[AT] Semi OT: Patent search on Google

[Mike Sloane]

The list is a little slow today, so I thought I would forward this 
message from an antique tool list. I have not followed up on this at 
all. I would think that it might be useful for researching old farm 
implements and maybe tractor accessories.

Mike
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Hi All

A little news that should bring a smile to
the faces of collectors of all kinds.
(well hopefully not tax collectors <G>)
Google has archived all 7 million patents in the
USPTO database, and scanned the pre 1975
pages with OCR (optical character recognition)
to create searchable documents from them.
All is not perfect yet however, as the scans
resulted in many spelling or date errors that
could cause the occasional missed search.
However what's a few thousand errors in a
batch of 7 million ???. This is an amazing
development, and will, with a little practice
make these records available with a fraction
of the effort that was previously required.
The format is much like the Google search
that we are all familiar with, and has both
the standard and advanced configurations as well
The links for each are shown below.
Enjoy!

Regards
Art.

<http://www.google.com/patents?>

 >http://www.google.com/advanced_patent_search>

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-- 
Mike Sloane
Allamuchy NJ
<mikesloane at verizon.net>
Website: <www.geocities.com/mikesloane>
Images: <www.fotki.com/mikesloane>

I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man.
It is us. -Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)