Find out if your idea is patentable, before you spend thousands finding out the hard way.
For $199, a registered U.S. patent practice searches the patent literature the way examiners do and delivers a comprehensive written assessment, reviewed and approved by a registered patent practitioner with over 20 years in patent law, within one business day. That's less than most patent firms charge for the initial consultation alone.
PatentabilityCheck, a service of Underwood & Associates, LLC, a registered U.S. patent practice.
A law firm's search. A practitioner's signature.
PatentabilityCheck is not a lookup tool or a template report. It is a service of Underwood & Associates, LLC, a registered U.S. patent practice: the firm's own search methodology, built over two decades of professional prior art searching, applied to your invention.
Every report is personally reviewed and approved by the firm's registered patent practitioner before it is delivered, and every delivered report says so on its cover, over his name and USPTO registration number. No report leaves the firm unreviewed.
"I have an idea for an invention. Has it been done before?"
Every inventor faces the same first question: has someone already patented this? The answer is not on the shelf at the store and it is not on the first page of a web search. It lives in the patent literature: tens of millions of granted patents and published applications, in the exact technical language examiners use. That is where a patent examiner will look when your application lands on their desk, so it is where you should look before you spend thousands of dollars filing.
A real patentability search is not typing your product name into a search box. Professional searchers read the disclosure, break the invention into its inventive concepts, assign the international classification codes examiners actually file such inventions under, and build the keyword strategies that surface what a naive search never will. Then they run those combinations across the same databases patent examiners rely on, and more, screen the results, and verify what each reference truly discloses.
That is the search you get here: the working method of a registered patent practice with over 20 years in patent law, applied to your invention, reviewed and approved by the firm's practitioner, and returned as a complete written report within one business day, not weeks.
One report. Everything you need to decide.
Your Preliminary Patentability Assessment tells you, in plain language, what your invention is understood to be, where it belongs in the patent classification system, what already exists that is closest to it, and how your idea appears to stand under the patent statutes: novelty, obviousness, and subject-matter eligibility. Every reference in it has been verified against its source record and is linked so you can read it yourself.
Every report also includes the Patentability Meter, a first-of-its-kind gauge that distills the findings of your search into a single needle reading, from unpatentable to patentable, so you can see at a glance where your idea appears to stand before you read a single page of analysis.
A search and written assessment of this character from a patent firm commonly costs $1,000 to $3,000 and takes weeks. Yours is $199, reviewed and approved by the firm's practitioner, and arrives within one business day. That is the point of PatentabilityCheck: a law firm's work, priced so that finding out is never the obstacle.
How it works
- Purchase. $199 via secure Stripe checkout. No account needed.
- Describe your invention. You receive a private, single-use submission link. Write what your invention is, what it does, how it works, and what you believe is new. Attach up to five figures if you have them.
- The search runs. Your disclosure is analyzed, classified, and searched across the same databases patent examiners rely on: for example, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, and more, including non-patent sources. Candidate references are screened, and every selected reference is verified against its authoritative source record before it can appear in your report.
- The practitioner reviews it. The finished draft goes to the firm's registered patent practitioner, who reviews it and either approves it for delivery or sends it back for further work. Your delivered report carries his approval, by name and USPTO registration number, on its cover.
- Your report arrives. Within one business day of your submission: download it from your status page and receive it by email. Then everything you submitted is permanently deleted from the platform.
Your idea stays yours.
Your disclosure is encrypted in transit and at rest, processed on our own private infrastructure rather than a shared platform, and used for exactly one purpose: producing your report. It is retained only as long as the search and the practitioner's review require; once your report is delivered, your disclosure, your figures, and the report file are permanently deleted from the platform. The firm retains its own record of your report, as any law firm does. Submissions are never published, shared, sold, or reused.
Every report answers to a name.
David F. Underwood, Ph.D., is a registered U.S. patent practitioner (USPTO Registration No. 65230) with more than two decades of experience in patent law and professional prior art searching. The search methodology behind PatentabilityCheck is his, and he personally reviews and approves every report before it is delivered. The approval line on your report's cover carries his name and registration number.
If you add a Report Review Consultation, he is the practitioner you speak with. And when you are ready to file, his firm handles the entire process, from application drafting through prosecution before the USPTO: underwoodpatents.com.
Give an inventor the answer.
Know someone with an idea they will not stop talking about? A PatentabilityCheck gift certificate gives them a professional patentability search and a written Preliminary Patentability Assessment of their own invention: a real first step toward protecting it. You receive a six-character code by email. Share it yourself, or have us send it to your recipient with a gift note. Codes never expire until used.
Have a gift certificate code?
Enter the six-character code from your gift email, along with the email address your report should be delivered to. Codes are case-sensitive.
Common questions
Is my idea patentable?
An invention is generally patentable in the United States if it is new, non-obvious, useful, and directed to eligible subject matter. Nobody can tell you "yes, it will be granted" from a search alone, and you should be skeptical of anyone who promises that. What a patentability search does tell you is what already exists: the closest prior art and how your idea appears to differ from it. That is exactly what the Preliminary Patentability Assessment gives you.
How do I know if my idea is already patented?
We search the patent literature the way an examiner would: by classification codes and concept keywords, across tens of millions of granted patents and published applications. Your report lists every verified reference we find, each linked to its source document so you can read it yourself.
How much does a patent search cost?
Law-firm patentability searches commonly run $1,000 to $3,000 and take weeks. PatentabilityCheck is $199, reviewed and approved by a registered patent practitioner, and arrives within one business day.
Who reviews my report?
Every report is reviewed and approved before delivery by David F. Underwood, Ph.D., Registered U.S. Patent Practitioner (Registration No. 65230), the practitioner behind this service. His approval, with the date, appears on the cover of your report.
What if my invention is software or an app?
Software inventions are searchable and are covered by the same databases. Your report's eligibility section specifically addresses 35 U.S.C. § 101 and the Alice/Mayo framework that applies to software and business-method inventions.
What is your refund policy?
If we cannot deliver your report, you receive a full refund. All other sales are final, because the search and review are performed on your specific invention as soon as you submit.