request for patent info

Eric Hughes writes:

As much as we need this, we also need the actual text of the patents. What a patent actually covers is often much narrower than what is claimed.

Anyone near a federal patent repository can easily get this information. Walk in, find the patent by number, have the nice attendant print it out on a crappy photostat machine, pay in cash, leave. No written record! Rice U. has a nice staff. (I don't know where the west coast ones are.)