I am a registered patent attorney – although I am not currently working (well, I’m a stay at home mom – people differ on whether that counts as work). Not meaning to give legal advice here, but here are a few things to consider:
As I’m sure you know, the patent process is long and involved, but the very first thing to remember is not to disclose your invention before getting your application on file. Although the U.S. allows you to file your application up to one year after a public disclosure (and the word “public” has a very specific definition) almost all other countries forbid filing on inventions that have been publicly disclosed (and they have a slightly different standard for what is a public disclosure).
And don’t let someone convince you that you can file something thrown together as a “provisional” application that can be cleaned up later in a non-provisional application. If you file a provisional, it should be of the same quality as a standard filing – although you need not include claims until you file the non-provisional.
You might want to get in touch with UCSD Connect (http://www.connect.org/). My husband (also a patent attorney) used to volunteer with Connect and it seems to be a really good organization. I know that they provide free business assistance to companies who want to capitalize on their IP, but I don’t know if they have people who can help with preparing and filing applications.
If you want to pm me I can give you some more info. And I agree that if at all possible, you’re better off manufacturing in the U.S.
If you’re interested in the patent system as a whole, you might also want to take a look at this article that I mentioned in another thread:
Inventing our Way Out of Joblessness (by Judge Paul Michel, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and Henry Northhaft)
The authors argue that returning $750 million (plus an additional $250,000) to the U.S. Patent Office would produce “over the next three years, at least 675,000 and as many as 2.25 million jobs. Assuming a mid-range figure of 1.5 million, the price would be roughly $660 per job — and that would be 525 times more cost effective than the 2.5 million jobs created by the government’s $787 billion stimulus plan.”
The article pointed to the Berkeley Patent Study, which supported the contention that each issued patent is associated with 3 to 10 new jobs.
Congrats for having the gumption to try to create something new. If everyone keeps trying to invest in someone else’s technology, we will eventually end up with a lot of investors and no technology to invest in.
