One of many services that promised to help aspiring inventors bring their products to market, Advent Product Development operated (in part) as a patent search company to ensure that new "inventors" wouldn't overlap with any existing patents.
Unfortunately, a class action lawsuit in 2011 [CASE NO. 07cv2089 BTM(NLS)] revealed the full extent of their service; they would allegedly ignore important existing patents in order to get customers to pay over $1k to take their idea to 'Phase II', knowing that the ideas wold never really be able to get off the ground. The company would then [allegedly] continue to take payment for other services never rendered. Part of their alleged deception is itemized here :
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