US Patent and Trademark Office held their 15th Annual Independent Inventors Conference in Alexandria, Va last week. It was an informative and interesting 2+ days of talks and breakout sessions. I was able to sign up for a one-on-one with a patent examiner to discuss some specifics of my ideas that may be patentable. Overall, I learned that patenting an invention is way more complex that I imagined but the USPTO will take every effort to help independent inventors through the patent process. Your patent description plus claims still has to be proper and legally correct which shouldn't be a surprise. I recommend attending next years conference if you have any interest in patents or meeting fellow inventors. Now to begin that search for prior art and begin that market study.