Google said Wednesday it has been working with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to provide bulk patent and trademark data to the
public for free. Until now, USPTO's public data in bulk form has been provided solely as a fee-based service.
All granted patents and
trademarks, and published applications, with both full text and images are free. Google also plans to make file histories and related data available in the future, too.
Google Patent Search launched in 2006. At first, not all searches were up to date, but relevance improved over time.