How Do You Know You Can Trust A Patent Service?

Dak Steiert of Eagle County Colorado is now the subject of a parallel civil injunction petition for unauthorized practice of law. The petition alleges that Steiert operated fictitious online company "“Intelligent Patent Services,” which was advertised as "Patent Attorneys You Can Trust." Steiert himself allegedly drafted patent applications for inventors and then returned the finished work product for the inventors to file themselves. You can read more about it here.

How do you avoid being scammed if you're looking for help with your invention(s)?

Selecting a reputable professional patent agent or patent attorney requires some research and homework. I assisted my client in filing one of the initial complaints against this criminal. Immediately after reviewing the patent application, claims and filing, this fraudulent individual and company prepared and filed, I knew I had to do something to help my client. It is a real pet peeve of mine when unqualified individuals rip off inventors and mislead them. They give patent professionals a bad name when the overwhelming majority of us are competent, reputable and communicate honestly with our clients.

Here are some basic questions and requests you should make before hiring a patent professional:

1. What is your USPTO registration number?
2. How long have you been writing and filing patent applications?
3. Please show me some samples of your work.
4. Also good idea to go to USPTO patent search database, search "attorney or agent" for a list of issued patents to review.

Really wonderful to see this case come full circle, thank you ipethicslaw.com and Michael E. McCabe, Jr.! Cynthia S. Lamon USPTO Reg. 73,334