The USPTO UI isn’t too bad, but it does have some usability issues. While I don’t think it’s too difficult to throw together an advanced query, sending a link for a query is pretty nasty, and many patent searchers don’t exactly have much training in very customized database queries. This results in patent searches taking a lot longer than they really should, and not being as relevant as they could be. Further, once you’ve picked out a patent, the USPTO site is pretty slow to use with certain patents (especially old ones).

The reigning king of information has wonderfully added an awesome new weapon to the Google arsenal: Google Patent Search. It seems that patents from “1790 through 1975″ (the UPSTO’s greyout dates) are incredibly searchable. The greyout dates are from before the patents were properly digitized, and only a few fields are properly searchable. Google seems to have digitized the images for all this extra usability. As an example I searched for all the words “twine interwoven” issued between 1776 and 1868. Digging further, it’s definitely a feature.

Using the same technology that powers Google Book Search, Google has converted the entire image database of U.S. patents into a format that’s easy to search.

This is seriously awesome, and a huge step in formal legal information searches. Now only if Google would go after regular court reporters.