The United States Patent Office has its own searchable site, but if you play with both you'll soon see why the IBM site is better. The US Patent Office web site now discusses the new Provisional Patents . For clearer explanation of the details, however, go to the following two sites set up by Patent Attorneys. I prefer their discussion of the Provisionals. Last Comments 1.
Most people think that is what a patent is about.
The Patent office has to s ee exactly what goes into this machine before they would grant a patent. All the descriptions and pictures before the claims are meaningless as far as the real protection goes. The above points are probably confusing you. Don't feel bad. I have been patenting stuff for a couple of decades now and did not grasp those two points myself until about three years ago when one of my inventor friends suggested I might have better results with his patent attorney.