Q: I would like to patent a product idea and need help moving forward with that. Is the product patentable etc.
Is the product patentable, how do I move forward if it is and what the cost is.
I have no problem paying a lawyer to do so if the product is patentable and
will pay a fee to know if it is patentable.
A:
It is near impossible to "know" that something is patentable as the world is a big place and any reasonable prior art search is not going to check every obscure article in every language. (Prior art includes anything written since the beginning of recorded history in all languages that addresses the particular problem that you solved).
That said, it is prudent to reduce the risk of filing a patent application that does not result in a patent by commissioning a prior art search. An attorney may do the search or in many instances will send the search out to a professional search company.
Even after doing searching, the attorney should warn you that this process is somewhat subjective as the examiner tries to imagine what a hypothetical person of ordinary skill in the art who develops such a device would be able to do if that person had access to the most relevant prior art. The question becomes whether combining pieces from several pieces of prior art would be "obvious" to that person.
Fights over what is obvious are often at the heart of a battle to get patent claims allowed.
I hope this helps.
Kevin E Flynn
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