US Patent Office Teams With Google On Database 82
PatPending writes "The Patent and Trademark Office announced it has reached a two-year 'no-cost' agreement with Google to make patent and trademark data electronically available and free to the public. From the article: 'Saying it lacks the technical capacity to offer such a service, PTO said the two-year agreement with Google is a temporary solution while the agency seeks a contractor to build a database that would allow the public to access such information in electronic machine-readable bulk form.'"
By lacks technical capability they really mean... (Score:5, Funny)
...that technically developing their own system would infringe on too many patents.
Re:Conflict of interest (Score:4, Funny)
Certainly could be good for Google if all of Microsoft's patents somehow end up showing up as Google patents :p