Are patents good sources for academic research? I'm a freshman Master's student in Computer Science and I need to write a paper for my Operating System class. While looking through research articles using google scholar I found that a lot results lead me to patents. I was wondering if patents are good sources for writing an academic paper or if I should steer clear from them?

My goal is to be able to summarize various papers from a specific topic related to operating systems. Also if possible (but not mandatory) to provide some kind of solution. Any advice would be greatly appreciated since this would be my first time writing a technical paper.
Are patents good sources for academic research?


In general, a clear NO. Typically, patents are intentionally written in a diffuse language to cover as much ground as possible (without incuring the danger of claiming something already known for oneself).  They are not written in a way that they can be used by an engineer or understood by a scholar. They are written such that the courts later can decide in favor of the patent holder or their representative.