[Genealib] Google Patents: A drawback

[Drew Smith]

Cynthia Van Ness writes:
> Try searching on Koosh ball--you know, those stringy, rubbery 
> ball toys from the 1980s.  You will not find it because Koosh 
> was a trade name given to the product after the patent was 
> granted.  You have to know to look for balls, filaments, and 
> so on, and browse through 50 or more patents to find the right one.
>  This is a search process that even I know little about after 
> decades in librarianship.  Now picture the average layperson 
> going at it. 

It's actually a bit easier than that.

You can search for "Koosh ball" in Wikipedia, find that Scott Stillinger
invented it, put "stillinger" into the Google Patents search, and have come
up as the first hit:
"Generally spherical object with floppy filaments to promote sure capture"

Another easy option is to put both "koosh" and "patent" into a general
Google search, and have it come up with a lot of hits including some on the
very first page that tell you the exact patent number (4756529), and then
plug that number into the Google Patents search.

Drew Smith
Instructor
School of Library and Information Science
University of South Florida, Tampa