Not quite from a mainstream news
source, but I recently came across a fun webapp on reddit called www.recipelabs.com . While I consider it far from a proper product, it employs some
really interesting techniques for organization and retrieval.
Our patent system is one of the more convoluted organizing systems that our federal government employs. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is in charge of organizing and approving new inventions (and associated rights).