Google's New Offering: Google Patents

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

Google's at it again and this time with a much-needed patent search engine. It sports the same minimalistic interface that's a trademark of Google and allows you to perform fulltext searches on a database of over 7 million patents and view the details of each patent along with all the drawings / sketches. The scanned pages of the original patents are displayed in a PDF-like format with the ability to zoom in/out

 

Apparently it uses the same underlying technology as Google Book Search. For those who've cracked their skulls over the notorious USPTO search engine this one is a mere breeze

 

Here's a screenshot:

 

Check out some funky patents that came up by default on the search page...

Candy Forming Machine

Chicken Breeding Machine

Artificial Plant

[toby 0]

Slow, and nothing with my fullname .Oh well, it's hard to work out what you'd search, I think it needs catogories - Countries, age, what age range products are aimed at and so on.

[Alegis 0]

Well, its fun to look at. Especially with new technologies popping out and claiming rip-offs. Companies had easier methods to check on patents I believe but I'm not too sure about that (how would they have checked in the past otherwise).Didn't the US patent site have a search?

[Arbitrary 0]

Alegis: Yeah, the U.S. Patent site does have a search. But it seems rather confusing to sift through all the muck that's on the page. At least Google does get to the point rather quickly. (Just type in the box dangit!) Apparently the U.S. Patent site boasts patent texts from 1976 until now, and then images for all the patents since 1790. Not sure if Google has any exact statistics on what time period of patents it has.

From looking at the results I received by querying 'light bulb', I guess its patent search isn't all that informative, thought it does seem pretty comprehensive. Just looking at the description for each entry for 'light bulb', it's rather hard to distinguish just what kind of thing this patent is. For instance, the first result for 'light bulb' tells me this:

DESCRIPTION FIG. is a upper- front prospective view of the light bulb. ...22 is a top view of the light bulb of FIG.. 23 is a bottom view of the light bulb ...

Just how does a description of an image help me? I can't see the image just by looking at search results, so I wouldn't have any idea what this person is trying to explain. If Google could offer better descriptions rather than just some randomly picked out phrases from the patent text, it might be more helpful to those browsing. Personally, I think images are helpful in deciding if said pattern is what you wanted, so perhaps they could offer images (on the side) in addition to descriptions.

And truth is, this particular patent is kinda weird: Swim Googles. It's probably just a misspelling on the word 'goggles', but heck, it was actually a U.S. Patent! I thought that the people who approved the patents would at least take the time to look over their application for spelling errors, of all things. And apparently, in the rest of the article, it says 'swim goggles' all along, but the title is misspelled and rather misleading. =)

[leafbunk 0]

It's pretty wild how Google has expanded so much. They offer so many different services now, and are working to provide even more. I'm sure the Google team is massive. I think that they've got a good thing going with this new patent search as well. Seems like a pretty spiffy function. Categories and better descriptions would most definitely improve the search.

[Saint_Michael 3]

Of course whats best with google their are not scared of our government (US) . Can't say that about the whole thing with china and filters google placed on their engine over there. What can you do when your making billions, last I heard google was worth 9 Billion (Stock value).Of course if you took the time to search through the patents you be surprise which one's never made it store shelves.

[Elmbonsai 0]

What are they going to come with next?They should come up with a search engine that alows you to search for your dream home and then you can use Google Earth to find it, and then you can use their real-estate software to track the current status of the house so that the second it goes on the market you have an instant bid on it. Sort of like eBay for your dream house.They should come up with a coffee company and call it Google grounds and give Starbucks a run for their arabica.Google is the American dream in techicolor, they seem to be moving at light speed and the owners haven't yet realized the companies true potential. They will very big, bigger than they are now, if they can just keep their product aimed at the end user and not do what Sony did and try to change their customers by developing a product that made them think different.Go Google Go!!!!!

[unimatrix 0]

As a law student studying IP law...this will be extremely welcome as the USPTO search engine is well...is what it is (a pain in the...)Hats off to google for making useful tools. Make cool tools and offer them at the right price (free) and people will use them...like me. Google is doing a lot of cool things...can't wait to see what they'll think up next.At the same time, though, they want to be master and commander of all things information...which when misused, can be equally as scary.

[Hercco 0]

Handy! It's nice that it works and looks exactly like the Web Google. No need to learn the use the search, which is a kind of weird thing.

[Aequitas619 0]

Its pretty cool! I like the simplicity of it. It returns lots of relevant sites!