Sometimes it helps to stand back and look at the bigger picture. Many of my posts are about Google patents, but I haven’t published a list of those patents.
I’ve located all of the granted Google patents that I could find that were either listed in the assignment database at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) or noted in their granted patents database as assigned to Google. I haven’t included Google’s pending patent applications.
I’ll be updating this post as new Google patents are granted. – last updated February 5, 2011 – see: Google Patents, Updated
I also included granted patents for Exaflop, which seems, on the patent assignment documents, to share an address with Google at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California 94043. Those are listed at the bottom of this post and aren’t included in the following statistics.
There are 187 granted patents listed for Google at the USPTO databases, and another 10 for Exaflop. It’s probably not a surprise that the biggest category involves search indexing. I’ve grouped the Google assigned patents into categories as follows:
- Advertising Patents (15)
- Design Patents (11)
- Duplicate Content Patents (4)
- Email and Messaging Patents (7)
- Event Modeling Patents (3)
- Game Patents (2)
- Hardware Patents (12)
- Image and Video Patents (17)
- Large File Space Indexing Patents (9)
- Medical Patents (1)
- Modeling and Mapping Patents (11)
- Multiple Database Indexing (3)
- Phrase-Based Indexing Patents (3)
- Radio Patents (7)
- Search Indexing Patents (63)
- Security Patents (3)
- Social Networking (1)
- Software Patents (4)
- Vehicles (1)
- Voice Search Patents (2)
- Voting Patents (1)
- Wireless and Mobile Patents (7)
- Total (187)
I was also interested in seeing the originally assigned companies for the Google patents and took that information from the USTPO assignment database when available. The granted Exaflop patents were all originally assigned to Digital Equipment Corporation.
- @Last Software, Inc. (1)
- Bidamic Inc. (1)
- Computer Concepts Corporation (2)
- Decisive Technology Corporation (1)
- Disney Enterprises, Inc. (1)
- DMarc Broadcasting, Inc. (6)
- Doubleclick, Inc. (4)
- Eyematic Interfaces, Inc. (13)
- Google Technology, Inc. (2)
- Google, Inc. (127)
- Gossett and Gunter, Inc. (3)
- Goupfire, Inc. (2)
- Green Border Technologies (2)
- Infoseek Corporation (9)
- Intel Corporation (1)
- Keyhole, Inc. (1)
- Kranson Industries, Inc. (1)
- Nevengineering, Inc. (1)
- News Village L.L.C. (1)
- Oingo, Inc. (2)
- Ortiz & Lopez, PLLC (1)
- Starwave Corporation (3)
- The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (1)
- Wildtangent (1)
Advertising Patents
With the inclusion of Doubleclick patents, Google’s advertising patents provide a good range of topics, including presenting ads based upon the context of searches and the content of pages that advertising appears upon as well as ways to measure the delivery, targeting and of those ads on web pages and in emails.
- 5,918,014 Automated collaborative filtering in world wide web advertising (News Village L.L.C.)
- 5,948,061 Method of delivery, targeting, and measuring advertising over networks (Doubleclick, Inc.)
- 6,816,857 Meaning-based advertising and document relevance determination (Oingo, Inc.)
- 7,031,961 System and method for searching and recommending objects from a categorically organized information repository (Groupfire, Inc.)
- 7,039,599 Method and apparatus for automatic placement of advertising (Doubleclick, Inc.)
- 7,085,682 System and method for analyzing website activity (Doubleclick, Inc.)
- 7,089,237 Interface and system for providing persistent contextual relevance for commerce activities in a networked environment (Groupfire) A search and recommendation system for ecommerce.
- 7,136,875 Serving advertisements based on content (Google, Inc.)
- 7,203,684 Serving content-targeted ADS in e-mail, such as e-mail newsletters (Google, Inc.)
- 7,346,606 Rendering advertisements with documents having one or more topics using user topic interest (Google, Inc.)
- 7,346,615 Using match confidence to adjust a performance threshold (Google, Inc.)
- 7,349,876 Determining a minimum price (Google, Inc.)
- 7,349,827 System and method for reporting website activity based on inferred attribution methodology (DoubleClick Inc.)
- 7,363,302 Promoting and/or demoting an advertisement from an advertising spot of one type to an advertising spot of another type (Google, Inc.)
- 7,428,555 Real-time, computer-generated modifications to an online advertising program (Google, Inc.)
Design Patents
Design patents don’t cover processes as much as they do the look and feel of some aspect of an application or product.
- D528,552 Graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal (Google, Inc.)
- D528,553 Graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal (Google, Inc.)
- D529,036 Graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal (Google, Inc.)
- D529,037 Graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal (Google, Inc.)
- D529,920 Graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal (Google, Inc.)
- D533,561 Graphical user interface (Google, Inc.)
- D537,834 Graphical user interface for a display screen (Google, Inc.)
- D541,291 Graphic user interface for a display screen (Google, Inc.)
- D561,193 Display device showing user interface (Google, Inc.)
- D566,716 Display screen with graphical user interface (Kranson Industries, Inc.)
- D570,359 Graphic user interface of page turning elements for a display screen of a communications terminal (Google, Inc.)
Duplicate Content Patents
Search engines strive to present unique content to searchers in the results that they present to them, and a list of search results that all show the same content or very similar would likely frustrate searchers. The following patents provide different ways of identifying content that may be very similar on different pages.
- 6,615,209 Detecting query-specific duplicate documents (Google, Inc.)
- 6,658,423 Detecting duplicate and near-duplicate files (Google, Inc.)
- 7,158,961 Methods and apparatus for estimating similarity (Google, Inc.)
- 7,366,718 Detecting duplicate and near-duplicate files (Google, Inc.)
Email and Messaging Patents
- 6,546,416 Method and system for selectively blocking delivery of bulk electronic mail (Infoseek Corporation)
- 7,194,515 Method and system for selectively blocking delivery of bulk electronic mail (Infoseek Corporation)
- 7,269,621 Method system and graphical user interface for dynamically updating transmission characteristics in a web mail reply (Google, Inc.)
- 7,315,880 Method, system, and graphical user interface for dynamically updating transmission characteristics in a web mail reply (Google, Inc.)
- 7,424,682 Electronic messages with embedded musical note emoticons (Google, Inc.)
- 7,428,410 Value-added electronic messaging services having web-based user accessible message center (Google, Inc.)
- 7,483,951 Method and system for selectively blocking delivery of electronic mail (Google, Inc.)
Event Modeling Patents
These patents involve the use and manipulation of databases and include the creation of events that can trigger actions without changing the underlying structure of those databases.
- 6,341,279 Method and apparatus for event modeling (Starwave Corporation)
- 6,578,043 Method and apparatus for event modeling (Starwave Corporation)
- 7,373,337 Method and apparatus for event modeling (Starwave Corporation)
Game Patents
This patent covers an interactive online gaming system that could be used with advertising. Some Google patent applications describe advertising in games.
- 6,863,612 System and method for interactive on-line gaming (Bidamic Inc.)
Difficult to choose whether to include the following patent under games or Radio, since it originally comes from DMarc, but only having one patent in the Games category called out for adding it here:
- 7,460,863 Method and apparatus using geographical position to provide authenticated, secure, radio frequency communication between a gaming host and a remote gaming device (DMARC Broadcasting, Inc.)
Hardware Patents
Some surprises in this section, though it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that Google would need to create some of its hardware with the challenges that they face in crawling and indexing so many pages on the Web. It is odd to see something like an “Adjustable monitor cart,” included in the list, though.
- 6,845,009 Cooling baffle and fan mount apparatus (Google, Inc.)
- 6,870,095 Cable management for rack mounted computing system (Google, Inc.)
- 6,906,920 Drive cooling baffle (Google, Inc.)
- 7,113,409 Mounting structures for electronics components (Google, Inc.)
- 7,223,695 Methods to deposit metal alloy barrier layers (Intel Corporation)
- 7,278,273 Modular data center (Google, Inc.)
- 7,302,608 Systems and methods for automatic repair and replacement of networked machines (Google, Inc.)
- 7,386,616 System and method for providing load balanced processing (Google, Inc.)
- 7,419,170 Adjustable monitor cart (Google, Inc.)
- 7,437,364 System and method of accessing a document efficiently through multi-tier web caching (Google, Inc.)
- 7,475,267 Systems and methods for delay in startup of multiple components (Google, Inc.)
- 7,479,045 Power distribution adaptable to different power supplies (Google, Inc.)
Image and video Patents
Most of the patents below originally come from Eyematic Interfaces, Inc., which is the original name of Nevengineering, Inc., which Google acquired in August of 2006. Some of the technology from that acquisition has been used in Google’s picture sharing software, Picassa. Some of it may end up being used in Google’s image search.
- 6,222,939 Labeled bunch graphs for image analysis (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,272,231 Wavelet-based facial motion capture for avatar animation (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,301,370 Face recognition from video images (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,356,659 Labeled bunch graphs for image analysis (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,400,374 Video superposition system and method (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,466,695 Procedure for automatic analysis of images and image sequences based on two-dimensional shape primitives (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,563,950 Labeled bunch graphs for image analysis (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,580,811 Wavelet-based facial motion capture for avatar animation (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,714,661 Method and system for customizing facial feature tracking using precise landmark finding on a neutral face image (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,834,115 Method for optimizing off-line facial feature tracking (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,940,454 Method and system for generating facial animation values based on a combination of visual and audio information (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 6,917,703 Method and apparatus for image analysis of a gabor-wavelet transformed image using a neural network (Nevengineering, Inc.)
- 7,050,624 System and method for feature location and tracking in multiple dimensions including depth (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 7,050,655 Method for generating an animated three-dimensional video head (Eyematic Interfaces, Inc.)
- 7,460,735 Systems and methods for using image duplicates to assign labels to images (Google Inc.)
- 7,463,772 De-warping of scanned images (Google Inc.)
- 7,469,059 Reorganization of raw image data for processing (Google Inc.)
Large File Space Indexing Patents
I separated some of Google’s search-related patents from the rest because they focus more on handling large amounts of data rather than how Google might rank pages or handle other aspects of running a search engine. If you want a look at some of the technical aspects of how a very large search engine works, these provide some insights.
- 7,065,618 Leasing scheme for data-modifying operations (Google Technology, Inc.)
- 7,068,192 System and method for encoding and decoding variable-length data (Google, Inc.)
- 7,107,419 Systems and methods for performing record append operations (Google Technology, Inc.)
- 7,174,346 System and method for searching an extended database (Google, Inc.)
- 7,222,119 Namespace locking scheme (Google Technology Inc.)
- 7,222,127 Large scale machine learning systems and methods (Google, Inc.)
- 7,319,994 Document compression scheme that supports searching and partial decompression (Google, Inc.)
- 7,428,524 Large scale data storage in sparse tables (Google, Inc.)
- 7,496,589 Highly compressed randomly accessed storage of large tables with arbitrary columns (Ortiz & Lopez, PLLC)
Medical Patents
This patent seems out of place in Google’s portfolio. It may have come over to Google with the acquisition of Where 2 Technologies since the assigners listed in the assignment database are two of the people who came over to Google when they acquired that company.
- 6,684,094 Instrument for medical purposes (Google, Inc.)
Modeling and Mapping Patents
Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Sketchup are powered by some interesting technology, some of which came to them with through acquisitions. There are a good number of patent applications that may join this group shortly, including human-friendly driving directions, and mobile maps with data overlays that make it easier to learn a great deal about areas that you might be traveling through.
- 6,628,279 System and method for three-dimensional modeling (@Last Software, Inc.)
- 6,724,382 Method and apparatus for distributing and displaying maps electronically (Wildtangent)
- 6,934,634 Address geocoding (Google, Inc.)
- 7,158,878 Digital mapping system (Google, Inc.)
- 7,209,148 Generating, storing, and displaying graphics using sub-pixel bitmaps (Google, Inc.)
- 7,239,959 Method and apparatus for customizing travel directions (Google, Inc.)
- 7,225,207 Server for geospatially organized flat file data (Keyhole, Inc.)
- 7,315,259 Techniques for displaying and caching tiled map data on constrained-resource services (Google, Inc.)
- 7,353,114 Markup language for an interactive geographic information system (Google, Inc.)
- 7,373,246 Using boundaries associated with a map view for business location searching (Google, Inc.)
- 7,379,811 Digital mapping system (Google, Inc.)
Multiple Database Indexing
Some early patents that Google acquired from Infoseek describe ways of showing information in one set of results from multiple databases, a little like Google’s blended and Universal Search results.
- 5,659,732 Document retrieval over networks wherein ranking and relevance scores are computed at the client for multiple database documents (Infoseek Corporation)
- 5,845,278 Method for automatically selecting collections to search in full text searches (Infoseek Corporation)
- 5,983,216 Performing automated document collection and selection by providing a meta-index with meta-index values indentifying corresponding document collections (Infoseek Corporation)
Phrase-Based Indexing Patents
Infoseek also provided Google with some approaches to indexing pages based upon phrases that appear upon those pages. Google has done some additional work in this area, and the Google patent listed below covers their work in that area in a detailed manner.
- 5,920,854 Real-time document collection search engine with phrase indexing (Infoseek Corporation)
- 6,070,158 Real-time document collection search engine with phrase indexing (Infoseek Corporation)
- 7,426,507 Automatic taxonomy generation in search results using phrases (Google, Inc.)
Radio Patents
In earlier days, DMarc Broadcasting, Inc. was known as Computer Concepts Corporation. The intellectual property that Google inherited when they purchased DMarc covers a pretty comprehensive system of advertising and measuring the broadcast of those ads.
- 5,303,326 Broadcast digital sound processing system (Computer Concepts Corporation)
- 5,129,036 Broadcast digital sound processing system (Computer Concepts Corporation, A Corp of KS)
- 7,313,359 Dynamic data delivery apparatus and method for same (DMarc Broadcasting, Inc.)
- 7,313,360 Dynamic data delivery apparatus and method for same (DMarc Broadcasting, Inc.)
- 7,313,361 Dynamic data delivery apparatus and method for same (DMarc Broadcasting, Inc.)
- 7,315,726 Dynamic data delivery apparatus and method for same (DMarc Broadcasting, Inc.)
- 7,363,001 Dynamic data delivery apparatus and method for same (DMarc Broadcasting, Inc.)
Search Indexing Patents
I’ve written about a number of these patents in the past. If you want some insights into the thoughts and assumptions behind how Google’s search engine may work, these provide some interesting hints.
- 6,018,733 Methods for iteratively and interactively performing collection selection in full text searches (Infoseek Corporation)
- 6,453,315 Meaning-based information organization and retrieval (Oingo, Inc.)
- 6,526,440 Ranking search results by reranking the results based on local inter-connectivity (Google, Inc.)
- 6,529,903 Methods and apparatus for using a modified index to provide search results in response to an ambiguous search query (Google, Inc.)
- 6,678,681 Information extraction from a database (Google, Inc., with a later partial assignment to The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University)
- 6,725,259 Ranking search results by reranking the results based on local inter-connectivity (Google, Inc.)
- 6,728,705 System and method for selecting content for displaying over the internet based upon some user input (Disney Enterprises, Inc.)
- 6,754,873 Techniques for finding related hyperlinked documents using link-based analysis (Google, Inc.)
- 6,839,702 Systems and methods for highlighting search results (Google, Inc.)
- 6,865,575 Methods and apparatus for using a modified index to provide search results in response to an ambiguous search query (Google, Inc.)
- 6,941,293 Methods and apparatus for determining equivalent descriptions for an information need (Google, Inc.)
- 7,028,029 Adaptive computation of ranking (The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University)
- 7,096,214 System and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results (Google, Inc.)
- 7,136,854 Methods and apparatus for providing search results in response to an ambiguous search query (Google, Inc.)
- 7,146,358 Systems and methods for using anchor text as parallel corpora for cross-language information retrieval (Google, Inc.)
- 7,194,684 Method of spell-checking search queries (Google, Inc.)
- 7,213,198 Link based clustering of hyperlinked documents (Google, Inc.)
- 7,222,299 Detecting quoted text (Google, Inc.)
- 7,231,393 Method and apparatus for learning a probabilistic generative model for text (Google, Inc.)
- 7,249,121 Identification of semantic units from within a search query (Google, Inc.)
- 7,231,399 Ranking documents based on large data sets (Google, Inc.)
- 7,254,580 System and method for selectively searching partitions of a database (Google, Inc.)
- 7,254,689 Decompression of block-sorted data (Google, Inc.)
- 7,260,573 Personalizing anchor text scores in a search engine (Google, Inc.)
- 7,272,601 Systems and methods for associating a keyword with a user interface area (Google, Inc.)
- 7,281,008 7,281,008 Systems and methods for constructing a query result set (Google, Inc.)
- 7,296,016 Systems and methods for performing point-of-view searching (Google, Inc.)
- 7,302,645 Methods and systems for identifying manipulated articles (Google, Inc.)
- 7,305,380 Systems and methods for performing in-context searching (Google, Inc.)
- 7,305,610 Distributed crawling of hyperlinked documents (Google, Inc)
- 7,308,643 Anchor tag indexing in a web crawler system (Google, Inc.)
- 7,310,633 Methods and systems for generating textual information (Google, Inc.)
- 7,333,976 Methods and systems for processing contact information (Google, Inc.)
- 7,346,839 Information retrieval based on historical data (Google, Inc.)
- 7,350,187 System and methods for automatically creating lists (Google, Inc.)
- 7,363,291 Methods and apparatus for increasing efficiency of electronic document delivery to users (Google, Inc.)
- 7,383,258 Method and apparatus for characterizing documents based on clusters of related words (Google, Inc.)
- 7,386,438 Identifying language attributes through probabilistic analysis (Google, Inc.)
- 7,386,543 System and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results (Google, Inc.)
- 7,392,244 Methods and apparatus for determining equivalent descriptions for an information need (Google, Inc.)
- 7,401,072 Named URL entry (Google, Inc.)
- 7,409,383 Locating meaningful stopwords or stop-phrases in keyword-based retrieval systems (Google, Inc.)
- 7,412,708 Methods and systems for capturing information (Google, Inc.)
- 7,421,651 Document segmentation based on visual gaps (Google, Inc.)
- 7,424,478 System and method for selecting content for displaying over the internet based upon some user input (Google, Inc.)
- 7,437,351 Method for searching media (Google, Inc.)
- 7,437,353 Systems and methods for unification of search results (Google, Inc.)
- 7,440,968 Query boosting based on classification (Google, Inc.)
- 7,447,678 Interface for a universal search engine (Google, Inc.) – Analysis – Google Universal Search Patent Granted, November 4, 2008.
- 7,451,120 Detecting novel document content, (Google, Inc.) – Analysis – Google Using Novel Content as a Ranking Signal?, November 11, 2008
- 7,451,129 System and method for providing preferred language ordering of search results (Google, Inc.), November 11, 2008
- 7,451,130 System and method for providing preferred country biasing of search results (Google, Inc.) – Analysis – Changing Google Rankings in Different Countries for Different Searchers, November 11, 2008
- 7,451,398 Providing capitalization correction for unstructured excerpts (Google, Inc.), November 11, 2008
- 7,454,398 Support for object search (Google, Inc.), November 18, 2008
- 7,454,417 Methods and systems for improving a search ranking using population information (Google, Inc.) – Analysis – How Google Might Personalize Search Results Outside of Personalized Search, November 18, 2008
- 7,464,090 Object categorization for information extraction (Google Inc.)
- 7,467,131 Method and system for query data caching and optimization in a search engine system (Google Inc.)
- 7,475,063 Augmenting queries with synonyms selected using language statistics (Google, Inc.)
- 7,475,071 Performing a parallel nearest-neighbor matching operation using a parallel hybrid spill tree (Google, Inc.)
- 7,478,033 Systems and methods for translating Chinese pinyin to Chinese characters (Google, Inc.)
- 7,483,881 Determining unambiguous geographic references (Google, Inc.)
- 7,487,145 Method and system for autocompletion using ranked results (Google, Inc.)
- 7,499,940 Method and system for URL autocompletion using ranked results (Google, Inc.)
Security Patents
It’s not a surprise that a search engine would invest in some technology that would help with security online, and protect people from malware. The new browser, Google Chrome, uses a sandboxing security feature that sounds like technology developed Green Border Technologies.
- 7,031,954 Document retrieval system with access control (Infoseek Corporation)
- 7,191,469 Methods and systems for providing a secure application environment using derived user accounts (Green Border Technologies)
- 7,406,542 Method and system for assured denotation of application semantics (Green Border Technologies, Inc.)
Social Networking
There are a few other patent filings from Google that haven’t been granted but maybe. This one covers some ways that people might request recommendations or advice or assistance (including search assistance) on a social network.
- 7,359,894 Methods and systems for requesting and providing information in a social network (Google, Inc.)
Software Patents
The following patent is an add on for browsers that might give them additional functionality. Some of that functionality appears to have been built into Google Chrome.
- 7,421,432 Hypertext browser assistant (Google, Inc.)
Some additional patents that seem most appropriate to list in the software category:
- 7,487,447 Web page zoom feature (Google Inc.)
- 7,499,958 Systems and methods of replicating all or part of a data store (Google Inc.)
- 7,499,996 Systems and methods for detecting a memory condition and providing an alert (Google Inc.) Provides an alert when the browser’s cached copy of a web page doesn’t match the current web page.
Vehicle Patents
- 7,469,827 Vehicle information systems and methods (Google, Inc.)
Voice Search Patents
With the rapid growth of mobile phone usage, it makes sense for a search engine to work on voice interfaces for search.
- 7,027,987 Voice interface for a search engine (Google, Inc.)
- 7,366,668 Voice interface for a search engine (Google, Inc.)
Voting Patents
Some of the ideas from this patent may have been used in the voting process that is built into the recently released Google Moderator, which allows individuals within a group to ask questions and allows the other group members to vote upon which questions they believe to be the most important.
- 5,400,248 Computer network based conditional voting system (Decisive Technology Corporation)
Wireless and Mobile Patents
Google has patented many processes that focus on wireless communications. It will be interesting to see how they will use some of it, including the possibility of freeing up whitespace for broadband access.
- 6,829,289 Application of a pseudo-randomly shuffled hadamard function in a wireless CDMA system (Gossett and Gunter, Inc.)
- 6,982,945 Baseband direct sequence spread spectrum transceiver (Gossett and Gunter, Inc.)
- 7,089,490 Identifying navigation bars and objectionable navigation bars (Google, Inc.)
- 7,142,536 Communications network quality of service system and method for real time information (Gossett and Gunter, Inc.)
- 7,352,833 Method and system for temporal autocorrelation filtering (Google, Inc.)
- 7,392,017 Assessing wireless network quality (Google, Inc.)
- 7,453,921 LPC filter for removing periodic and quasi-periodic interference from spread spectrum signals, November 18, 2008
Exaflop Patents
Most of the granted Exaflop patents involve email, though the last one listed surprisingly veers off that topic to focus upon data mining. There are also seven published patent applications from Exaflop pending with the 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway address which mostly cover aspects of running data centers.
There’s another granted patent database listing showing Exaflop as the assignee, (Integrated content guide for interactive selection of content and services on personal computer systems with multiple sources and multiple media presentations , which was granted on August 28, 2008, but doesn’t show Exaflop of the Amphitheatre Parkway address in the assignment database.
- 6,009,462 Replacing large bit component of electronic mail (e-mail) message with hot-link in distributed computer system (Digital Equipment Corporation)
- 6,029,164 Method and apparatus for organizing and accessing electronic mail messages using labels and full text and label indexing (Digital Equipment Corporation)
- 6,044,372 Method and apparatus for publishing information to a communications network and enabling subscriptions to such information (Dazel Corporation)
- 6,092,101 Method for filtering mail messages for a plurality of client computers connected to a mail service system (Digital Equipment Corporation)
- 6,172,677 Integrated content guide for interactive selection of content and services on personal computer systems with multiple sources and multiple media presentation (Compaq Computer Corporation)
- 6,185,551 Web-based electronic mail service apparatus and method using full text and label indexing (Digital Equipment Corporation)
- 6,189,026 Technique for dynamically generating an address book in a distributed electronic mail system (Digital Equipment Corporation)
- 6,195,698 Method for selectively restricting access to computer systems (Digital Equipment Corporation)
- 6,219,698 Configuring client software using remote notification (Digital Equipment Corporation)
- 6,502,091 Apparatus and method for discovering context groups and document categories by mining usage logs (Digital Equipment Corporation)
Hi Matthias,
The patents do provide some fairly unique insights into how the search engines work. I do have a copy of the book you mention, and It’s getting closer to the stack of books in my “to read” pile. I keep on getting distracted by new patent filings from the search engines.
Hi Brian,
I’m not sure that a patent is usually a waste of money, especially if you look at it as a way to protect intellectual property.
Having a patent pending, especially if the methods described within it are new and nonobvious and useful enough for it to become a granted patent is one more thing that an angel investor or a venture capitalist might like when considering whether to fund a startup. If you have an idea worth other people considering, you should consider going for it.
wow Google got an amazing response from this didn’t they? I have better things to do then to read all the patents but none the less it’s interesting to see Google has so much money to waste! They will be funding these idea’s correct?
I wonder if I should submit my idea and see if I can get funding for blogengage that would be pretty sweet.
Hi Bill,
Thanks so much for this list and keeping it updated! All these patents published together would probably be the best book on Google SEO theory…
Another good place to start is Google’s PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings, published in 2006 by Princeton University Press.
Bill
I looked and perhaps I just missed it (there are a lot, nice job) but I don’t see the patent on Location Prominence.
Mike Blumenthal
Hi Mike,
Thanks. 🙂
The location prominence filing, (Scoring local search results based on location prominence), is still pending as a patent application. It hasn’t been granted yet, so I haven’t included it in the list above.
There has been some activity surrounding it in the patent office as late as July of this year, including amendments to the original claims. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
A truely brilliant list and something for me to get my teeth into on a Monday morning! Cheers for your hard work!
Wow! Now that is a pretty comprehensive breakdown of the Google Patents as well as their sources.
While I haven’t gone into read each of the patents, I believe your description gives me a pretty good idea of what they are… even the adjustable monitor stand 😀
Thanks for taking the time to put this together, must have taken ages!
Hi Bill,
Just wanted to say hi it has been a while since we have hooked up. Anyways, great post, I also am amazed at how many patents are posted. Hard to keep up with them not sure how you do it.
Hope all is going well!
Bill
How many patents would Google typically have pending at a point in time?
Mike
I wonder which, if any, of these patents will turn into the cash cow that the Google search engine is today.
Thank you so much for the detailed list…
Wow! thats alot of patents, I don’t even have one patent, ha ha. They certainly know what they are doing, and the growth will certainly be fast, lets just hope that they can keep up with their growth. (Im sure they will).
Thanks for the list!
Thanks for the list!
HI Mike,
The number of patents pending that Google might have at any one time has probably been increasing over the past few years, but presently it’s probably at least as much as they have in granted patents. Keep in mind that a patent filing could take a number of years before it is granted.
Hi People Finder,
I’m guessing it will be something that appears somewhat innoculous on its face, like a way to descramble wireless communications (a pending patent application).
Hi MGA, SEO Midget, SEO Positive, and Roger Hamilton,
You’re welcome.
Bill,
On the topic of Google patents, I think I discovered something weird. Google’s first search patent (6,526,440 — the one people sometimes call the Hilltop or LocalSearch patent) seems to have been anticipated by a company called Egocentricity. Have a look at http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7257766.html
Claim 48 looks an awful lot like Google’s main claim and the file date is six months earlier. Has this been discussed anywhere? What’s up with that?
Stanley
Hi Stanley,
Thank you. That is an interesting document. I’m not sure if there has been any discussion of it, but it’s worth digging into deeper. Running through it very quickly, it appears to be a full scale ranking algorithm instead of a reranking approach like the one presented in the Google Patent, where the top “n” number of results are reranked based upon how often they “are referenced by other documents in the generated set of documents.” I’ll have to spend some more time with the Egocentricity patent to see what else is in it.
I’ve also wondered why Google filed a later version of the local interconnectivity patent with expanded claims on January 27, 2003 – Ranking search results by reranking the results based on local inter-connectivity.
Thanks for impressive lists of articles and patents. Very interesting
You’re welcome, Webtlk
I know it’s months after the post but I just want to thank you for all of your research and sharing it with everyone! That’s a lot of work!
Thank you, fivekitten.
Thank you for sharing this. I didn’t know how many patents are granted to google has until reading your posts. Do they have patent filed for ranking the most influential people on social networking? I’m just curious.
Hi Jonathan,
Google does have a large amount of additional patent filings that haven’t been granted yet. There may be some on social networking, but I’m not sure that they focus upon how “influential” people might be on social networks.
Hi William,
First of all I would like to thank you for writing this article about the google patents. Like the other, this is the first time I heard of this. This clearly shows how the “Big G” is dominating the web right now and I think this is a good thing since all of us are benefiting from this and google is just protecting its interest by filing many patents.
Hi Robrey,
You’re welcome.
Hi All,
Another great website, http://www.patentbuddy.com/home.jsf, to do patent related research. One can network with Inventors/Attorneys too.
Hi Rajender,
Thanks for the link. It’s interesting to see a social network centered around patent attorneys and inventors.
Hi Bill,
Long before the start of mobile app’s and app stores, we listed a patent re. fitness and sport scoring via mobile devices. The patent was registered in the South African Patent office, and is pending in the US Patent office.
If our patent is approved / registered, I believe a whole lot of iPhone apps will be infringing on what we registered. Do you know anyone that can guide me how to approach google to understand if they might be interested in our patent rights?
Hi Gerard,
I’m not sure what Google’s philosophy is concerning the acquisition of patent rights, nor who could guide you along those lines. I’ve seen Google seem to primarily focus upon acquiring companies for businesses or technology that they have already developed, or to hire people who developed that technology, though it does seem like they have acquired some patent rights involving search specific applications, such as those from Infoseek.
I wonder how much they spend every year on patents, including the legal team that make these patents water tight. Can anyone suggest a book to read on how to get a patent without spending too much money?
Interesting article and blog you have here. I guess most webmasters would like to know what are the patents that Google hold in order to understand how Google works. Thanks for this article.
Hi Mike,
Not sure of any books that might be helpful, but I really haven’t spent much time looking for one. I might suggest that going to a good patent attorney might not be a bad idea because they could be helpful in making sure that you don’t take any expensive missteps.
Hi Ed,
Thank you. I’m not sure that looking at Google’s patents provide a 100% clear indication of how Google works and where they are going, but I think they help.
Bill,
If Google holds all of these patents I would think that they would constantly be suing other individuals for doing very similar things.Especially those designed for search engine functions, which can only be so original. I can’t recall any news story about them making such lawsuits but I would have to assume it happens frequently.
Hi Scott,
One of the reasons to file and publish a patent is to give others the chance to see what is out there that is patented.
While Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have all been publishing search related patents for a few years now, and many of those seem to cover similar concepts and processes, they usually come to those ideas from perspectives and approaches that are different enough from each other to avoid litigation. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen, and there have been a few lawsuits.
One of the most well known of those involved Google and Overture (which was purchased by Yahoo):
Overture sues Google over search patent
I think two companys can arrive to almost the same idea. The first to patent wins
Hi Vicente,
Not so sure about that. US Patent law doesn’t seem to have followed the “first to patent” approach, though it’s possible it’s a path that may be followed in the future.
Googles stronghold as a (the) search engine is undeniable. Infact I suppose there are people out there who actually think Google IS the internet! But their stranglehold is becoming too invasive and I for one do not like to see one company Monopolise such a good open source of information as the Internet.