Google launches search engine for US patents
Date: Thursday, December 14, 2006 @ 22:56:15 UTC
Topic: General
 Google says it processes more than 200
million searches a day and leads the world for search engine usage with
57 percent of the current market, followed by Yahoo at 21 percent and
MSN at just 9 percent.
Google was live with a service enabling
Internet users to search through the more than seven million patents
granted in the United States.
The beta, or test, version of Google Patent Search
lets people sift through patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark
Office as long ago as 1790 by using inventors' names, filing dates,
patent numbers or key words.
Searches return information about the inventor and provide patent details online page-by-page.
"We've all heard about the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison, and
Alexander Graham Bell -- famous inventors whose creative minds changed
the course of history," Google software engineer Doug Banks wrote in a
company weblog.
"But there are many more like them and millions of
inventions...from useful everyday items such as adhesive tape and
contact lenses to, er, things useful in specific situations, like this
shark protector suit or this amusement device incorporating simulated
cheese and mice."
Google Patent Search uses much of the same technology that powers
the Mountain View, California-based company's online book search
service, so users can scroll pages and zoom in on text and
illustrations.
© 2006 AFP
Source: http://www.physorg.com/news85334591.html
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