There are several reasons to do a patent search early in the process of developing a new product:

1. A patent search will help you to determine if your product has already been patented and is therefore not patentable. Although it is sometimes beneficial to proceed with the development of a product that has been previously patented, the knowledge that your product is unpatentable may also save you thousands of dollars in wasted patent and product development expenses.
2. A patent search will provide information about the design of similar products. This information will help you to evaluate your product idea and may lead to improvements.
3. A patent search will lead you to the inventors of similar products, who can provide a wealth of information about the product you are working on.
4. A patent search can reveal patents on which your product may infringe.

If you search the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent database and do not find a patent that convinces you that your idea is unpatentable, you should still conduct a professional international patent search for the following reasons:

1. If a patent describing your idea has been issued in any country, then it is unlikely that you will be able to obtain United States patent protection for the idea.
2. A patent search conducted by a professional patent searcher will often locate patents which are missed by less experienced patent searchers. This is especially true when conducting an international patent search.
3. An international patent search conducted by a professional patent searcher and accompanied by a positive written patentability opinion from a patent attorney demonstrates to manufacturers considering licensing your product rights that a patent is likely to issue for your product. In contrast, if you conduct your own patent search, potential licensees are likely to dismiss the results as biased or inaccurate.

T2 Design & Prototyping can conduct a professional United States or international patent search for your product and provide a written opinion regarding patentability from a patent attorney who will review the results of the patent search. The “state of the art” patent search system used by T2 Design allows us to provide “integrity checked”, custom designed patent searches. Our searches combine the advantages of BOTH manual and computer searching since we search by class/subclass (as in a manual search), thus allowing us to review every patent in each selected subclass, and also by keywords (as in a computer search), which allows us to find both cross-classified and misclassified patents. This substantially reduces the risk of failing to find patents which may not be available in the manually searchable files at the United States Patent Office. According to Thronson et al., 1999, up to 35% of patents may be missing from the manually searchable files of the patent office’s public search room.

T2 Design is a product development company located in Santa Monica, California that has developed new consumer products since 1984. In addition to patent searching, T2 Design provides product evaluation and research, product styling, conceptual design, engineering of mechanisms and electronics, construction of product prototypes, and manufacturing liaison. T2 Design has been recognized as “One of the better regarded of the younger design groups in the country” by the Great American Idea Book, and developed the first roll-top cat litter box for Booda Products, Inc. which was awarded “Best New Cat Product of 1995” by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.

• The Fast Track Tie Rack- An electric tie rack for the closet
• The Perfect Order Drawer Organizer- Compartmentalizes your socks
• The Swiss Cooking Tool- A multi purpose cooking tool
• The Moon Mug- A drinking mug that keeps drinks cold for hours
• Skids- A front brake for in-line skates
• The Stove Top Grill- Converts a stove top into a grill