Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) launched its patent search service (zhuanli.baidu.com) in beta on December 26, reports Sina. The new service was developed through a partnership between Baidu and the Intellectual Property Office's China Patent Information Center and includes information on over 2.7 million patents. Users can search information by application number, date, people, address and inventor. Google launched US patent search services in December 2006. There were previous rumors that Baidu planned to launch the patent search service on 1 January 2008.