How to do an effective patent search?

[uhp]

Hey Dudette, this is a link for Google Patent search specifically designed to search for patents.
But i would like to suggest you, its very difficult to do a patent search and find out if your idea is patentable or not just by reading the results on these patents search.
Reason - We have some ideas worth patenting and we consulted some one (acquaintance who has his own patents) he said he had to go to a lawyer he gave all his ideas that he wanted to patent and he said the lawyer will do the work of finding if any idea is already patent or not. And it might cost around 10K USD or more (ofcourse if you are in USA).

Share your views on this.