Have you ever wanted to search for existing or expired design patents not only in your own country, but in the countries where you'd like to sell your designs? A website called DesignView has wrangled together the design patent databases of 45 countries, plus the ARIPO (African Regional Intellectual Property Organization), EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), and lets you search all of them at once with a single search box.

Even better, the service is completely free, and they claim the databases they have access to are updated daily.

Just out of curiosity, I typed in "waffle irons" and got 97 results from a host of countries. I then discovered that the 2003 patent on Philippe Starck's waffle iron design has expired, meaning this is a prime time for me to swoop in and produce a too-close-for-comfort competing product.

Here's a complete list of the countries and organizations covered:

Albania
ARIPO
Austria
Benelux
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
China
Colombia
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
EUIPO
Finland
France
FYROM
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Mexico
Morocco
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Republic of Korea
Romania
Russian Federation
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Tunisia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States

WIPO

Get started here.