These words are easy to say, but not always so easy to do. Nowhere is this truer than in your fight to invent something new or grow a prevailing business. As you strive to bring your vision to life, you will face countless obstacles and barriers to success. These obstacles can take on many different shapes and forms. Whether it is someone stealing your ideas, business partners flaking out, or even loved ones leaving you behind, the life of a creator is an ongoing test of wills. Can you learn to see the beauty in struggle and persist toward the life you desire?

The world of literature offers an inspiring example of what this attitude means in practice. In the groundbreaking novel “The Fountainhead”, readers meet an architect named Howard Roark. A few years into his career, Roark is alone, struggling financially, and consigned to working in an obscure rock quarry while his corrupt colleague basks in fame and prestigious assignments. While these circumstances are enough to reduce anyone to hopelessness and despair, Roark heroically refuses to give up. His reason?

“Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps down new roads, armed with nothing with their own vision. The great creators – the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors, stood alone against the main of their time. Every new thought was opposed, every new invention was denounced. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered, and they paid – but they won.”

By staying true to his vision, Roark persisted through his temporary hardships and ultimately triumphed in his chosen field. If you want to keep going, you need to become a man of unborrowed vision yourself.  But how can you do what Roark did? It’s one thing for a fictional character to inspire us to great things. It is another for a real flesh-and-blood person to actually do so. Fortunately, history is filled with strong-willed men and women who have done just that. Their larger-than-life stories offer us both wisdom and encouragement to keep going when we know that we should.

One of the most inspiring stories of all belongs to Steve Jobs. Most of us know Jobs as the high-flying founder of Apple, the man who brought us the iPod, iMac, and every movie to come out of Pixar’s studios. But in 1986, Jobs was anything but. Exiled from the company he started, Jobs found himself alone and for the first time in his life, without a purpose. Jobs offers a rare personal glimpse into this dark period of his life in a commencement speech he gave at Stanford University in 2005.

“I was lucky; I found what I wanted to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had gone from just the two of us in a garage, into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.”

If we stop the story there, many of us would envy Jobs. How many people can say that they found the work they love and achieved that type of success at such a young age? However, the story does not end there. Jobs continues:

“And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me. And for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually, we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him. And so at 30 I was out – and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I didn’t really know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with the board and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the valley.”

Here, we see Jobs at rock-bottom. The fruit of a life’s labor gone in the blink of an eye. A gaping void where a beaming pride and sense of direction once was. Against such crushing odds, a lesser person might have simply given up and resigned to failure. Not Jobs.

“But something slowly began to dawn on me: I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I’d been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next 5 years I started a company named NeXt, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXt, and I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXt is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laureen and I have a wonderful family together.

Sometime’s life’s gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

SRC: http://youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

Like Roark, Jobs was a man of unborrowed vision. Cast off from all of his material success and legacy, he retained what no outside force could take away: his intransigent love of what he did. There is a lesson here that every person should learn. It is not your social status, possessions, or professional ability that makes you who you are. They are important, but they are only effects, not causes. They are the just rewards of an attitude, of the refusal to let any hardship tame the fire of your passion and hold you down.

So, if you find yourself staring down impossible odds, keep going. Don’t give up.

  Eric Corl is the Founder and CEO of IdeaBuyer.com, the online marketplace for intellectual property that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

Read about any successful inventor or businessman and you will inevitably notice something: a habit of decisiveness in all that they do. What is decisiveness, exactly? It is a word we often hear, but rarely define.  In simplest terms, decisiveness is accepting the fact that you are in control of your own life. It is the methodical, systematic effort to determine the best course of action and then carry it out. Put negatively: it is the refusal to let the random gyrations of society, chance, and whim set your course. Psychologist Michael J. Hurd sums up decisiveness as “trusting and acting on the conclusions of one’s mind.”

Obviously, decisiveness is a quality inventors stand to benefit from enormously. So how can you develop this habit in your own life? Hurd offers some practical tips on being decisive in his article, “What Should I Do?”

When stuck with the question, “What should I do?” don’t stay stuck. Don’t fall prey to the temptation to blindly asking someone else what you should do. Instead, ask yourself – and answer – the following questions:

What are my options in this situation? (If there is only one option, your question is already answered. If there are two or more options, then proceed to the next question).

What are the likely immediate and longer-term consequences of each option? (Make a list of each set of consequences and confine the lists to one page).

Which options are the most desirable and the least desirable, and why?

What is my final choice? (If you cannot answer this yet, then first develop the top 2 or 3 finalists. Then go to a final judgment).

Questions like these will become invaluable guides to action, as inventors face decisions all the time. Which supplier should I use? Do I believe this cost is legitimate? Is this deadline realistic? Do I have too much on my plate? Questions like this crop up all the time, and successful inventors are the ones who are comfortable answering them.

Of course, it will be far easier to ask yourself those questions if you accept that you are the author of your own destiny. As appealing as this sounds, few of us ever fully accept what it means in practice. Hurd elaborates more on this helpful point, which is essential to creating a lifelong habit of decisiveness:

“This exercise is an example of using your own rational judgment instead of letting others tell you what to do. It’s the alternative to both do-as-I-say dogmatism and do-as-I-feel subjectivism. It’s called being objective. Some don’t like the idea of objectivity because it seems too cold or harsh; others feel it’s too hard, or too much work. What’s the alternative? Self-defeating impulsivity? Doing what a dictator tells you to do? Praying to the skies and hoping for an answer in code? Get real!”

If you work at it, you can stop yourself as you are about to fall into these traps. Do you find yourself thinking “Ahh, I can’t be bothered with this now; I’ll cross the bridge when I get to it.” Or how about, “I know this is important, but it’s just such a big decision that little old me can’t possibly decide it.” If you think these thoughts, drop what you are doing and change them. Successful inventors cross bridges miles ahead of them in their own minds and are better off for doing so. They do this by asking themselves, “If I don’t decide, who will?”

So, instead of succumbing to those passive thoughts and letting them move you, take a different approach. Will yourself to sit down and consciously decide the pressing questions before you. If you need to write a business plan, don’t think “oh my God, this is such an important task that the slightest little error will screw it up. I might as well not even try.” Instead, put on a pot of coffee, sit back, and do some research. Read a few sample business plans. Get some expert advice. And then, sit down and write one. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time, and you can certainly go back and edit. The important point is that by doing this, you have made the decision to move forward. You have gone from thinking to doing.

This same thinking applies to any decision you face. Instead of getting stuck in analysis-paralysis, calmly think about what this decision requires of you. One way of staying calm is to remind yourself that no matter what you are doing, someone, somewhere, has done it before. It may be challenging, but it is doable. You can also save yourself a lot of mental anxiety by asking, “Where do I start?” Once you figure this out, the rest tends to unfold naturally.

Above all, keep your cool and always remember that you are in charge. If you resolve to make this a part of your outlook, it is almost impossible to fail.

 Eric Corl is the Founder and CEO of IdeaBuyer.com, the online marketplace for intellectual property that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

Most inventors are tough-minded people who thrive on ingenuity and a willingness to experiment. However, inventors need to be on the lookout for an insidious beast, an attitude hell-bent on robbing you of your fire and ambition: Inventor Baby Syndrome. If you permit yourself to succumb to its progress-sucking powers, you will experience roadblocks in your quest to bring an invention to market. So what is Inventor Baby Syndrome? Before attempting a full diagnosis, here are some symptoms:

1)      Refusal to adjust your original idea in any way, shape, or form.

One thing that victims of Inventor Baby Syndrome have trouble grasping is that the idea is less important than execution; ie, less important than the problem you are trying to solve. Venture capitalist Paul Graham discusses this in an article relating to startups:

“In some fields the way to succeed is to have a vision of what you want to achieve, and to hold true to it no matter what setbacks you encounter. Starting startups is not one of them. The stick-to-your-vision approach works for something like winning an Olympic gold medal, where the problem is well-defined. Startups are more like science, where you need to follow the trail wherever it leads.”

Replace the word “startups” with “inventions”, and you will understand the point being made. Clinging to your original conceptions in the face of rational evidence that you should make changes is a disastrous policy. Be careful though! Rushing to start over all the time is another symptom of Inventor Baby Syndrome.

SRC: http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

2)      Constantly scrapping your progress and starting over.

In the same article, Graham cautions against the opposite problem: starting over too frequently!

You have to be prepared to see the better idea when it arrives. And the hardest part of that is often discarding your old idea.

“But openness to new ideas has to be tuned just right. Switching to a new idea every week will be equally fatal. Is there some kind of external test you can use? One is to ask whether the ideas represent some kind of progression. If in each new idea you’re able to re-use most of what you built for the previous ones, then you’re probably in a process that converges. Whereas if you keep restarting from scratch, that’s a bad sign.”

This is an Inventor Baby Syndrome symptom because it’s just a way for you to put off that fateful day when the market decides if your invention will fly. By endlessly starting over, you never finish. It seems obvious enough, but this is a surprisingly common problem.

3)      Refusing to partner with anyone or disclose anything

Perhaps the most common symptom of Inventor Baby Syndrome is guarding your idea with such jealous hostility that you turn away perfectly harmless people who just want to help. The obvious downfall of this is that depriving yourself of partnerships and assistance makes the road to selling your product much more challenging. If you need a database programmer, you should hire one. Make him sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and swear him to secrecy, but hire one! This is often the only way to get your invention to market. Trying to carry the whole operation on your shoulders will only lead to an overstressed life, not runaway success.

If you do any of these things, you are afflicted with Inventor Baby Syndrome. It is a harsh name, but an accurate description. Inventing something and convincing people to buy it is hard work, and anyone who tells you differently is lying, naïve, or both.

If you want to throw this success-stealing monkey off your back and face the challenges ahead with open eyes, there is a cure: a rational, reality-based approach to inventing. To achieve it, you need to confront and fully accept some basic facts about what you are doing.

The first fact is that people don’t buy inventions because they’re really cool ideas. They don’t walk into Wal-Mart or Home Depot, pause, imagine all the painstaking work that went into making the product or how unprecedented it is and then, in a rush of inspiration, decide to buy it. Rather, they buy things that they believe will solve some pressing need that they have. That is why you should not cling to your original idea at all costs. Instead, hold true to your vision, but make changes if reason and logic tell you that you should.

The second fact is that constantly starting over is just a defense mechanism to shield you from the pain of possible failure. “What if no one buys the product?” you might subconsciously wonder. Well, that is eminently possible. But what is the alternative? Giving up and living the 9-5 grind that helped drive you to invent something in the first place? Instead, adopt a mindset of optimistic realism. “Yes, failure is possible, but I am confident in my ability and the value of my invention. I am going to persist as though I will succeed until actual evidence makes me think I wont.”

The third fact is that, to be totally honest, most people do not care about your idea. Yes, you should take reasonable precautions like NDAs. But in all actuality, there are not swarms of people just dying to steal your idea. Most people will not drop everything they are doing to pursue an idea they just heard of. For the most part, this will not happen and you should not let it dominate your thoughts.

Above all, keep the end in mind: getting that product to market. If what you are doing is inhibiting the process then stop doing it and start making new decisions. You have to have sensory accuity and figure out what is working and what is not. Don’t expect the market to suddenly change it’s response to your product. You must grow and adapt to meet the markets demands.

The world of business and inventing is cutthroat to say the least. When it comes to creating new products, everyone with a serious stake in the process knows that time is of the essence. The reason for the frantic pace lies in something called the first-mover advantage. According to Wikipedia:

First-mover advantage is the advantage gained by the initial occupant of a market segment. This advantage may stem from the fact that the first entrant can gain control of resources that followers may not be able to match.

There are several advantages that can be gained from entering first^:

• Scarce resources can be preempted, e.g. occupation of prime retail locations
• The ability to register patents and trademarks that will protect the first entrant from future competition.
• Changing the economics of the market in a way that second entrants will not have an economic justification to enter.
• Early profits can be re-invested in improving the resource base.
• Reputation will likely have the advantages that come from suppliers, distributors and customers who are familiar with and loyal to their products.

Those are some pretty hefty advantages for first-movers. With all of this being the case, is it any wonder that competition is so fierce? This is where the saying “your competition never sleeps” comes from. It is an immutable law of business has been operating and will operate so long as there is business to be conducted and profit to be made. So what should you do about it? The best defense is to protect your secrets, get to market as fast as you can and protect yourself once you arrive. Fortunately, there are some savvy, common sense steps you can take to achieve this.

1)      Secure intellectual property protection

One effective way of shielding yourself from fast-working competitors is to get a patent, trademark, or copyright for your invention. Most likely, a patent will be what you are going for. The chief benefit of having a patent is that it gives you the right to stop others from capitalizing on what you have the patent for. Therefore, if you have invented a new, lighter and more puncture-resistant bicycle tire that utilizes new rubber alloys and aerodynamic formulas, you can secure patent protection and, in effect, retain the sole rights to capitalize on those things. Clearly, this is one way to make competing with you a less attractive prospect for anyone who was planning on it. However, you probably will not succeed in getting a patent unless you..

2)      Create a prototype

The United States Patent and Trademark Office requires that you produce some actual, tangible embodiment of your idea before you can receive a patent for it. For this reason, it makes a lot of sense to create one. But the other important reason to create a prototype is that it gets you from dreaming to doing. Ask yourself this question, and be honest with yourself: if your competitor has a prototype already and you do not, which one of you is likely to reach the market first? All else equal, the answer is obvious. Once you reach the prototype stage, you are much closer to that glorious day when your creation reaches paying customers. And rest assured; your competitors know this and know it well. You would do well to make creating a prototype your number one priority in your day to day efforts.

3)      Negotiate exclusive agreements with vendors

Once you are ready to hit the market, see if you can get creative with your vendors. If you are selling via the web, for example, you may be recruiting affiliates to sell for you. Promise them an extra cut if they abstain from selling competing products alongside yours. If you are selling in stores, the same principle applies. Many vendors can be talked into an exclusive relationship with you if the price is right. This is one reason that Microsoft holds such a dominant position in the operating systems market, and you can benefit from a similar approach. If you can secure some type of exclusive agreement, you will make it that much harder for competitors to crowd in on your target market and take away your hard-fought sales!

4)      Get your partners to sign NDAs

If you have partners or employees, you should get them to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements whenever possible. Although they are not airtight, they legally compel those who sign them to keep your secrets under wraps from anyone that you do not explicitly authorize. If anything goes awry down the road, you will have the early workings of a case against them, perhaps even the ability to seek damages. In the best case scenario, the NDA will simply function as it was intended: to keep your private information under wraps.

Follow these simple tips and, you will be armed for the never-ending battle of speed, wits, and savvy with your competitors.

 Eric Corl is the Founder and CEO of IdeaBuyer.com, the online marketplace for intellectual property that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

America is often called the land of opportunity. Work hard and play by the rules, we hear, and you can lay claim to all that you have produced. It is the reason people risk death and imprisonment to set foot on American soil year after year. However, this magnificent legacy of freedom, justice, and achievement is under attack by Republican senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. At the behest of a powerful lobbying group called the Financial Services Roundtable, Sessions is pushing an amendment through the Senate that would set a terrifying precedent for the protection of intellectual property rights.

The amendment centers around a company called DataTreasury, the creators of a patented system of digitally scanning, sending, and archiving checks. DataTreasury’s technology is used by most of the major financial institutions in the United States. However, many of those banks are infringing on DataTreasury’s patent by using their technology without paying royalties to do so. And although the United States Patent and Trademark Office upheld the patent when it was challenged last summer, Sessions’ amendment would prevent DataTreasury from collecting the royalties it is owed. According to the Washington Post:

“The provision, passed without dissent by the Senate Judiciary Committee in July and inserted into legislation scheduled for a vote by the full Senate this month, is a rare attempt by Congress to intervene in ongoing litigation, congressional experts say.

Although the amendment would not invalidate DataTreasury’s patents, it would spare the banks from paying for infringing them should courts decide that’s warranted. If DataTreasury collected a royalty of just a couple pennies per check, the cost would run into billions of dollars.”

SRC: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021303731_pf.html

Such an amendment would relegate DataTreasury’s patents to figureheads, stripping them of the rights our courts are sworn to protect. It all started when the Financial Services Roundtable mobilized their lobbying efforts, agitating for patent reform that would spare them from having to pay the royalties they owe. Of course, the lobbyists did not explicitly name this as their purpose. Instead, they cloaked their support for patent reform in the guise of “protecting banking institutions complying with post-9/11 security requirements from the abusive practices of patent trolling trial lawyers seeking personal enrichment, which ultimately will be paid for by checking account customers across America.” The amendment was approved by the committee within minutes and was given next to no attention by major media outlets.

The unvarnished truth, however, is that the financial industry is using its immense lobbying muscle and the entrenched culture of political corruption to avoid paying what it owes. Their concern is not bank customers, but the hit their own wallets would take. Tragically, it looks as though this amendment will pass and this horrifying degradation of property rights will become law. But how is this possible? How could such a travesty of justice take place in a nation founded on the rights to life, liberty, and property? The answer lies in the world of literature, in a work that has inspired millions of businessmen since its release.

In the watershed novel Atlas Shrugged, readers were introduced to Hank Rearden. A hardworking, self-made steel magnate who fought intransigently against tyrannical government invention in his affairs, Rearden symbolized a productive genius being exploited by lesser minds. Readers also meet Jim Taggart, the inept and corrupt railroad executive who operates by means of pull and government favors. At the behest of Taggart and his cronies, Rearden is brought to trial by the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. His crime: selling his own product without government permission. The events leading up to Rearden’s trial are frighteningly parallel to DataTreasury’s predicament.

In bringing Rearden to trial, Taggart and his hoodlums appeal to “the public good” and “the national welfare” as reasons to limit Rearden’s profits. The justifications given for the limiting of DataTreasury’s patent royalties are similar. “This is a glaring example of the abuse of the system,” said former congressman Steve Bartlett (R-Tex.), president of the Financial Services Roundtable. But the goal of Sessions and Bartlett (the “Jim Taggarts” of this case) is not the sanctity of patent law – it is the attempt to subvert justice by means of intellectual dishonesty and political favoritism.

The Financial Services Roundtable has accused DataTreasury of being a patent troll who bought up patents with the intent to shakedown the financial industry. But the truth is that DataTreasury is a real-life Hank Rearden. From the same article:

[DataTreasury founder] Ballard asserts that he developed the basic architecture for the system in the mid-1990s, and applied for patents in 1997 and ‘98. He said he realized at the time that paper would one day be obsolete for financial transactions but that paper and electronic images would have to coexist for a while. His system helped make that possible, he said.

Like Rearden, Ballard put his time and energy into the creation of a valuable product – and, like Rearden, a pack of corrupt competitors is conspiring to ensure that he never receives his just rewards.

Heroically, Rearden defeats his enemies. In a courtroom of his peers, he exposes the poverty of his attackers and their empty claim to be fighting for a noble purpose. Can DataTreasury do the same? Only time will tell, but its best hope for victory is to assert its rightful claims as Rearden did: openly, proudly, and without guilt. Nothing less will expose the moral bankruptcy of Sessions and these modern-day Jim Taggarts – and nothing less will secure the glorious tradition of property rights for future generations.

“I shall answer all the questions you are afraid to ask me openly. Do I wish to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I do not. Do I wish to sell it at a loss or give it away? I do not. If this is evil, do whatever you please about me, according to whatever standards you hold. These are mine. I am earning my own living, as every honest man must. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work in order to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it better than most people - the fact that my work is of greater value than the work of my neighbors and that more men are willing to pay me. I refuse to apologize for my ability - I refuse to apologize for my success - I refuse to apologize for my money. If this is evil, make the most of it. If this is what the public finds harmful to its interests, let the public destroy me. This is my code - and I will accept no other.”

Eric Corl is the Founder and CEO of IdeaBuyer.com, the new technology and product marketplace where intellectual property is bought and licensed. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

One of the most common obstacles facing the new inventor is running a patent search. There are many reasons why an inventor would want to do this. The most obvious reason is to justify spending a great deal of time and money on an invention by determining that no one else has patented it. You may even have a specific patent number that you want to investigate further for any similarities to your project. Whatever the reason may be, the ins and outs of conducting a patent search are not always obvious. In this guide, we will explain how to do so in easy to follow steps.

Step One: Narrow your search to a 5-15 very specific names.

This is a crucial yet oft-overlooked step in the patent search process. Before running any type of search, anywhere, you need to narrow your search to a handful of very specific names. This is because the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) demands specificity. The vaguer a patent is the more control the holder can exercise over the market. Therefore, there is an immense burden on patent applicants to be as narrow and specific about the nature of their patent as possible. You need to heed this fact when running a patent search. For example, if the patent you are looking for pertains to an online shopping database that ties a user’s shopping preferences to his shopping history, running a search for “online shopping database” is almost pointless in this context. It will return more results than you could possibly screen, and few if any will be relevant to what you are looking for.

Instead, a much better search would be something like “online shopping history based matching metrics.” The closer you can get to describing what the patent truly protects, the more helpful your search results will be. Simply think long and hard about what you are looking for and come up with 5-15 very specific potential names for it. These are the names you will use to conduct your search.

Step Two: Run the search via the USPTO’s official website.

It used to be that the only way to run a patent search was hiring a patent attorney. Prior to the advent of the Internet, these attorneys had a near exclusive monopoly on running searches and doing all manner of patent-related work. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Anyone who wants to run a patent search can visit the USPTO website and do so in a simple, self-service fashion.

SRC: http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

There are a couple of options at this page that you can use depending on your exact needs. If you just want to run a cursory search for the patent you have in mind, the Quick Search will work wonders. From here, you can type in two descriptive terms and specify the years between which you would like to search: either 1976 to the present or 1790 to the present. Now, common sense will go a long way towards making your life easier in this regard. If the patent you are searching for is in any way high-tech, you can filter out a lot of irrelevant results by choosing the “1976 to the present” option. However, if your invention is timeless or mechanical in nature, the full “1790 to the present” option is probably best.

You can also drill down into the patent database for the exact type of information you want. Clicking the “All Fields” drop-down menu turns up a cavalcade of search options. You can search for the abstract, the issue date, patent number, assignee name and city, and about a dozen other options.

SRC: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html

However, what if you already have a patent number and just want to see information about what it pertains to? This link takes you straight to a patent number search. Just key in the number and click “Search” to find the full text of the patent in question.

SRC: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm

Now, you may notice in using these pages that the USPTO’s website is not the most user-friendly resource out there. Luckily, there is an easier way: Google Patent Search. The reason we covered the USPTO’s site first (or at all) rather than Google is because this is the official first source of all patent-related data. While Google is by all counts reliable, you should use the USPTO’s site if there are any worries about gaps in the patent records you are seeking.

Step 3: Use Google Patent Search

Google Patent Search is a beta service that combines the easy searching of Google with the patent data from the USPTO. That is the true beauty of using Google instead of the USPTO: your search results and patent profiles are significantly cleaner, more readable and easier on the eyes.

SRC: http://www.google.com/patents

As a demonstration, we will run a search for the patent on the electrophotographic copier, or “copy machine.”

http://www.google.com/patents?id=Pp48AAAAEBAJ

As you can see, the page is very helpfully divided up into distinct sections, making it easy for you to find the information you are interested it. You can choose to download the whole patent, view it as an Adobe PDF document, or even click a direct link to the USPTO’s record. On this same page, you can also view the patent’s list of citations, the claims it makes, and the drawings the patent holder accompanied with his patent application. Again, while these things can be found at the USPTO site, those unfamiliar with patent records will waste hours looking for what Google organizes so readily.

There you have it: three simple steps to conducting a patent search. Above all, remember that the more specific your searches are, the more likely you are to find the patent you want – or – the more justification you will have to conclude that no one has your patent, if the search comes up empty. Good luck!

Eric Corl is the Founder and CEO of IdeaBuyer.com, a marketplace for new technology and products that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com. You can visit the site by clicking here > Patents for Sale.