Overture Sues Google Over Pay-for-Placement Patent

Ana anonymous submitter wrote: "C|Net News is reporting that Overture is suing Google over its AdWords advertising method since it may be infringing upon Patent 6,269,361 'System and method for influencing a position on a search result list generated by a computer network search engine'."

Comments

Heh

[Auckerman]

"Basically we've analyzed the patent and determined that we do not infringe on any valid claim that it contains,"

Translation: Your patent sucks ass and we have the money to prove it.

This got a patent? You're shitting me.

[devphil]

"System and method for influencing a position on a search result list generated by a computer network search engine."

How is "give us money and we'll rank you higher" an original contribution to art and science? It reminds me of the feminist character at the frat party at the end of PCU, with the dawning realization, "You mean, if you're nice to [males], they bring you stuff?"

It's days like this, where I'm almost ready to write my Senator and try and take an active role, that I look at the decisions being made and say to myself, fuck it, we're too late.

they're not talking about the main search

[frankie]

For the 99% of you who didn't read the references:

Overture isn't suing about Google's page rank results, nor do they claim that the ad results are part of the main search. They're saying that the adwords results in and of themselves constitute a pay-for-play search that infringes the patent.

Personally, I think it sounds like a desperation play of a dying company.

Sofware patents encourage bickering & lazyness

[schwep]

Yet another prime example of why patents shouldn't apply to software.

The entire software industry should kneel down and kiss the feet of IBM, Xerox, and other early software pioneers for not patenting every software related concept... the linked list, the hash table, binary sorts, bubble sorts, grouping data, grouping data and methods, batch processing... because if they had done so, computers would still be in large room in the basements of our universities & large corporations, with little application in our lives.

Just try and think of something that hasn't been affected by computers.

It is sickening to look at many software companies today... always looking for the path of least resistance, and never willing to claim responsibility for thier actions.

They patented WHAT?!?!

[jigokukoinu]

It sounds like someone patented the "corruption of the results of one's own search engine."

What the hell kind of patent is that?

:)

Re:Hmmnn...okay, how about this:

[MtnMan1021]

i thing God can claim prior art on that invention.

yeah, but where do you think he's gonna find a lawyer in heaven?

business method patents aren't new

[frankie]

Overture's patent infringement suit comes amid widespread criticism of so-called business method patents--a relatively new class of invention recognized by the U.S. Patent Office and the courts that has led to a flood of filings laying claim to nuts and bolts Internet activities.

This paragraph of the article is phrased badly. The concept of patenting a business method is not new. What's new is that USPTO and the courts are allowing these stupid things to stand.

The Supreme Court wrote a fabulous ruling about bad patents way back in 1950. I urge everyone to read the full ruling and see how utterly it applies to modern events. Here's a couple favorite quotes:

• "The mere combination of a number of old parts or elements which, in combination, perform or produce no new or different function or operation than that theretofore performed or produced by them, is not patentable invention."
• "The function of a patent is to add to the sum of useful knowledge. Patents cannot be sustained when, on the contrary, their effect is to subtract from former resources freely available to skilled artisans."
• "The Patent Office, like most administrative agencies, has looked with favor on the opportunity which the exercise of discretion affords to expand its own jurisdiction. And so it has placed a host of gadgets under the armour of patents - gadgets that obviously have had no place in the constitutional scheme of advancing scientific knowledge."

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

prior art

[chompz]

I think I've seen prior art to this, how about the phone book.

Think about it, the "YELLOW" pages are pay for placement, while in the "WHITE" pages most listings are free, excepting businesses who pay extra high rates on thier local phone bill to have bold and two lines instead of one.

Hello! Does the addition of the word internet make this entirely different or something?

Internet adaptations of widely used ideas in print should not be pattented. The search engine just serves to filter the irrelevant from the relevant, something done in the yellow pages by "CATEGORIZATION", its just the with a search engine, the categorization is much more general and can be both a benifit and a detriment to the quality of the searching experience.

My 2cents, but I think I have a point here.

how (not) to write spec

[mshurpik]

Wow. This is my first time looking at a patent, and you know what? It reminds me very much of every kind of half-assed spec my client handed me when I was a web programmer.

Read on for analysis:

The system and method of the present invention provides a database

Provides a database? How about "uses," "engages," "is dependent upon"? This usage of "provides" is so far out in left-field that it's almost backwards. And yet, I see this exact mistake a lot.

In addition, each account contains at least one search listing having at least three components: a description, a search term comprising one or more keywords, and a bid amount.

As always, input fields are detailed to a laughably meticulous degree. Not to mention, the usage of "comprising" is backwards. One or more keywords comprise a search term. A search term is composed of one or more keywords.

The network information provider enters the search term and the description into a search listing.

And the physical process of using the application is folded into the spec itself like it's some sort of revelation. "First, the user fires up the application." Woah, crucial info!

The rank value generated by the bidding process determines where the network information providers listing will appear on the search results list page that is generated in response to a query of the search term by a searcher located at a client computer on the computer network.

Meanwhile, the actual guts of the algorithm are never defined, instead replaced with tangential buzzwords like "client computer" and useless information about network topology.

This is the current state-of-the-art in spec, boys. This is why your programming job is hell.

Re:how (not) to write spec

[BonThomme]

Writing a spec and writing a patent have little in common. In addition, patents are usually drafted by lawyers. The patent is intentionally vague and broad. Breadth is where a patent gets its strength. It's not in the drafter's interest to have a precisely-defined patent as that would impair the patent's coverage.

A lawyer would get fired for using the word "composed of" in an application. In patent-speak, "composed of" means "composed exactly of". That is, all I would have to do is add Froot Loops to my search term and poof, no infringement. "Comprising" means the thing has at least those components, and possibly more. In the "comprising" case, Froot Loops would infringe.

The patent does have to define a "complete" system, and that's why they have the bit about the client entering "the search term and the listing". If you've got something materializing out of nowhere, the app gets bounced for incompleteness.

That said, the patent is a monster: 7 independent claims and 60 dependent claims. If you really want to go nuts, read those.

I like this quote from the decision

[Vicegrip]

Every patent is the grant of a privilege of exacting tolls from the public. The Framers plainly did not want those monopolies freely granted. The invention, to justify a patent, had to serve the ends of science - to push back the frontiers of chemistry, physics, and the like; to make a distinctive contribution to scientific knowledge. That is why through the years the opinions of the Court commonly have taken "inventive genius" as the test. * It [340 U.S. 147, 155] is not enough that an article is new and useful. The Constitution never sanctioned the patenting of gadgets. Patents serve a higher end - the advancement of science. An invention need not be as startling as an atomic bomb to be patentable. But it has to be of such quality and distinction that masters of the scientific field in which it falls will recognize it as an advance.

One is left to sadly wonder why things have fallen so low.

Re:On a side note...

[leviramsey]

This may be a residual effect of people protesting the Xenu.net flap of a month ago.

Basically, Don Marti proposed that people run this shell script:

while : ; do
wget -o /dev/null -O /dev/null \
http://google.com/search?query=where+the+fuck+is+x enu+dot+net+you+chickenshit+stanford+assholes;
do ne

Google essentially took this to be a DoS attack against their search (which, to a large extent, it is, imho). They started banning IP's which were running this script. When lots of users from Comcast netblocks began running the script, they may have decided to block those netblocks.

Does Comcast happen to use PPPoE? If so, then I would say that Google's actions are warranted, imho.