Slashdot Mirror
Google Patents the Design of Search Results Page
prostoalex writes "ZDNet is reporting that USPTO issued a patent to Google, Inc. for 'ornamental design for a graphical user interface'. This is not, as ZDNet points out, a software patent (which is usually issued as a utility patent), but a design patent, which governs the look and feel of the product and prevents others from directly copying it." Ironic, given Google's recent slip-up of copying a Yahoo page. In news on the flipside, Google has launched a patent search service (in beta).
Design patents aren't "look and feel" they're "exact look". Unlike utility patents, a design patent covers one thing and one thing only: the decorative appearance of something. So I can make a doorknob that looks a particular way, and since it's a physical object and not a play, song, book, whatever, it's not copyrightable but with the design patent, I can prevent other companies from making the exact same doorknob. But I can't stop them from making a "kind of roundish square doorknob", which was the idea behind the feel part of the "look and feel" patent attempt.
On the subject of them "copying" a Yahoo page:
Has anyone thought that maybe, just maybe, that's a template provided by Microsoft? You know, since it's pitching the IE7 upgrade and all that.
From the article,
Quote "And I've checked with our PR group to make sure that this wasn't just a template that Microsoft gave to all partners. It's not." Unquote.