Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known

The sentence above is a quote from a journalist, Sharon Begley, in an article interviewing the astronomer, Carl Sagan, and is often misattributed to him. How does it apply to patent searching? You're the one with an idea for the incredible something, and you will want it known, but as I often see, just because that something isn't known to you, doesn't mean it isn't known. A brainwave today just may have been someone else's one hundred years ago too.

I've recently been telling you how to conduct aspects of your search, but I've never mentioned where you should go to conduct it, or why.

If you want to know if your idea is new, you're going to conduct what is known as a novelty or patentability search.