Google Launches Patent Search for Ordinary People | NowPublic News Coverage

Google Launches Patent Search for Ordinary People

by publicreader | December 14, 2006 at 05:16 am

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Google has rolled out a new Google Patents search engine allowing people to search across the full-text of US patents from 1790 through the middle of 2006. The company plans to update the service further with more 2006 filings and move to a weekly or better refresh schedule in the future

Why is Google going to all this trouble? US patents can already be searched by the public using the search engine provided byt the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The issue, as might be expected, is relative ease. The US Patent and Trademark Office site method depends on fielded searches, but the Google method relies on the text searches with which we are all familiar. The same technology Google used for Book Search was used to create the full text index of U.S patents though the middle of 2006, which should make full text searches easier. The USPTO offers this service as well,. but only as far back as patents issued in 1976.

Lawyers and other intellectual property buffs will likely continue to use proprietary (and expensive) programs for patent searches.Google is not trying to replace what exists, but only to augment those programs.