The election of a good patent attorney is critical for your invention, your business plans, and your wallet.
First of all, some important knowledge:
Patent Attorneys are highly specialized business professionals. On top of a rigorous law degree, bar exam and the acceptance to the state bar association, patent lawyers have a background in science and/or engineering plus a patent bar certification.
That means years of education and knowledge on the STEM (Science Technology, Engineering, and Math) and law fields. As an educated consumer, you have the right to corroborate all these credentials so do not be afraid to ask for your attorney’s educational background to evaluate if she/he is qualified to tackle your legal matters.
Patent lawyers should be trustworthy and honest, above all.
Be wary of any attorney or even worse, an invention promotion firm, that sees your project and tells you right away that your invention is “masterful” and you are a “genius“. The evaluation of the filing of a patent is a more complicated than an exuberant outburst of enthusiasm. These extreme reactions are typical of patent promotion firms. The USPTO (United States Patent and Trade Office) advice inventors and creators to be careful with those firms which may be online legal mills.
If your patent attorney, assuming you hit the jackpot of actually finding the right professional, or patent/invention internet firm is over-enthusiastic on your invention, that means that he/she wants to sell you right away the patent filing and you may be putting at risk your investment.
Patent filings are not precisely cheap.
A good patent lawyer will be frank with you on the risks of filing the patent and have it rejected, the lengthy timeframe of patent filing, the complete picture on the costs associated with the whole process and possible alternatives.
Additionally, a good patent attorney will tell you of other patented ideas similar to your product based on a careful research and your rate of commercial success, in case you have the resources for production and distribution of a product based on your idea.
Click this link to read about the USPTO flyer on how to combat patent fraud.
Unfortunately, we find instances of patent promoters trying to take unsuspecting victims’ money often.
It would be wise to pay for a consultation looking for a rational, sober analysis and assessment, instead of investing a lot of money into the patent, just because the lawyer compared you with Apple’s Steve Jobs, who has been credited with 458 patented inventions and designs.