Google Patent Search!

or use

That requires that you know what numbers you want already.

With google.com/patents, you can type "fixed bed bioreactor", view the relevant ones, and print/save with a right-click. Admittedly, one page at a time, it seems, so far...

Damn, the internet is going down the toilet. A year or so ago, you could go to

Lately, when I've tried to look up simple crap like the PC parallel port schematic or whatever on google, it seems like all I get is ads for books. )-;

Thanks, Rich

You know I just looked at this and it's amazing to me the variety of items that you find.

Especially with electronics in mind.

I mean thousands of circuits alone...from the simple to complex that really I don't see why they even took the time to "patent" it.

Take for example, I looked at "multiband processor" that someone patented in

Well hell, there are a hundered different varieties of that animal and I'm certain that a "patent" didn't enter into the picture at all......nor licensing fees...or anything....I mean what's the point with the majority of these patents?

I don't get it.

I thought patents were for groundbreaking technology and inventions....not someone's mildly creative use of "existing parts". ??

Please enlighten me.

Welcome to the 21st Century.

Doesn't even have to be parts. You can now patent an idea. See amazon.com's "One-Click Purchase" patent.

The systems of copyrights and patents are horribly broken in the US.[1] Some will say the patent system always was:

Courts (and by extension patents and copyrights) are merely an opportunity to see who can afford the best lawyer. . . [1] ...and, with i18n, appears to be spreading.

Also makes work for us expert witnesses ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Doesn't have to be "groundbreaking," just nifty and new. If you've come up with a non-obvious twist on something offering some sort of advantage, and you want to prevent others from copying that twist, patents offer that.

Notice the word "offer." As to whether or not patents deliver, that depends on a lot of other factors. If you can protect your product some other way, you probably should.

Back to "groundbreaking," that's a pretty high bar, and for what purpose? Patents exist to encourage innovation, to guarantee to the guy inventing his 'twist' that he'll get to use it for a while before others can copy it.

Most inventions are evolutionary, not revolutionary, improving by small steps over long periods. Witness the field-effect transistor, _patented_ by Lilienfeld in 1928, but useless until decades of incremental improvements made it viable. Surely those increments were worthwhile too, yes, each offering some advance, although perhaps minor?

Best, James Arthur

variety of items

complex that really

someone patented in

animal and I'm

all......nor

the majority of

inventions....not

It's still there.

Yeah, s/n promises to be a problem. Here's one of my tips: to eliminate a LOT of spurious hits, append "-sex" or "-monkey" to your google search.

James Arthur

"It's not that everything hasn't been said, it's that everyone hasn't said it." --(by some wit, but I can't remember who)

try being more specific in your searches,

keywords like schematic, pinout, and datasheet work wonders.

or if you cant formulate an optimal search just ask google.

eg: what does pin 14 on the pc parallel port do?

Bye. Jasen