"It's a natural extension of our mission to make this public domain government information more easily accessible using Google's search technology," software engineer Doug Banks wrote on the official Google blog.

Banks was forced to edit the post after prematurely announcing enhanced printing and saving functions for the service. "We're still working on that," the update read.

While the integration into Google may attract new users curious about patents, the information isn't newly available online. The United States Patent and Trademark Office already has a search service covering the same period.
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