Thompson Patent Law would have failed me at a very high cost..
Some errors are more expensive than others; and in some cases, it's better to cut your losses than ignore the signs and increase them.
I cut my losses with Thompson Patent Law.
They had taken me up on my petition to draw up a patent application for my design. I also engaged them to answer an office action for the associated trademark.
Upfront I paid $995 for a Prior Art Search, $3500 towards the patent work, and $900 to reply to a USPTO's office action on my mark. A total of $5395
But Thompson Patent Law's prior art search missed 5 patents altogether, that directly related to my design, 3 of which that contained a very specific key element of my design. Somehow their self aggrandized 'prior art search' missed those.
Meaning essentially, they would have wound up writing a patent application that focused on a key element already part of issued patents, which would have most likely translated into a failure to obtain my own patent.
The point of a Prior Art Search, is to let the inventor know what is already in the field, that he may choose to discontinue the pursuit and save himself the considerable work and funds that go into it, or he might design around the element, and secure a patent based on other elements of his design. Thomspon Law did not give me that opportunity.
THEN they sent me a messed up Novelty Report which further exacerbated things..
Thompson Law's 'Novelty Report' was the nail in the coffin. Their report misunderstood all 6 of the claims/ novelties of my design. My engineer wrote a detailed rebuttal when he saw the report which we returned to them a copy of.
INSTEAD of hearing back from Thompson Law about improving their understanding of my design, I received the next bill for services, illustrating where their heart was on the subject. The invoice was for $9,000. Which combined with the deposit of $3500 brought the total for a patent anywhere from $1,500 to $4,500 higher than I was quoted by their salesman, when I signed up with Thompson Patent law.
He told me - "Our non provisionals typically range between 8-12k and it's rare to go outside of that range."
So not only was mine somehow a 'rare case', the $500 discount he promised me never came to his mind again. When I brought it up he said - "Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
At this point, based on Thompson Patent Law's serious errors and an abysmal lack of followup, I understood that was I to continue with this law firm, I would likely not get a patent, and all my design time (1 year so far) and money invested in the lawyer for the provisional patent, and the team of 3 engineers, would have either come to nothing - or we'd have gotten a patent that did not faithfully reflect our design.
I wrote to my Thompson Patent Law by email, and by regular mail - and informed them that I was discontinuing working with them.
I asked for a refund for 2 things: The not-yet-begun USPTO trademark Office Action answer; and the 'patent fees' to date, which resulted only in an innacurate Novelty Report. I told them I'd swallow the lost cost of the useless search that they did.
Their answer? Crickets. Not a courtesy of reply.
In Summary, they don't care. They didn't care when I was in good standing, and they don't care now. I cut my losses, and have found another law firm. But I'd be doing you a disservice to not review the time and money I lost with Thompson Patent Law.