Google has just launched another new search service - Google Patent Search - and yes, it's still in Beta. The new service allows users to search for U.S. patents by keyword, patent number, inventor, and filing date. You may also look at related images and zoom in on pages. To mix things up, everytime you visit the Patent Search homepage, Google will display 5 random patents that will hopefully capture your curiosity.
Google uses a special algorithm to determine how relevant a patent is to a user's search query, which will undoubtedly make it easier to search Google for patents than the cumbersome government search functions. The search engine includes over 7 million patents, although it is lacking those issued in the past few months. However, that problem is expected to be resolved very shortly.