There is now a Patents search (see below) on the default list of available Google searches! Patents search is still in Beta. As of writing this post, nobody else seems to have noticed this development.
This is most interesting because there are tons of other search technologies Google is working on that would seem more fit for mainstream. If Google is looking for publicity on Patents search, it is also weird that they have yet to cover this (very quiet upgrade) in their official blog.
I am surprised that the relatively new Patents search got to the coveted default search list before the more well defined secondary searches such as:
If this is some kind of power play, I’d love to hear some speculation.
My guess is that this is a move to better publicize the feature since it is a relatively obscure search. However, out of the billions of search queries performed on Google, is there really that many related to patents? Aside from lawyers and maybe a few entrepreneurs, who looks up patents?
Surely there are better secondary searches Google could have promoted to the front page!