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Google Patents Its Home Page
theodp writes "A week after new USPTO Director David Kappos pooh-poohed the idea that a lower patent allowance rate equals higher quality, Google was granted a patent on its Home Page. Subject to how the design patent is enforced, Google now owns the idea of having a giant search box in the middle of the page, with two big buttons underneath and several small links nearby. And you doubted Google's commitment to patent reform, didn't you?"
That is all.
I think Google needs a new motto.
Apparently she can't refrain from making Google be evil.
The only two good things I can think of regarding this are
Free Martian Whores!
Design patents are for very distinctive but not functional items.
EG, Apple has tons, TONS of design patents on the iMac, as they had on the NeXT cube and pizza boxes, as so on and so forth...
That google did NOT already have a design patent on their home page is strange and noteworthy, not that they just got one now.
Test your net with Netalyzr
It is of course perfectly possible that they have no intention of abusing this in any way, and merely wanted to make sure they didn't end up fighting any stupid law suits from some bright spark who had the idea of filing something similar and going after them with it.
Time will tell how 'evil' this is.
Let me defend google. One thing is wanting to reform the status quo, another having to live with it. They are pragmatic. It doesn't make sense to close your eyes to reality. Google has been fighting off patent trolls for a long time. They have to be careful.
Combine this with Microsofts Idea that the whole world follows US Patentsand the idiots who think that patent infringement should be a crime and it won't be long before someone does time for the layout of their web page.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Although I wonder if they'll be using the patent to go after competitors, or just getting it to prevent being patent trolled themselves.
Anybody else notice that the slashdot reply function is a box in the middle of the page, buttons underneath and a bunch of links around it?
Google does many things better then other people. Now they're a huge company, but that doesn't mean they must be evil. I can't say that this patent means much except that their covering their rears. If they hold the patent, its unlikely anyone can file a similar one and drag them into a big lawsuit.
It's not how ridiculous your patent is. It's how you use it.
The Bing and Yahoo search pages look a lot like what the patent describes, may be google will sue them, and make bing and Yahoo search pages go back to the days of alta-vista and lycos.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
In retaliation, goatse has now patented mooning, and also all images of anuses.
That's not evil, that's a public service.
There must be some functionality that is patented, so I doubt the patent is just "a search box with a couple buttons".
Google creates a lot of IP and for the most part gives it away to users in the form of useful, free products and services. The only way to protect IP is to maintain legal control of it, otherwise you never know when someone may try to sue you.
Much like Microsoft, Google is extending its patent portfolio to preempt litigation, not to come down hard on little guys. I would be a bit hesitant to start screaming about Google at this point because I disagree with their methodology. They have a reason for getting these patents, and for all the patents that they've generated, there are few examples where they've used it as anything but a defensive weapon.
After reading the article and the links about Mayer, the axiom that life isn't fair has been proven to me again without a doubt. I have now completely given up hope and I'm going walk around with a sandwich board muttering "Bullshit -bullshit-bullshit-....".
...note that this a is a design patent . It is more like a trademark than a utility patent and covers only the "non-functional" elements of the design.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Publicly lobbying for reform on patents they themselves own, doesn't this seem like a more defensive move than a necessarily malicious one?
I'm sure every doctor protesting tort reform has liability insurance regardless. Why shouldn't Google get some insurance of their own? It's a cut-throat world out there, after all. If you don't tread carefully, you'll get shut down.
It's been a long time.
In the hipster-doofus lovefest that is for all things Google, it's important to remember one critical, key point
Google is a publicly traded company and it's only obligation is to make a profit for shareholders
That means doing things like filing for ridiculous patents (because everyone else does it) and co-operating with bending to the will of Chinese authorities (because if we don't some other search company will and make all the money)
"Do no evil" is more of a guideline than a rule with Google. Maybe they should file a copyright for "We do less evil than everyone else"
Google fills the evil void. Maybe they can patent a two-hour email outage for paying customers too?
First, there's the outages. Google NEVER used to go down, it was part of their "mystique"--their engineering was SOOO amazing, and so well designed. The Cloud could NEVER go down!
Second, there's the Evil. I feel like I saw this one coming, years ago, having spent a good portion of my career in the advertising industry. It's a simple equation, right? Google is a publicly-traded company, and their core business is selling advertisements, which means their REAL business is selling your eyeballs+buying habits to anybody and everybody with cash. Eventually, there had to be some visible, significant conflicts between the basic reality and their high-concept, geek-chic PR fantasy.
Finally, and this is more personal, there's the lack of responsiveness from developers, and the perception of a "one-way street". Go look up the API for Google Tasks, and you'll see what I mean: Not only doesn't it exist, despite a lot of begging from interested users/developers, but Google keeps responding (when they do respond, which isn't often) that they have a corporate policy of not discussing pending release schedules. I understand that they have finite resources and have to make their own development roadmap, but their attitude seems to be "we're not going to acknowledge the gripes of our base". Which basically is the same attitude that any Big Software Company takes.
So, I'm not saying that Google is a crap company, or that I'm going to stop using Gmail, or that they're the new Evil Empire. But they're not really fundamentally different from every other Evil Corporation that we like to villify, here on Slashdot. There are no "good guys" and "bad guys"--there's just an open field of self-interested actors, each with a shitload more money, engineers, and lawyers than you.
They should patent "The use of beta software for extented periods" too.
http://web.archive.org/web/19960512212113/http://www.infoseek.com/
Let me get this straight.
Google goes to a library and begins to scan every book they can get their hands on for the "Altruistic" reason of making the book available for a wider audience. This is without asking the author's permission, and to make things appear fair they make a scheme that authors have to follow to "opt-out". This is basically changing the enforcement of the current copyright law for Google's benefit.
While at the same time they are defending their right to copy the contents of a book without the author's permission in court, they patent their home page so other's can't copy it without Google's permission. Bizarre. Pot meet Kettle...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I love hearing people going "But wait, it's not THAT evil! Think of it like this...". If this was Microsoft everyone would be shitting on them, going "Microsoft being an evil dickwad as normal...". But I guess that's the popular band wagon Google love/Microsoft hate train of /.
I'm sorry, in advance, for ranting and raving, but this is absolute lunacy. A web page design is copyright protected at best. What makes the central search box and a couple of buttons and nearby links a unique business process? Google's structure of algorithims, cache servers, and distributed search processing are (IMO) a patentable business process. In fact, I'd argue that there's an abundance of prior art out there against this patent. Does anyone remember the early Webcrawler page? It might not have been centered (but that's just formatting), but it had a very basic search box, a search button, and a list of category links below (from October 1996: http://web.archive.org/web/19961023234707/http://www.webcrawler.com/).
Google might have a relaxed and hip work environment, but some people in their legal and/or IP departments must be (IMO) taking some really bad trips. This is downright stupidity that does nothing to help promote meaningful patent reform unless Google uses this patent as an example of the type of schlock that is getting approved, and makes it the 'poster boy' for patent reform.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
With Google, I know they do it to protect the idea from the patent trolls themselves. Google is NOT in the business of collecting money by patent-trolling, we all know that.
And besides, as many have mentioned, this is a design patent, anyway. It would be impossible to patent a web page with a search box, because there is, demonstrably, prior art.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Haha so now the Pirate Bay is infringing on just another patent... its homepage.
It's hard to be a good 'idea' company in America when using the patent system at all is an act that will move your alignment towards evil.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I love how some people can be so quick to say, "As long as..." "Everyone else is..." "They are just protecting..." "They are just showing how idiotic..." blah, blah, blah, yet so quick to fire off at the lips if another company does something like this, that they are evil, money grubbing, and wanting to rule the world.
It's so unbelieveable idiotic, it cracks me up how people can be so brainwashed. Wake up sheep, hyprocrits! LMAO.
...or they could have simply published and established prior art without the need for a patent.
If you have an idea and you want to make sure you can use it, but don't think it is patent worthy, you can publish it to cite later when someone else attempts to patent it.
When I was designing manufacturing systems, we would often do this. Since it was internal technology, it would be difficult to identify infringers using it in their factories. However, we didn't want some machine vendor or someone visiting claiming our designs are an infringement.
I'll admit I don't trust Google as far as I can throw one of their private jets. I'll also admit that I believe patents are important to protect real innovations.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
It's already public knowledge! I thought you could patent something that was already known to the public.
Another hysterical, misinformed and hyped article from theodp.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Powerful executive; athlete; fashionista; and genius inventor of this totally unprecedented rendering of HTML
She's not an "athlete". Neither her Wikipedia page nor any google searches turn up any mention of her doing any sports, nor any competitive entries.
Please help metamoderate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In case you hadn't noticed, "obvious prior art" doesn't seem to be so, to the USPTO. Clearly the people who work at the patent office in the USA are ancient men who respect football and beer and have secretaries to print their email so that they can read it. They have black dial phones, and a cell is a place to hold felons. They have a colective case of cranio-sygmoidal insertion that would rate a Guiness record.
We'll see what Google does with this patent.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
It's a design patent you twits. It doesn't cover anything but the appearance of the home page. It doesn't imply any coverage of an idea of a "simple home page" or anything else like that.
Seriously Slashdot editors should be required to take a few lessons on the various types of patents, basic copyright law and trademark law. The amount of misinformation on these topics here is frightening.
or anyone else who files absurd, trivial or stupid patents. I still blame idiotic laws and an insane patent office. And a game where the rule is to accumulate as many patents as possible to guard against being bombarded by patent lawyers first.
Where does it end. I think back to the times when people were patenting their business ideas, one-clicks, the whole idea of a GUI in general, etc... But this, I just... WoW. We obviously need to rethink this whole system, or be litigated to death by the 'Man'...
Or I suppose we could just do the Andy Warhol thing, blast up prints of the same style all over, if enough of us do it all at once, could they really bring it down? *shrugs*
*Crawls off in search off coffee & a bear claw*
Should Slashdot follow suit? The look and feel of Slashdot must be protected! Everyone- patent your page designs! Seriously- the next thing that will happen is Korea will ignore it and create their own "Koreïa" page that looks exactly like the Google page just because they can(tm).
And then I read down to the next post in the feed, and feel faint.
*Goes in search of something stronger to add to coffee*
google can do as much evil as it wants
all it has to do is whenever someone searches for the word evil, subtly change the links retrieved over time to completely redefine the word as used in the english language
none of us will notice when google does evil as all of our collective definition of what evil is is completely redefined
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That really depends on how that patent is licensed, no?
A design patent is not the same as a utility patent.
To me this makes sense that Google patent their page because their home page is their Company Logo basically. As we have more and more companies that only reach people via the web this makes sense, to a degree. I cannot disagree with their actions, however, if the patent is defined loosely so as to prevent others from simplistic home pages, then the patent system is even more flawed than ever. /popcorn
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I summarised the invention for anyone who doesn't want to read TFP.
<html>
<body>
<center>
<h4>Google</h4>
<p><input size="55"/></p>
</center>
</body>
</html>
They probably should have published it as prior art, but prior art doesn't seem to mean much in this world. The USPTO seems to ignore any prior art and then issue the patent anyway. Then Google would likely get sued and have to spend the money to defend the lawsuit (likely in East Texas) and then get the patent invalidated. It is cheaper to file for it themselves then try to defend a lawsuit later. I honestly don't believe that's the reason they have done this. I wish it was, and I hope it does show how ridiculous the patent system has gotten, but I doubt that was the main reason google applied for this patent.
How is it not totally idiotic to patent a simplistic and trivial "design" like this ... and how is it not totally idiotic to then fight over whether some similar "design" is too similar?
There is not IP in this because no intellect whatsoever is necessary to come up with it.
It's flair.
"Read a book!"
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
E.g., does that mean other people are free to design a similar interface? Of course not. In which case, they share the same property of other kinds of patents that people disagree with.
The geek will borrow freely from Apple, Microsoft and Google and in his next breath complain that everything in FOSS has begun to look like something out of Apple, Microsoft and Google.
It's the same with books, music and the movies.
The geek's notion of creativity and invention begins and ends with the clearly derivative work - he is at heart a writer of fan-fiction.
Why is the French version still extant and the classic one down?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
because french people are not afraid of a little sodomy once in a while
So would some browser like IE3 which mangles everything now be important to break designs with existing code?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
In case you hadn't noticed they did publish it. They even went to the lengths of making it the main feature of their website just to make it obvious that they really were publishing it.
I'm all for invalidating software patents, but this one seems logical to me. The Google home page is iconic... the layout makes me think "Google". And at least this is a patent for something that will actually be used for not-litigation.
you can publish it to cite later when someone else attempts to patent it.
In the UK to establish copyright you used to be able to send yourself a stamp addressed envelope containing the relevant work. So long as it remained unopened the postmark served as both a mark of authenticity and also as a timestamp.
Google doesn't have to spend money to defend a patent suit in East Texas. It would be cheaper for them to buy East Texas.
It's official. Your the Slashdot Maddona. You can drop the OfDeath from your SlashID and just be known forever more here on Slashdot as "Doofus"OfDeath^H^H^H^H^H^H^H. *
* The Caret-H's are mandatory; this is Slashdot after all.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Hey! I never got any royalties from that image, somebody owes me some big bucks!
It has to be prior art, take a look at sites like altavista.com which were around long before google. Granted the two buttons are not there, but if you count links as buttons then certainly it's similar. What is a button used in this context btw? you could argue that it's a stylized link.
This leads you to (worst case) having every site on the net patient their design. Doesn't copyright cover this already? IANL
http://web.archive.org/web/19971210060408/http://altavista.digital.com/
Our company got around it by labeling the button "I'm feeling frisky" instead of "lucky".
Table-ized A.I.
If you have an idea and you want to make sure you can use it, but don't think it is patent worthy, you can publish it to cite later when someone else attempts to patent it.
Or you can patent it and have an ironclad defense. Prior art should prevent infringement suits, but patents work better. With patent application so cheap, they'd be idiots NOT to patent something they feared they could get sued for.
Prior art works better for when something gives you a true competitive edge and can't be reverse engineered anyway, like a manufacturing system. Since a patent requires you explain things in detail, patenting a secret process can be counter-productive. However, with something that's already public anyway (like a controller design, or the design of your webpage), defensive patents are the best option.
Two problems here:
1. They should patent heart-attacks, not mooning.
2. It's an image of *lack* of anie (plural?).
Table-ized A.I.
Microsoft patenting BSOD is why Apple had to patent the slogan, "Crash Different". See how it all snowballs?
Table-ized A.I.
Watch out Thottbot...
A "design patent" is something very different from a "patent". A design patent protects the look of something. So, you can't have a big white page with the Google logo and the same arrangement of buttons on it. Big deal.
the problem in the US with that is that the post office sells "first day covers" and the IRS has run into this issue. You can get an envelop with a post mark of the first day a stamp was issued, say April 14th. However, you do not do your taxes until say, August 31st. You use the first day cover and it says you did them in April. How the court missed the issue that you have to date when you sign your return I'll never know, but they had to accept the post mark date. What I am getting at is that you could do the same thing to establish prior art.
Hey! I never got any royalties from that image, somebody owes me some big bucks!
bah... shove it up your...
I know what patent our idiotic CTO is going to try and get next now.
This is probably another step in their battle against Booble!
The reality is the modern search page is a box in the top right corner of a browser, that then leads to an output page, where the user might or might not edit the search query, depending upon the quality of the results. So the reality of the current google search page no longer even remotely looks like the one they patented, 'Google' is to the left of an input box and one action button is to the right, with the output below, and a horizontal menu across the top, this is in fact the page that gets viewed by far the majority of the time, so the design patent they got is well and truly pointless.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I find myself conflicted about this issue.
This seems like an entirely inappropriate use of the patent system. Instead, it seems iconic... thus, trademarkable. Almost certainly, already trademarked.
A patent lasts 20 years, then expires and cannot be renewed. Trademarks last pretty much forever (in terms of life of the owning company).
So which legal 'you can't do that' should I support?
because french people are not afraid of a little sodomy once in a while
i think that guy was involved in just a little sodomy.
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
How come they are granted a patent when the grace period is only 1yr? The design has been like this since 1998.
When I was learning about patents at school (I'm an Engineer), they mentioned that method and said that it was not a legitimate method because you can send yourself an unsealed envelope, then seal documents in it later. This was in the US, though. Might be legit in the UK.
Please Google !
Challenge your own Patent in East Texas !
-- kjh
Great news, Google does EVIL.
Oh, wait, no news.
I'm converting all my clients sites now to match EXACTLY their worthless patent.
Go ahead bitches, sue them all.
bing
Or... it's a cunning ploy to show how idiotic Patents are in this day-and-age.
It is what it is. A patent. Reason being, those are the rules of the game today.
Just because you're for patent reform doesn't suddenly mean that the whole rest of the world will leave you alone while you're off crusading. You still have to play by the rules of the game as they are today. If they were suddenly to not pursue patents, they'd be bulldozed over by the competition. When you're dead and buried it's hard to fight for change.
So as for now, they're in it to win by the rules of the day. Here's hoping they work to make a better ruleset for tomorrow, but I don't begrudge them fighting tooth and nail within the system as it is today.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
done.
Just don't put a "I'm feeling lucky" button, and you're bueno va!
I'm surprised, though - Google has a 'home page'? Does anybody still actually GO to GOOG's home page? I just use it from my browser. *shrug*
This line of thinking has always puzzled me. I'm a co-founder of a small engineering company that my co-owners and I hope to grow. Is it your thesis that our company has been lacking any sort of conscience and empathy since the day we founded it? Or is it non-evil now, but we can expect it to become evil at some point in the future, as it grows? If the latter, at what point does our company become evil? Is there a visible threshold below which we can stay? Should we turn away customers, so as to remain below some specific size? Or make lower-quality or less-innovative products? Please advise.
...or they could have simply published and established prior art without the need for a patent.
Having a patent also lets them use it to counter sue. Its called a defensive patent.
.I'll also admit that I believe patents are important to protect real innovations.
Have you any evidence that you base that belief on. All the evidence that I have ever come across point the other way - especially with regard to software, where the state of the art does not seem to be advancing any faster since it became patentable.
The ideas behind this have been around for ages. It is only one of many cosmetic variations on the theme. Just shows how long past its sell by date the US Patent Office and legislation is.
.I'll also admit that I believe patents are important to protect real innovations.
Have you any evidence that you base that belief on. All the evidence that I have ever come across point the other way - especially with regard to software, where the state of the art does not seem to be advancing any faster since it became patentable.
Well it is a "belief" and thus is based on my personal experience. Having worked in organizations that produce physical products (not just software) patents on key innovations have been important.
For example, you discover a extremely efficient circuit for rapid charging a portable device after significant research in materials and circuit design. Is not reasonable to limit your competitors from just copying the technique and selling it?
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
Dumbest use of a patent ever! The patent office no longer serves a purpose and needs to be closed. With no more patents people will be free to innovate without all this BS!!
"Amusing; but pointless."
It works in the US too.... but you're missing the point.
You see everything is already copy-righted. You write a book, you own it. The idea of mailing it to yourself is that you have a copy of it in a sealed container dated by the government to prove you are the one who made it before someone else did.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
http://web.archive.org/web/19961022174810/http://www.altavista.com/
That is all.
And if you sent yourself an unsealed envelope you could... put anything into it later on?
This doesn't seem all that airtight to me...
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
In the UK to establish copyright you used to be able to send yourself a stamp addressed envelope containing the relevant work. So long as it remained unopened the postmark served as both a mark of authenticity and also as a timestamp.
Not really, no. The Royal Mail will gladly deliver your unsealed empty envelope to you, complete with postmark, and ready to
receive any content you want to "prove" is yours. You'll need at least some credible witness confirming your story.
Also, http://www.copyrightauthority.com/poor-mans-copyright/ and http://www.snopes.com/legal/postmark.asp
I have a website with a page with a password box in the center of the page, some buttons and links.
Now, you might think "well no, a password box is just to enter a password, not to search", but technically you are wrong. ...
The process of entering a password would require prior knowledge. You are using that prior knowledge to search what is behind the password page.
The computer also searches a file for correct passwords to give back information, depending on the password.
BRING IT GOOGLE!
It [mailing yourself a document to establish time of original publishing] works in the US too....
No, it doesn't. That's something of an urban myth.
The post office will gladly deliver an unsealed, empty envelope as long as it has sufficient postage attached. A document being inside a postmarked envelope is no proof that the envelope contained the document when it was postmarked.
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
No it is not reasonable at all, because it leads to a situation whereby the consumers are ultimately penalised for the anti-competitive structures of business. Scale out your example a bit to include your competitors and your potential customers. You consider your discovery to be a unique selling point, something with which you will attract many customers. But your example is willfully stupid because it neglects to mention anything of your competitors other than painting them in the villainous nature of thieves. Lets say you have two main competitors, and they each have their own patented USPs.
One of them has developed an innovative gesture recognition system that's an order above anything else on the market. It is something customers find extremely useful and saves them time when operating their phones. However, they've got a solid patent on the system and even if you were able to successfully reproduce (even without reverse engineering) the result, you'd be unable to include it in a product.
The other has developed the means for a device to drain significantly less power than it currently does. Up to doubling the operational time between charges. It works in tandem with another of their patented developments to draw power from the environment. Solar cells in convenient locations, drawing heat from being in a near-to-body pocket, and drawing power from simply being moved around. Overall, their devices could last up to 4-5 times longer than yours, but you can't mimic that functionality.
From the perspective of a consumer, what I want is a device that can do all of the above. But I can't get it. The three companies have all patented their greatest innovations, and will of course refuse to license them to protect their unique position in the market. Surely the correct answer is not to artifically create a market where 3 companies with 3 sub-par products battle it out for our money? I'd much rather having a device that is capable of all of the above with the companies competing not on mutually exclusive technology, but on the efficiency of their production and distribution, the build quality of their devices, their customer service levels and their reputation as a company that's responsible to its immediate environment.
I do this with music for copyright purposes.
You have to send it as registered delivery, which is dated, signed and stamped. I used to us a DLT, now a CF card with the tracks of recorded music, and a piece of paper written using register ink.
Until opened by the receiver, technically the package is property of the queen.
I have known of this to be used in court, the Clarke opened the package in court, material was played, case won.
fuck off , gimp.
It's not scientific unless it can measured! And my Sod-O-Meter is barely lifting from the peg. Oh wait. There it goes. Yes, definitely a lift-off. 2% - 5% - 10% - 35% - WOW! 100% and climbing! Thank you, French persons for bending over! Zut alors!
Prior art can't be expected to hold up in all countries, anymore:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090826/1354186007.shtml
And as far as I'm concerned, their design was quite novel at the time. The simplicity of the page was why I first set my browser to use it by default. It wasnt the brilliance of the search result, but simply that a 14400 baud modem loaded it quickly.
I'd certainly rather such a patent be held by a company with no history of abusing patents, than the alternative.
The vast majority of French people are limp wristed, cowardly fags who don't shower and wear a lot of perfume. It's not surprising that they love anuses and sodomy so much.
From http://www.rienswagerman.nl/2008/01/googles-design-overview.html : "The first Google homepage was built by Sergey Bin one of the two founders of google. Sergey did not have enough HTML skills to make a fancy designed HTML page so he kept it simple. The page changed over time but is in essence still the same."
I assume by "trademark" you mean the logo on their website.
You don't understand what a design patent is. Since I have often worked in the realm of the visual arts (both from an IT standpoint and as a designer), I do understand what a design patent is.
A design patent is almost akin to a "look and feel" patent. It's like Apple patenting the trash can, or Lotus patenting to look and feel of 1-2-3. The difference is that a design patent is typically more "look" and less "feel" (though, confusingly, textures can be specified, for example!)
The idea is that no one else can make a home page that looks like their home page. This is perfectly reasonable and does not have to include the logo at all (nor would it, as companies are apt to change logos several times within their term of existence: Microsoft, for example, has changed their company logo I think 2 or 3 times, which is not at all unusual).
Think about the shape of (the original) Coca Cola bottle (the glass ones. If you've never seen one, ask anyone older than 30-35). That design, at one point, was covered by a design patent. It is still covered by a trademark. (A design can be both trademarked and patented).
The purpose is to prevent someone from producing a knockoff, say "Mr. Cola" and then using a similar looking design in order to confuse people into buying their product when they were looking for Coca-Cola.
This is not evil at all, and serves not only to help the companies involved, but also to help the consumer distinguish amongst the various competing products.
There's nothing to stop you from making a simple home page with a single search box and few links. You just can't make yours look like Google's.
My blog
In this case, what would be the real difference between this design patent and a trademark? I recognize the link between "I'm feeling lucky" and Google. If the patent is required to carry this phrase, how is it different than just getting a trademark on the phrase?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
I doubt this will lead to patent reforms. I doubt this is evidence that google is evil.
But I am known to doubt a lot of things.
It's a design patent, not a 'normal' patent. The right granted is to the non-functional appearance of the page.
No big deal despite the usual errors in the reporting of this.
Regardless of whether that's worth diddly, the usual slashdot dumbness and poorly informed patent comments roll on in...
For apparently smart people, slashdot readers seem totally incapable of learning some IP law.
No, it is not a trademark. It is a design patent (not to be confused with a utility patent),
Google is not protecting the words, but the look of a webpage. The "Google" could be trademarked or servicemarked, but the rest of the page cannot. The design patents are similar to trademarks and servicemarks, but since the webpage, itself, is a device, it is the correct vehicle to protect the appearance of this device.
If this were a utility patent, I could understand how everyone would be so upset. But it's not (did anyone notice the big "D" in the beginning of the patent number? It indicates that it is a design patent.
what does anyone expect from a multi billion copr - more greed and control of course...