Any decent developer should be able to work with APIs, most of the google ones are pretty easy to pick up and run with. I don't think that is really your key concern when looking for a development partner.
Could I suggest instead you focus your search on development companies or individual developers who have had experience in things like:
- Developing web applications at scale. Any half decent developer can throw something together which will work ... someone who can design the system to give it its best chance at scaling is something else entirely.
- Your particular market vertical. There is specific domain knowledge that a newbie will need to learn, in a year or two. If the developer already understands the nuances of the segment then you will be much further ahead. (the API will take a week or 2 at worst to come to grips with)
- Working with entrepreneurs to grow businesses. The majority of developers haven't had this experience, they work for large companies who have a lot of infrastructure around then and assume that most things are taken care of by someone else.
- Social application development. There are a range of things you should and shouldn't do, techniques for engaging users and making social centric applications that don't apply to normal line of business applications ...
- Working with early adopters to drive support and grow "evangelism". Most developers are more interested in the conversation between themselves and the computer langauge NOT with the people who are trying to use the application. Finding a developer who can have a foot in both camps and translate between these two worlds is critical as it impacts the 1000s of "micro decisions" they make while developing.
There is a huge range of skills and experience required, focusing on "can they deal with the API" is not what you should be focusing on in my humble opinion (well maybe slightly biased opinion).
When it comes to your patent, you can defend it (if you have deep enough pockets to fight google) or develop something that is interesting to google to buy it. I would suggest doing the latter, if a VC or someone picks you up then the patent will be a good starting point and most will look on it favourably as they have the pockets to defend it.
