My understanding is that most of the "patents" are

My understanding is that most of the "patents" are actually "patents pending", which means they will not show up anywhere until the USPTO (assuming we are talking about US patent office) gives their official approval and a unique patent number is assigned. Having gone through this patent process myself in the past, I can tell you it is a long drawn out process, about 5 years was my experience. I haven't really dug too deep into the patent issue given my understanding/assumption above, but let me know if you find something else...

FITX