Google Patents [Further Thoughts]

• The “advanced search page” provides a nice search interface for the database: http://www.google.com/advanced_patent_search
• Doing a search also provides a list of forward (references cited) and backwards (cited by) patents. Very useful!
• The images provided appear to be PNGs. No PDF download option (yet?). Of course, if you are looking for a free patent PDF, you could use one of the programs mentioned here.