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US Dir. of Citizen Participation Patents the News
theodp writes "Ex-Googler and now White House Director of Citizen Participation Katie Stanton is charged with promoting open public dialogues. Last Thursday, Stanton and Google snagged a patent on displaying financial news. Google explains that Stanton's invention — Interactive Financial Charting and Related News Correlation — will 'facilitate and encourage the user's use and understanding of financial information,' which does jibe nicely with Stanton's appointment to Obama's New Media Team. Too bad it'll be encumbered by a Google patent until 2027."
The summary doesn't go into specifics as to what has been claimed. Basically, Ms. Stanton worked at Google, and was part of the team that developed Google Finance. What's been claimed here is essentially the placement of flags at points on the stock chart, along with some other specifics of Google's stock chart presentation.
Laying aside opinions on the patent system and this patent in particular for a second, I would say that the title is highly misleading: the "news" is not patented, nor was the filing made by the named inventor of record in her capacity as Director of Citizen Participation. Google is obligated to list all individuals who played a dominant role in the inventive process, and apparently it was felt that Katie Stanton was just such an individual.
Since I consider Google Finance to be a fantastically well-designed resource that communicates a lot of data very succinctly, I guess I'd say that this recommends Ms. Stanton's ability to communicate information, even in a very abstract sense. That said, I suspect that this is the last I will ever hear of her, or the office of the Director of Citizen Participation.
As others have pointed out, this patent is basically describing the sliding, adjustable window and news flags features of Google Finance, so it's unlikely that this patent would play much of a role in Ms. Stanton's new job. But if the government wanted to use the invention described in the patent for some reason, it has an automatic license to do so. 28 USC 1498(a) gives the federal government (NB: not state governments) a license to use any patented invention. The patent owner can sue for reasonable compensation but cannot enjoin the government from using the invention.
As a side note, 28 USC 1498(b) gives the government a similar right to use copyrighted works. In that case the copyright owner's damages are limited to reasonable compensation plus the minimum statutory damages, so no overinflated damages for government copyright infringement.
So she worked at Google and got a patent in 2006? Nothing unusual about that. Why is this news?
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
They also said "Don't be evil," and had an anti-censorship statement in their FAQ, until they decided to go into the People's Republic of China.