> In general it has, it is just that the USPTO's software hasn't.
On the contrary, USPTO's internal search tool (PE2E Search) is overall good and has many features that I wish public search engines like Google had. The main difference is that it's designed for power searchers, not the general public. Yes, PE2E Search has a lot of issues, but the USPTO contractor who commented here has probably never used it to search for patents and thus has no basis for comparison. You should take what they said with that caveat in mind.
My basic point is that no existing search technology makes up for the sheer increase in documents to search. The last significant innovation in patent search was switching to computerized search in the 90s. The changes since then have been relatively minor, but the number of documents to search since then has increased dramatically. Maybe some AI based search will eventually be a game changer, but for now it's not (I've tried 5+ AI search tools and they usually aren't good) and I don't see that changing any time soon.
On the contrary, USPTO's internal search tool (PE2E Search) is overall good and has many features that I wish public search engines like Google had. The main difference is that it's designed for power searchers, not the general public. Yes, PE2E Search has a lot of issues, but the USPTO contractor who commented here has probably never used it to search for patents and thus has no basis for comparison. You should take what they said with that caveat in mind.
My basic point is that no existing search technology makes up for the sheer increase in documents to search. The last significant innovation in patent search was switching to computerized search in the 90s. The changes since then have been relatively minor, but the number of documents to search since then has increased dramatically. Maybe some AI based search will eventually be a game changer, but for now it's not (I've tried 5+ AI search tools and they usually aren't good) and I don't see that changing any time soon.
Also see these other comments I made:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33509535
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506241
(Again, like my other comments here, this is just my opinion, not that of the USPTO or US government.)