Although the thought of striking it rich invites many inventors to patent their ideas, the process is costly, frustrating and usually takes a long time to succeed at the bank.

"You have a chance but it is a difficult chance. Everyone wants their product sitting on the shelves of Wal-Mart," said Robert Montgomery, who owns a patent and design company based out of Washington, Pa.

Independent investors usually need help. Before many approach the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office — a 6,500- employee behemoth housed in the Department of Commerce — they seek out patent attorneys or companies that specialize in helping out small inventors.

The basic facts are first spelled out to the inventors, who first learn they have only a year to file for a patent on their idea after they have told somebody about it.

Patents are possible for products, processes and even asexual plant types. A patent is a legal document that declares it illegal for others to make, sell or offer your invention to others. The patent can be sold to an assignee, to whom the original patent rights are then transferred.

When a patent application is filed, it is then passed onto the USPTO, which acts like an umpire. It calls the balls and strikes as to whether the inventor gets a patent. It will not go to court to come to the aid of an inventor or sue others for violating a patent. All costs are up to the inventor.

Thomas Lizzi is an attorney specializing in patent and intellectual property law, serving individuals and industrial groups from the greater-Pittsburgh area.

A lower bookshelf in his office is occupied by four volumes on patent law, each thick enough to squash a turtle.

Lizzi helps clients draw up the filing application, where each word is scrutinized by an examiner at the patent office. He said the USPTOcalls this the "examination;" he refers to it as the "prosecution."

The most important parts of the application are the "claims," each of which spell out ways in which the invention is new, useful and "nonobvious" to a person knowledgeable in the field of the invention.

"My job is to get the ideas from your head into mine and onto the paper," said Lizzi, who is one of two patent attorneys in Zelienople. There are two others in Cranberry Township and one in Butler, according to a list of attorneys provided by the USPTOWeb site.

"You have to consider what a patent is and what it isn't. It is not a key to riches; it is a business tool. ... Its value is dependent on the underlying commerciality of the invention."

He said a person will spend at least $1,500 on submitting the application to the USPTO and then an additional $3,500 in maintenance fees during the life of the patent, which last 20 years after the filing date.

Then there are his services, which run at $200 an hour. "Generally speaking, with attorney and government costs, a patent will run you $5,000 to $30,000," he said.

Lizzi said the examination process usually goes back and forth between the attorney and the USPTOexaminer, where certain claims are disputed. He said on average, it takes three years for a patent, with applications evaluated in the order they are received.

About two-thirds of patent applications are approved, and there are 350,000 filed each year, according to the USPTO.

But that success rate is deceiving, said Lizzi, because of the way the USPTO does its bookkeeping. Here, claims can be multiplied but are never divided.

For example, someone trying to patent a microwave can be told that certain claims result in such different processes that they require a separate patent. That usually guarantees that two patents will be approved, which balloons both the success rate of approved patents and the cost to the individual, said Lizzi.