As a layman, i.e. non engineer, I find it quite interesting to look over the extremely large data base, that is the US Patent Office via Google Patents. It's an education about the all that I see in the material world (as compared with the religious). It's a stimulant to understanding -- how to act practically and creatively, in designing and inventing.
But what's a problem too often again for a layman, and I would think for young people who should become our next generation of designers, inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs, is the highly arcane descriptions and language in a formal patent text. I think to make the database "accessible", people who can write clearly ought to take several of these patents and put them into understandable and logical language, (e.g. create some website where the "public" can put in requests) following the patents paragraph by paragraph. For instance, I was looking up how, on an industrial basis, marshmallows were made - Class 99 -134 - by some extrusion process. Hey what the hell are they talking about ?
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