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Google (Patent Pending)
Jason Eric Pierce writes "I just noticed something interesting while using Google, considering how much it has been praised here by those that tend to denounce software patents:
'Unlike other current generation search engines, which rely heavily on keywords or meta-search technology to find information, Google offers an advanced patent-pending technology called PageRank(TM) to deliver the most relevant results. PageRank ensures that the most important, relevant pages always come up first and that your users will always find what they are looking for.' I love Google, but I hate the idea of patenting a search algorithm/implementation." Good point. Thoughts?
Patent #93,593,376:
A method of testing web servers by writing an interesting story for nerds, adding a few large JPG's, and then posting said link to slashdot.org. The result of posting is a large and immediate increase in web traffic, not for purposes of advertising (because said nerds don't have any money to buy things) but only to test the reliability of one's web server.
Licensing will be a no-brainer. If a company wants to test their servers, they can just mirror a six-month old news story and tell Hemos about it. "Psst - there's an article on here about why Linux web servers aren't as good as NT. It's only six months old - it's still news!"
- Sorry, Hemos, you walked right into that one.
What's your damage, Heather?
I don't think most Slashdotters are against all patents, but more against patenting the obvious (like the icon for these stories indicates). One-click shopping, or banner ads are so obvious (to one 'skilled in the art', eg. a geek) that they shouldn't be patentable.
What Google uses is far from obvious, so this merits a patent. I think this was the original idea behind the patent system, but somehow the USPTO seems to have lost the definition of 'obvious' along the way.
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
This is the crux of the question is do slash.dotters object to the principle of patenting ideas full stop, or, just the patenting of dumb ideas.
If your priciple objection is to the patenting of dumb ideas then you should have no problem with the google patent. Thier search algorithms are certainly different from all the others and produce good and consitent results. It seems like they are patenting something "original, not obvious, and which works". There may be some prior art here as a ton of work has been done on search algorithms over the years, but generally speaking this looks like a "good" patent.
If the main objection is to patents per se, then I would say we are a bunch of hypocrytes. The whole high tech industry which produces all the goodies we love to play with is driven by patents. IBM is not going to spend billions researching "copper" etc. and give as those lovely gigahertz processors if some company in tiawan can rip off the design as soon as it is working.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Search engine admins are constantly in a cat and mouse game with the Web. It's not just cat and mousing with word spammers (first rank down pages with words in alphabetical order... word spammers strike back... then try to parse pages a bit.. word spammers strike back... et cetera...). Styles of web page writing alter over time, and there are issues over the mutability of pages and the such. (Frames fall into fashion.. frames fall out of fashion..)
Search engine admins should have the freedom to tinker with their ranking algorithms without getting nailed by patent sharks. Besides, copying a search algorithm is a bit difficult if the algorithm isn't published. Search enginges don't have to publish their methods to build a user base. They just have to do a good job.
So, Google is probably justified in seeking a patent. One can't be too carefull. But if Google starts pulling an Amazon, it's time to boycott them.
Since we're going to discuss PageRank and it's patentability, You might want to read about it first.
No Zen is good zen