Short Answer: It can help.
Long Answer: Having a patent search conducted by a registered patent attorney can save you a lot of time and perhaps financial resources. There are over 8,000,000 patents within the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) records and there is a slight chance that there may be some variation (or the exact) of your invention within those patents and published patent applications. If you don’t see your invention on the shelves, on Google, or Amazon.com, it does not mean that none else could have filed a patent for it. Yes, thousands of filed or issued patents are never commercialized or have made it to market. Therefore, a proper and complete patent search by a patent lawyer will give you a good idea and broad prospective of “what’s out there”. In addition, it can help you modify your invention and it’s various embodiments to perhaps overcome prior art patents, and consequently speed up your patent examination at the USPTO. As a former USPTO patent examiner and patent searcher, I’ve conducted over 3,500 patent searches and have written rejections on over 3,000 filed patent applications by inventors like you. In addition, in my private practice, my patent searches have helped my clients to get an idea for the current state of their invention and a much stronger and enforceable issued patent. I offer a flat-fee patent search and if your invention appears to have good merit for patent protection, then we apply credit for your patent search fees towards your new patent application. Contact us today for a free consultation.