Any patent attorneys? How to patent

[Boshi]

I have an idea but as of yet no prototype or development into the idea. At what stage do you apply for a patent? And also can you patent something which uses two existing products and merges them/changes them to be one product?

Not a Patent Attorney, but hold several Patents. So I'm sure someone with expertise will be more helpful.

We use a firm of Patent Agents who deal with all the applications and legalities, they have been invaluable. As a small business I don't think we could have navigated it ourselves.

We patented when we had proven our concept before we scaled up. We had the idea, tested to see if it worked under NDAs, then patented.

Word of warning, it isn't cheap, and we had one patent rejected and had to revise it. You then have reoccurring costs to maintain the patents.