Google patent search finds

On 3/29/2010 10:20 AM, Bill Higgins wrote:
On Mar 29, 1:08 pm, Pat wrote:

I kept coming across identically named patents about related things that
were differentiated by purposely misspelling one word in the title when
indexing them.

There are a lot of OCR errors in Google Patents, which may contribute
to the effect you describe.

When found, the title is spelled correctly on the patent pdf itself,
but incorrectly in the patent title description on the search engine.
However it could be a flub on Google's part also, as you say.
In one case I noticed a "B" had been transposed for a "R", which could
happen if they were optically scanned and the software misidentified a
letter.

On 3/29/2010 10:37 AM, wrote:

And the rebel cargo ship from Star Wars:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=yV4qAAAAEBAJ

I always like that design; something of a big beetle about it.
In the case of the F-19, they got ripped off by Revell in fairly short
order:
http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpo...-19a_144-i.htm
....but the Testor's design itself owed a lot to a drawing Japanese
aviation artist Hideo Maki had done of it for Air Review Magazine as the
"RF-19".
That drawing also had some influence on the Monogram design, which was
mainly inspired by this Loral ad from AW&ST:
http://ultraclearance.com/f19/Loral-f-19.jpg

Pat

On 3/29/2010 3:50 PM, Rick Jones wrote:
In sci.space.history Pat wrote:
When found, the title is spelled correctly on the patent pdf
itself, but incorrectly in the patent title description on the
search engine. However it could be a flub on Google's part also, as
you say. In one case I noticed a "B" had been transposed for a "R",
which could happen if they were optically scanned and the software
misidentified a letter.

Do they have a "report errors" link somewhere?

I don't see one, but this is a Beta version. Here's the homepage for it:
http://www.google.com/patents
One interesting thing is the second time I went to it, it was having me
type "read these distorted letters" information in a dialog box before
letting me look at pdfs of the patents. In one case, I had to go through
four of those before the pdf showed up.
It's not doing that anymore, but it did occur to me that a foreign
government (read China) could go into the search engine and use a
automated program to download _all_ of the US patent pdfs for industrial
espionage purposes.
Then they would know about improved methods of making Pot Ash:
http://inventors.about.com/od/weirdm...ent-Grante.htm

Pat

On 3/29/2010 5:10 PM, Rick Jones wrote:

Well, if the information is actually public, is it really industrial
espionage?

The reason it is public is so that someone who has had their invention
stolen can use their patent to prove wrongdoing, or others working along
the same lines can avoid unintentionally using someone else's already
patented ideas.
The Chinese don't give a hoot in hell about the legal aspects of copying
things without permission (right down to their names in the case of
vehicles), so to them, having all the patent on-line in a easily
searchable form is a real boon.

As for better ways of making Pot Ash, I would think that would await
the success of the legalization initiative in California

I still can't believe that they are actually considering that.

Pat