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?"

Comments

Don't be evil?

[mcgrew]

The Yahoo Search page, depicted at left, bears a striking resemblance to Google.com

I think Google needs a new motto.

Google's shareholders will be more pleased, of course, as will staff. Google diva Marissa Mayer, the overachieving VP of search, added another patent to her trophy case with the decision. Powerful executive; athlete; fashionista; and genius inventor of this totally unprecedented rendering of HTML. Is there anything Mayer can't do?

Apparently she can't refrain from making Google be evil.

The only two good things I can think of regarding this are

1. Patents only last 20 years. Copyrights should last no longer, but at least patents are of a reasonable length. TFA says Google owns the design, but that's incorrect; it only has a 20 year lease on the design.
2. Perhaps this will lead to patent reform, but I sincerely doubt it.

Re:Don't be evil?

[jo42]

What a load of bullsh*t! The patent office is completely incompetent. There is prior art. AltaVista for one http://web.archive.org/web/19961022174810/http://www.altavista.com/

Re:Don't be evil?

[reebmmm]

Design patent law is an area of great frustration for people. Design patents are relatively easy to obtain because of what they cover: essentially the identical design or any colorable imitation. As recently stated by the Fed. Cir., the test for design patent infringement is stated: "infringement will not be found unless the accused article âoeembod[ies] the patented design or any colorable imitation thereof.â" Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc. Therefore, to invalidate, the design must either embody the prior art or merely be a colorable imitation. This is a tricky analysis.

For companies like Apple and Google, design patents are helpful in preventing knock-offs. In this respect, the line is blurred between trademark and design patent law. However, they are not useful for much else since many of the elements of a design are functional (and a good lawyer can make that argument) and are not merely composed of distinctive elements.

And, all is not lost for similar "prior art" designs, though. The very same case made the point that "prior art" designs might also be used by a defendant to highlight the differences between the claimed and accused design. Thus, an accused defendant might escape infringement by pointing out those elements they share with the prior art design and thus those elements cannot be the grounds for infringement.

A final point, design patents are what a lot of people were duped into filing when going to Invention Help companies. Those companies simply filed a mostly worthless design patent instead of a utility patent. They have practically no commercial value except as a deterrent to would-be second-comers trying to copy verbatim the design. Therefore, those that were duped have virtually no protection against second comers that merely make changes the look & feel of an "invention." Plus, the inventors are then locked out of filing a utility application because they usually don't realize until much too late (more than a year after they start selling, for instance). That sucks.

Before you start foaming at the mouth...

[John Hasler]

...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.

Re:Design patent != Normal Patent...

[John Hasler]

Please read up on design patents . They protect only the decorative, non-functional elements of a design.

Re:Evil.

[Stile 65]

RTFS. It's a design patent, not a software (utility) patent.

Re:Evil.

[jonbryce]

It is a design patent, not an invention patent. Adidas has a patent on the three stripes design on their clothes. There is nothing technical or inventive about it, it is just how people recognise their product.

Re:Evil.

[jonbryce]

They have a trademark as well, but if Nike were to take the design of one of the items of clothing, and replace the Adidas logo with their own, that wouldn't infringe the trademark, but it would infringe the design patent.

Re:Evil.

[denominateur]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#Patent

Should have included this in the post.

Re:Evil. -- Make it prior-art not a patent!

[Webcommando]

...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.

Re:Evil.

[ElSupreme]

Except the three stripes were origionally a technical part of football boots. The helped stiffen the sides around the arch of the football. Because all of his shoes had this feature, it was then addopted as the Trademark and logo of the brand. Copa Mundials still have this feature.

Re:Evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh for FUCK'S sake. If this was MS there'd be a crowd of frothing at the mount foebois (opposite of fanbois) decrying the latest evil action of the overwhelming dominating monopolistic overlord that is the Microsoft hegemonic behemoth.

Instead we have fanbois making excuses for the other overwhelming dominating monopolistic overlord that they blindly worship, fabricating alternative explanations, anything that will cast Google The Source of All That Is Good in a non-evil light.

Stop being so fucking naive everyone.

Re:Evil. -- Make it prior-art not a patent!

[Quantumstate]

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.

Re:Well...

[KeithJM]

I'm all for invalidating software patents, but this one seems logical to me. The Google home page is iconic

That makes it a trademark, not a patent. The difference is important. It's the difference between telling Disney they can keep their mouse silhouette as a symbol of the company and telling them they can sue anyone who creates animated animals.

Seriously, I don't know if I blame Google because someone else would probably patent the "HTML form with one text field" and sue them if they didn't. I'm hoping to patent getting frustrated with politics and politicians. Once that comes through I should be able to quit my day job.

Re:Evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a patent attorney, I can tell you it makes a big difference--the coverage of a design patent is very thin--it covers basically what and only what you see in solid lines in the image of the patent that was included in the article (the dotted lines are not part of the patent). This means this patent covers a big search box, with the links above and below, and notably a big box that says "search" right next to one that says "I'm feeling lucky". Design patents are pretty narrow anyway, but including the boxes and wording keeps this pretty tight.

All-in-all, this is probably just fine. It will keep anyone from creating dead knock-offs, but not much more.

Re:Evil.

[cbiltcliffe]

Wrong.

Microsoft sued first. TomTom's suit was the response.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE52J1IE20090320