Google Updates Its Patent Search Engine

Google announced in a blog post last Thursday that it launched a new version of Google Patents, “which has the power to improve patent quality by helping experts and the public find the most relevant references for judging whether a patent is valid.”

The new homepage patents.google.com now includes a check-box to include non-patent literature from Google Scholar. But that’s not all: the search engine uses CPC codes to sort inventions, and users can now search for foreign patents with the help of Google Translate.

“This makes it much easier for the public, who may not have a whole lot of expertise, to search like an expert,” said Google senior patent counsel Laura Sheridan, quoted in The Boston Globe.

With patent litigation steadily on the rise, the need for high-quality prior art and good patents is important. Tools that implement this change to focus on better patents, such as this improved Google Patent Search, are a step in the right direction.