Where to Start Searching ?

[tedmosby]

When you want to apply a patent, you shoiuld avoid a reduplicate one, so you have to search all the patents. But with the amount of patent and non-patent information increasing every day, you may ask, "Where do I start searching!?"Do not worry, you could turn to Patent Searching Engine  for help, a engine will help you sift through mountains of data in search of a few priceless nuggets of information. While every patent search is a learning process, the engine will help get you get a head start in the right direction. Conveying patent information in a broader database beyond the patent search, some engine also details patent analysis.

In general, Patent Search Engine covers more advanced uses of patent searching. Have you ever used Patent Search Engine? If you do not have patent search engine experience, you can obtain background information by going online and using free patent search engines, such as www.patsnap.com or www.google.com/patents. Both of these free patent search engines have online instructions. You can do it. Hope these online tools could help you.
Source: http://patent-search-engine.blogspot.com/2010/10/where-to-start-searching.html

[dtpater]

Also consider Market Research and past products that did not have patents, the focus is very important here

Personally I assign Patent rights to Taiwan Manufactures, who have their own Patent attorneys doing the searching first, most Inventors have this industry backwards, you need the level of interest, that the manufacture will pay for tooling and patents.

The Traditional methods also works, but I avoid it (Personally), they both work and many other methods to take new products into the market place, just as every new invention is different so is the process for each one.

I kept this Invention a Trade secret (using NDA'S) for 12 years until I found the right manufacture, now the patent's have 19 years life
and the manufacture has patents applied in USA,Canada,Japan,Taiwan,China,Germany,Spain,France and U.K all assigned.

This new product is being launched into Europe early next year and 6 out of the 9 Patents are already approved

Still waiting on Canada,Spain and France I think?

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7739806.pdf

My focus is creating new Innovative Products, 6 in total and currently 4 of them all Patents and tooling Paid for by different Manufactures in Taiwan, also I meet many Inventors who become single due to the costs of Patents.

The value is in the Level of Interest (Manufactures, distributors, retail buyers) and not what the Inventor personaly see's, most of the time because only 2% of all patents make it into the market place!

Remember Patents cost big $$$, and if I had to pay for the 20 Patents for my first 4 new products that could be as high as $200,000-
before a return, its simple if your Invention is good enough this can be done!

Yes the manufacture owns the I.P, but I have the contract, and the I.P Grows in value once approved because before that its not always easy to get Licenses and distribution rights, because you are Licensing something that should get a Patent.

The same applies for assigned Patents, guess what you can get upfront payments and royalties before Patents applied or tooling is made but you need something brilliant.

Also Price point is critical to your new product, and brands are lazy now and want pricing FOB Taiwan or China

No point getting high royalties if your new product cannot break into the market due to the price point being also to high!

[dtpater]

I like those search engine's and I will put more below:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/
http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo_English/
http://www.patentlens.net/
http://ep.espacenet.com/
http://ip.com/

Also try a Google image search using key words and Patent Drawings, like below

http://www.google.com.au/images?hl=en&biw=1034&bih=661&q=tool%20patent%20drawings&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi

It is very random, but you can find interesting leads

Below is a very interesting subject on Patents I also found in the past, interested on feedback on this link below!

The Patent Blind Spot

http://www.edisonnation.com/forums/patents/topics/patent-blind-spot