Google now searches U.S. patent database
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(InfoWorld) - If you've ever dreamed up an ingenious new invention and then wondered if someone else has already made it, Google's new patent search offering is for you. The new site, www.google.com/patents, lets anyone search for U.S. patents by keyword, patent number, inventor, and filing date. Users can view a scanned image of the original patent and zoom in on pages. The main search page displays five different random patents each time the page is visited. Recent inventions that popped up include toy skunk, pocket protector, toupee, and doll having delayed wetting and crying action. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) already allows anyone to search its site for patent documents. But Google's offering may have some advantages. "The existing Web sites have patents that you can view so it's not that the information isn't there. The problem is finding it and that's where Google's expertise comes in," said Mike Overy, secretary for the Wessex Round Table of Inventors, an inventors club in England. Overy formerly developed products for Nokia and is now a freelance inventor. Google said that like its Web search technology, the patent search site uses a number of different signals to evaluate how relevant each patent is to a user's query and then determines results algorithmically. The USPTO is not the only patent office to offer an online patent search facility. The European Patent Office also hosts such a service, covering patents from European countries, the U.S., Canada and other patent authorities. Overy finds that database good but not very user friendly, he said. Discovering existing patents is extremely important for inventors, Overy said. While Google's new offering may ease what is often an incredibly tedious job, it may not be able to fully solve the problem, he said. One issue inherent in new inventions is naming them. "If you've invented what you think is the first gizmo whatsit and you type that into a search engine, you won't find much because the other person who invented it called it something different," he said. Google's patent search covers 7 million patents. The database doesn't include patents issued in the last few months but Google "looks forward to expanding our coverage in the future," according to the frequently asked questions section of its site. Although Google's database only lists U.S. patents for now, the company said it hopes to expand the patent offices it includes and languages it supports. Presumably the site will one day allow users to save and print patents too: a note at the bottom of a posting about the new service on the Google blog says that a reference to saving and printing has been removed since Google is still working on the capabilities.
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Search company Google begins the global roll-out of an enterprise search tool that allows companies to "google" their own networks.
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Google has officially joined the race to come up with a way to search videos and TV shows. In addition to a search technology for Internet-based video content, Google is also working with TV and cable broadcasters
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Keeping up with newly issued patents for search-related technology can help you spot emerging trends and potentially new competitors to the existing major web search players.
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Google has updated its search engine for finding  source code, adding greater coverage and improvements in ranking and access.
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Last week, Google, a company renowned for its search service, released the Google Desktop, a software program that lets users search through materials stored on their
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[World News]: Washington, Nov 19 : Google has now launched a new search engine, Google Scholar which can exclusively search for academic texts and scientific articles, instead of web pages.
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JACKSONVILLE, FL -- The online search engine leader Google has unveiled a new tool for scholarly research. The new service is aimed at making better sense of all the scholarly work stored on the web and it
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InfoWorld - Google introduced a new service for small businesses that allows visitors to search within their Web sites on a customized search page.
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INTERNET giant Google has taken its searching tools one step further with a service for individual desktops. Its new desktop search application means users can search their email, files, web history, and chats
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Google Inc. released free software yesterday that lets people simultaneously search the Web and their personal computers for information, a move analysts described as a potential blow to rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. in the race to woo more searchers.
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Google can recognize certain types of numbers and codes typed into its search box and save you a step in your quest.
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Google released enhanced search tools that let companies sift through as many as 30 million documents kept on networks or websites.
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Google on Tuesday updated its Search Appliance hardware for businesses, expanding capacity to up to 30 million documents and adding a number of new features. Users can now specify date ranges in their searches, as well as set price and number ranges.
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InfoWorld - Google has updated its Google Code Search site for finding publicly available source code, adding greater coverage and improvements in ranking and access.
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Google Inc. unveiled a new search tool yesterday that's capable of scanning both the Internet and the files on a personal computer, beating Microsoft Corp. out of the gates and significantly raising the stakes in the search-engine wars.
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Google Inc.  on Thursday rolled out a preliminary version of its new desktop search tool, making the first move against its major competitors in the race to provide tools for finding information buried in computer hard drives.