Patents are freely available from the US Patent and trademark office but are notoriously hard to search. There is a huge industry of patent searching because before you fill out a new patent application you have the make sure there isn't already one like it. I don't think this will replace extenstive patent searching...just one more tool.
Comments from a Patent lawyer's blog: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2006/12/search_patents_.html#comments
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