Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/388930198/patent-search-finds-ideas-and-their-owners
Access worldwide patents with Patent Search, a comprehensive and powerful webapp that features over 450 million patents in 15 languages. The unique thing about Patent Search is that the entire text of each individual patent is indexed in addition to offering the PDF application for download. Better yet, if you're interested in a particular patent, you can contact the owner and check availability for a possible project down the road. Patent Search seems to be miles ahead of Google's patent search, which searches through a mere 7 million patents and only provides the publicly-accessible PDF. Looking ahead, Patent Search seems like one of the better sites for finding inspiration for your very own project.
