done by a hypothetical person of ordinary skill in the art of designing items like you have created.

You will have a better understanding on whether to proceed to a more detailed check after doing some preliminary patent searching. My slide sets may help. http://bit.ly/Patent_Searching.

You will see whether devices of the type you have created are receiving patents and what the frontiers are for the types of new features that are receiving patents. You can commission a patentability search to get a deeper dive but doing some work on your own is a good start.

In the good news category, you can pick competent patent counsel from anywhere in the country as the USPTO Patent Registration for an attorney is a federal registration (license) and allows a person to support clients from anywhere.

I hope this helps

Kevin E Flynn

A: Those are very good, and very common questions. A couple of notes:

(1) Yes, a patent attorney can check if your invention is patentable. It is called a “patentability opinion.” Most patent attorneys do this all the time.

(2) A patentability opinion is done by doing a search of what already exists in your industry (called “a prior art search”), analyzing the results, and opining whether your invention is new over the prior art. A patentability opinion will cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars – it depends on how sure you want to be that your invention is patentable. The opinion can be oral (a discussion over the telephone) or it could be written.

(3) You may or may not need a patentability opinion. In order to write a patent, a patent attorney will need to understand the existing technology. The attorney will need to read up and study what already exists, discuss in the background section of the patent application the state of the art, and identify in the patent application what are the problems with the existing technology that your invention solves. If this sounds to you a like prior art search, you not wrong: much of the work needed for a patentability opinion the attorney will need to do anyway.

(4) If you have been in the compression garment product industry for many years and know the industry well (you’ve given presentations at the industry conferences, you’ve written articles in trade publications, people in other companies know of your work, you know about your competitor’s patents, etc.), and if you think that your invention is really new, something that is going to make you money because your competitors do not have your technology, then it is very likely that your invention will be patentable, and thus you likely don’t need a patentability opinion. Your knowledge of the industry does not substitute for a prior art search, but there will likely not be too many surprises in the first office action.

Good luck!