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A patent is basically only a right to sue.
Ask yourself first if it a small novelty thing with limited sales, or something that could revolutionize society.
A). If it is the former, you can do a preliminary search(this takes much time) through USPTOdotgov. Then file a provisional as a small entity, which will give you 1 year of limited protection to find a buyer and/or begin manufacturing it yourself.
If you want more expensive protection for a longer period of time, you can hire the patent office itself to do the search and file a non-provisional which lasts 30 years as long as the paperwork is correct and the incremental fees are paid.
B). If the idea is very signifigant, then you'll want to have it profesionally written and filed using the second method. Expect $5-50K in attorney costs, and hope it is a slam-dunk for sales to the general public.
Let's make this very clear: Most are not! Especially in a down economy.
Then you'll probably want to market it to existing companies with a legal team, because that's who is going to pay the $1-50M to defend it against other big companies with legal teams...unless you personally are a better designer AND patent attorney than all of their combined experience.
When filing an idea, the more artwork and variations, the better. Even if it is initially regected(which most are), you'll have an idea of what is unique and obvious and what is not.
If "X" is known and "Y" is known but "X"+"Y" is your idea, you better be prepared to be able to claim every conceivable variation of "X"+"Y" through different medium including prototypes.
You can choose to have it published in public articals by the USPTO, which hopefully someone with industry or venture capital may pick up. Or, you can choose to have it non-published, and have your attorney write "cease and desist" then file infrigment lawsuits as some squatters do.
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