Thanks, Loran, this is fabulous! I knew that patents were searchable, but this makes it so easy!
I've just found Sigmund Bergmann's January 20, 1885 patent (#311,100) for the electric lamp socket that some of us are familiar with as the Edison General Electric unit with the oval key-shaped switch handle. I have one of these with seven patent dates (final one Sept 11 1888). I've been thinking of offering it for sale, but wanted to search the patents first. I've found and printed out three of the seven patents in a relatively short time. If the patents were searchable by exact date of issue instead of by the month, it would be even faster. With a little patience, I can find the remaining four patents, descriptions, drawings, etc., which will make a nice packet to go with the socket. In fact, it's so interesting looking at the printouts that I don't mind holding onto it. I can see where my spare time will be going! Best, Andy Baron On Dec 14, 2006, at 10:03 AM, Loran Hughes wrote: > For you research hounds out there, Google has just made all 7 > million issued U.S. patents keyword searchable back to 1790. Select > a patent from your search results and you can further search for > terms within that particular patent! Go to www.google.com/patents > to use this new tool. > > (I'm looking at a Graphophone patent from 1896 as I type this!) > > Regards, > Loran
