yeah, so i’m reading this month’s new scientist and in the ‘technology trends‘ section, writer paul marks whipped up a frighteningly concise look at where online access to patent information stands…and where it’s headed…a big deal? well, if you’re an inventor looking to prove that you’ve concocted a ‘new, useful and non-obvious‘ thing, you’re relying on the antiquated ways of global patent offices to check for “prior art” - a formidable task given the absence of complete digitization (i know, that’s a bullshit business buzzword, a ‘3B‘ if you will)….of the 45 million patent documents that have been digitized worldwide, only 15 million offer a full text version (ouch)

…so how bad is it in different countries? well, for starters, page scanning is only complete in the european office and the world office - but for the world office, less than 50 percent of that ‘completed text scanning’ is available to search (more than 75 percent is text-searchable for the european office, where people supposedly work only 3 months per year, 4 hours per day)…..as for the other countries, here’s how they stack up:

france: less than 10 percent of text is available to search (but the women there are hot)
germany: less than 50 percent of text is available to search (and unemployment sucks too)
japan: less than 50 percent of text is available to search (somebody tell ’salary man’ to get crackin’)
united kingdom: less than 10 percent of text is available (must be a labor party issue)
united states: 1976-present, over 75 percent, 1790-1976, less than 50 percent (and the schools suck)

…will this lead to a big future drop in the quality of patents granted? you betcha!..damn, i shoulda gone to law school…

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