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If the complexities of legalities seems simple, you may want to consider becoming a patent agent or patent attorney. If you are a do-it-yourselfer (DIY), you may want to get David Pressman's book "Patent it Yourself" or David Hitchcock's book "Patent Searching Made Easy". If you are like the rest of us, this process does not seem simple. Sure it may cost some money to engage someone to guide you through this process, so you need to carefully consider your innovation in context of (1) is it patentable? and (2) is it a viable business opportunity? It may, however, be in your best interest to learn as much as you can about the system and then hire a competent patent attorney to get the job done. Just think what it would cost to great idea, poorly patented, which may ultimately cost you "like a bigillion dollars in lost royalties or something like that."

A single patent may be worth a billion dollars, another may be completely worthless. How can you discern such differences? With millions of patent documents (both issued patents and applications), there is a lot of information, that if properly leveraged with the correct technologies, can actually help us discern effectively. Benefits of www.ipstreet.com include: (1) All U.S. patent documents from 1976—present (2) [Forthcoming: International patent documents] (3) Unified Search (Boolean Text Search) (4) Concept Search (using Latent Semantics) (5) Meaningful, graphical results (6) Web-based, no installation required (7) Secure transactions and (8) Immediate Access.

Conducting a thorough patent search is difficult, particularly for the novice. Patent searching is a learned skill. A novice in the United States could contact the nearest Patent and Trademark Depository Library (PTDL) and seek out search experts to help in setting up a search strategy.