Free Patents Online (freepatentsonline.com) is probably the best
one-stop patent research web site. Many patent search sites are built
around cumbersome Boolean search patent databases, where a user must
know the correct search syntax and use it right the first time.
Moreover, these sites do not offer any extras, other than dry patenting
policies and patenting news.
Free Patents Online, however, goes beyond the boring format and delivers what must be an entertaining form of patent searching.
For the experts who feel comfortable with Boolean searching, there is
an option with intelligent word stemming feature, wherein the search
also looks into the U. S. Patent Applications, and European Patent
agency database.
For those who are intimidated by expert search option, there is an individual, example-driven field search.
Search results are the most user-friendly of all the search
services: the results are sorted into quick-loading hyperlink lists,
very often all on one page. Each hyperlink opens a plainly displayed
patent options: the abstract, the cited information, the claims, and
for viewing the actual published text or saving the patent on the
computer, there is an option to open an in-page Acrobat PDF view.
To make the visit truly enjoyable, the site has the Crazy Patents humor
section. There are, for example, patents on seemingly silly objects
such as a synthetic toys for animals, a religious meditation apparatus,
which is a birdhouse, a method of using a swing, a kissing shield, and
there are patents which might have been issued erroneously on the same
invention of the method for exercising a cat with a beam of light.
The site might be an entertainment even for those who never get to deal with patents or patent writing.