Item — HN Reader

This is a hard question.

First of all, ideas are not patentable. And given the sorry state of patents today, some rather obvious things might be.

Second, although I have published research papers, I do not have any patents. I don't know what the typical patent is like nor how it would compare to the technical contributions of a research paper.

Third, my service is currently an early prototype and it is hard to see what sort of patents might be applicable at this early stage.

Any advice? What did you write for this question?

We identified our core features & strengths. Quick patent searches on these let us know whether there is something out there identical or similar to what we are doing at a macro scale. Keep in mind, patents are worded in lawyer-speak so we can't say there is nothing out there until spending a lot more time & resources (lawyer money).

It is fairly common to find that little things you do are patentable so focusing on the big things will keep your task manageable.