If you took a look at Google’s patent portfolio recently, you might ask yourself, “What kind of company is this?” Is it a search engine or a smartphone company, a memory module manufacturer or a server maker? Does this company own the rights to a weight loss patent titled, “Method Of Assaying Satiety Enhancing Tastants,” or is that accidentally listed by an error from the patent office?
Google acquired many patents over the past few years, either by purchase or by license. Those include a good number of phone related patents from Verizon, patents involving video and streaming data from IBM, as well as hardware-related patents from patent-holding companies. A few of the IBM patents are the kind you might license if you want to develop self-driving cars. There’s been a lot of discussion about Google’s many acquisitions of the past year, with 40 mentioned in their September 30, 2010 10-Q filing with the SEC, and a few more since then. But, Google’s acquisition of 77 granted patents from Verizon, and another 51 granted patents from IBM happened with absolutely no media attention as far as I can tell.
I’ve listed Google’s granted patents below, by category, and then by the name of the company that made the assignment of the patents to Google.
I also listed patents granted to Exaflop, which is likely owned by Google, at the bottom of this post, but I haven’t included them in the statistics below.
There are 809 granted patents listed at the USTPO under Google’s name, and there are roughly another 1,000 or so published pending patent applications for the Search Engine/Phone Company/Memory Module Maker. There are likely several unpublished patent applications that have been filed as well but haven’t been published yet.
Back in October of 2008, I published a post listing all of Google’s granted patents at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) assigned to the search giant. I updated the post a few times to include newer patents, and the last update was in March of 2009. At that time, there were only 187 granted patents listed as being assigned to Google. That’s a good amount of growth in a little less than a couple of years.
I’ve grouped Google’s granted patents into the following categories:
- Advertising Patents (61)
- Analytics (7)
- Annotations Patents (1)
- Audio Patents (2)
- Blog Search Patents (1)
- Client/Server Patents (15)
- Database Management Patents (3)
- Design Patents (21)
- Distributed Data Patents (3)
- Document Presentation Patents (1)
- Duplicate Content Patents (14)
- Ecommerce Patents (4)
- Email and Messaging Patents (38)
- Event Modeling Patents (3)
- Google Book Patent (13)
- Google Desktop Search Patents (13)
- Google Finance Patents (1)
- Google News Patents (2)
- Google TV Patents (3)
- Handwriting Analysis Patents (2)
- Hardware Patents (57)
- Image and Video Patents (80)
- Intellectual Property Patents (2)
- Language Conversion Patents (1)
- Large File Space Indexing Patents (34)
- Medical Patents (1)
- Modeling and Mapping Patents (37)
- Multi-Language Patents (7)
- Network Patents (15)
- Organizational Communciations Patents (2)
- Personal Data Patents (4)
- Personalized Homepage Patent (3)
- Personalized Search Patents (11)
- Phrase-Based Indexing Patents (13)
- Radio Patents (11)
- Reviews and Recommendations Patents (5)
- RSS Patents (2)
- Search Display Patents (30)
- Search Indexing Patents (118)
- Security Patents (5)
- Segmentation Patents (3)
- Shopping Search Patents (3)
- Social Networking Patents (110)
- Software Patents (3)
- Vehicle Patents (11)
- Virtual Machine Task Management Patents (1)
- Visual Modeling (1)
- Voice Search Patents (4)
- Web Authoring Patents (5)
- Web Spam Patents (2)
- Weight Loss Patents (1)
- Wireless and Mobile/Phone Patents (118)
I was also interested in seeing who assigned the patents to Google and looked that up in the USTPO assignment database, and I’ve broken the categories below into sections based upon the companies that assigned the patents to Google (or Exaflop in the last section below).
- @Last Software, Inc. (1)
- About, Inc. (1)
- Access Co., LTD. (6)
- ADC Telecommunications, Inc. (1)
- Adscape Media Inc. (1)
- Applied Semantics, Inc. (3)
- ASML Holding N.V. (1)
- Carl Meyer (5)
- Disney Enterprises, Inc. (2)
- DMARC Broadcasting Co. (9)
- Doubleclick, Inc. (8)
- Falk Esolutions GMBH (1)
- Feedburner, Inc. (1)
- Google (505)
- Gossett and Gunter, Inc. (7)
- Green Border Technologies, Inc. (4)
- Groupfire, Incorporated d/b/a/ Outride, Inc. (2)
- Hitachi (1)
- IBM (51)
- Infoseek Corporation (9)
- Intel Corporation (1)
- Invenda Corporation (1)
- Keyhole, Inc. (1)
- Klipmark Corporation (2)
- McCarthy Software, Inc. (2)
- Metaram, Inc. (13)
- Myriad France SAS (15)
- Nevengineering, Inc. (18)
- ON2 Technologies, LLC (7)
- Ortiz & Lopez, PLLC (1)
- Peakstream Inc. (1)
- Performics Inc. (1)
- Peripheral Vision, LLC (1)
- Postini Inc. (16)
- Starwave Corporation (3)
- The Duck Corporation (On2) (4)
- The Weather Channel, INC. (1)
- Tudor Empire, LLC (3)
- Urchin (4)
- Verizon (77)
- Wildtangent, Inc. (1)
- Zetta Research, LLC (17)
Granted Patents Assigned to Google
Advertising Patents
Unsurprisingly, many of Google’s patents are related to advertising in one form or another. Many of the patents from Google itself focus upon showing ads that are either relevant to where they appear, or in some way to the person viewing the ads.
About, Inc.
- Method And System For Providing Advertising Through Content Specific Nodes Over The Internet (US Patent # 7752072)
Adscape Media Inc.
- System And Method For Interactive On-Line Gaming (US Patent # 6863612)
Applied Semantics, Inc.
- Meaning-Based Advertising And Document Relevance Determination (US Patent # 6816857)
- Meaning-Based Advertising And Document Relevance Determination (US Patent # 7698266)
Carl Meyer
- Metod And System For Delivering Redeeming Dynamically And Adaptively Characterized Promotional Incentives On A Computer Network (US Patent # 6915271)
- Method, Algorithm, And Computer Program For Optimizing The Performance Of Messages Including Advertisements In An Interactive Measurable Medium (US Patent # 7130808)
- System And Method For Improving The Performance Of Electronic Media Advertising Campaigns Through Multi-Attribute Analysis And Optimization (US Patent # 7406434)
- Method, Algorithm, And Computer Program For Optimizing The Performance Of Messages Including Advertisements In An Interactive Measurable Medium (US Patent # 7756741)
Doubleclick, Inc.
- Computer Network Based Conditional Voting System (US Patent # 5400248)
- Automated Collaborative Filtering In World Wide Web Advertising (US Patent # 5918014)
- Method Of Delivery, Targeting, And Measuring Advertising Over Networks (US Patent # 5948061)
- Method And Apparatus For Automatic Placement Of Advertising (US Patent # 7039599)
- System And Method For Analyzing Website Activity (US Patent # 7085682)
- System And Method For Reporting Website Activity Based On Inferred Attribution Methodology (US Patent # 7349827)
- Method Of Delivery, Targeting, And Measuring Advertising Over Networks (US Patent # 7827062)
- Method Of Delivery, Targeting, And Measuring Advertising Over Networks (US Patent # 7844488)
Falk Esolutions GMBH
- System And Method For Delivering Targeted Content (US Patent # 7260783)
- Serving Advertisements Based On Content (US Patent # 7136875)
- Serving Content-Targeted Ads In E-Mail, Such As E-Mail Newsletters (US Patent # 7203684)
- Rendering Advertisements With Documents Having One Or More Topics Using User Topic Interest (US Patent # 7346606)
- Using Match Confidence To Adjust A Performance Threshold (US Patent # 7346615)
- Determining A Minimum Price (US Patent # 7349876)
- Promoting And/Or Demoting An Advertisement From An Advertising Spot Of One Type To An Advertising Spot Of Another Type (US Patent # 7363302)
- Real-Time, Computer-Generated Modifications To An Online Advertising Program (US Patent # 7428555)
- Detecting Anomalies (US Patent # 7523016)
- System And Method For Rating Electronic Documents (US Patent # 7533090)
- Pausing One Or More Ads, One Or More Ad Groups, And/Or One Or More Ad Campaigns (US Patent # 7546625)
- Diagnostics And Error Reporting For Common Tagging Issues (US Patent # 7644315)
- Increasing A Number Of Relevant Advertisements Using A Relaxed Match (US Patent # 7647242)
- Serving Advertisements Using A Search Of Advertiser Web Information (US Patent # 7647299)
- Content Identification Expansion (US Patent # 7657514)
- Providing History And Transaction Volume Information Of A Content Source To Users (US Patent # 7657520)
- Content Request Optimization (US Patent # 7657611)
- Pricing Across Keywords Associated With One Or More Advertisements (US Patent # 7668748)
- Determining And/Or Using Location Information In An Ad System (US Patent # 7668832)
- Determining And/Or Using Location Information In An Ad System (US Patent # 7680796)
- Method And System For Providing Targeted Documents Based On Concepts Automatically Identified Therein (US Patent # 7697791)
- Determining Advertising Activity (US Patent # 7712141)
- Methods And Apparatus For Serving Relevant Advertisements (US Patent # 7716161)
- Time-Multiplexing Documents Based On Preferences Or Relatedness (US Patent # 7725502)
- Managing On-Line Advertising Using Metrics Such As Return On Investment And/Or Profit (US Patent # 7734503)
- Method And System For Providing Advertising Through Content Specific Nodes Over The Internet (US Patent # 7752073)
- Methods And Apparatus For Ordering Advertisements Based On Performance Information And Price Information (US Patent # 7778872)
- Reviewing The Suitability Of Websites For Participation In An Advertising Network (US Patent # 7788132)
- Automated Price Maintenance For Use With A System In Which Advertisements Are Rendered With Relative Preferences (US Patent # 7792698)
- Flexible Advertiser Billing System With Mixed Postpayment And Prepayment Capabilities (US Patent # 7792743)
- Mixing Items, Such As Ad Targeting Keyword Suggestions, From Heterogeneous Sources (US Patent # 7801899)
- Approving Transcoded Advertisements In Advertisement Front End (US Patent # 7802280)
- Targeted Video Advertising (US Patent # 7806329)
- Governing The Serving Of Advertisements Based On A Cost Target (US Patent # 7818207)
- Accurately Estimating Advertisement Performance (US Patent # 7818208)
- Using Estimated Ad Qualities For Ad Filtering, Ranking And Promotion (US Patent # 7827060)
- Generating Landing Page Variants (US Patent # 7831658)
- Automated Price Maintenance For Use With A System In Which Advertisements Are Rendered With Relative Preference Based On Performance Information And Price Information (US Patent # 7844493)
- Determining Search Query Statistical Data For An Advertising Campaign Based On User-Selected Criteria (US Patent # 7860859)
- Systems And Methods For Providing Advertisements In A Communications Network (US Patent # 7873536)
- Embedding Advertisements Based On Names (US Patent # 7873621)
- Method And System For Detection Of Peripheral Devices And Communication Of Related Devices (US Patent # 7873765)
IBM
- Methods, Systems And Computer Program Products For Providing Insertions Based On Calculated Delays In Interactive System (US Patent # 6094677)
Performics
- Method And System For Exchanging Data Between Affiliated Sites (US Patent # 7249056)
The Weather Channel, Inc.
- Customized Advertising In A Web Page Using Information From The Web Page (US Patent # 7523387)
Analytics Patents
I’ve included Google’s web page Optimizer patents under this umbrella of Analytics since they provide a way to measure the potential impact of changes to a page.
- Encoding And Displaying Default Landing Page Content (US Patent # 7739594)
- Acquiring Web Page Experiment Schema (US Patent # 7809725)
- Starting Landing Page Experiments (US Patent # 7844894)
Urchin
- System And Method For Monitoring And Analyzing Internet Traffic (US Patent # 6792458)
- System And Method For Monitoring And Analyzing Internet Traffic (US Patent # 6804701)
- System And Method For Monitoring And Analyzing Internet Traffic (US Patent # 7610289)
- System And Method For Tracking Unique Visitors To A Website (US Patent # 7849202)
Annotations Patent
Only one patent listed here, but I could have included a few others. Many of the patents listed don’t fall neatly into one category or another, and some of Google’s search indexing patents rely upon “annotations” to help rank pages.
- Decentralised Web Annotation (US Patent # 7734610)
Audio Patents
Many of Google’s patents involve “multimedia” of one type or another, and there are many listed in the “images and video patents” category that might have been included in this category as well.
- Deconstructing Electronic Media Stream Into Human Recognizable Portions (US Patent # 7668610)
- Automatic Selection Of Representative Media Clips (US Patent # 7826911)
Blog Search Patents
Back in 2007, I wrote about a pending patent application in a post called Positive and Negative Quality Ranking Factors from Google’s Blog Search (Patent Application). That patent is still pending, but it works nicely with the other Google patent that’s been granted below.
- Indexing And Retrieval Of Blogs (US Patent # 7765209)
Client/Server Patents
It was difficult to come up with a category for the following patents. They involve things like signing into and using Google Accounts, and some applications involving the Google Toolbar.
- Conflict Management During Data Object Synchronization Between Client And Server (US Patent # 7529780)
- Accelerating User Interfaces By Predicting User Actions (US Patent # 7558822)
- Context-Aware Processes For Allowing Users Of Network Services To Access Account Information (US Patent # 7577702)
- Account Recovery Key (US Patent # 7610491)
- Document Access Control (US Patent # 7627569)
- Secure Login Credentials For Substantially Anonymous Users (US Patent # 7661128)
- Variable User Interface Based On Document Access Privileges (US Patent # 7664751)
- Duplicate Account Identification And Scoring (US Patent # 7725421)
- Systems And Methods Of Efficiently Preloading Documents To Client Devices (US Patent # 7747749)
- User Validation Using Cookies And Isolated Backup Validation (US Patent # 7757080)
- Determining A Number Of Users Behind A Set Of One Or More Internet Protocol (Ip) Addresses (US Patent # 7761558)
- Dual Cookie Security System (US Patent # 7779103)
- Systems And Methods For Managing Multiple User Accounts (US Patent # 7783631)
- Methods And Systems For Transferring Client Device Data Over A Network (US Patent # 7801948)
- Method And System For Transferring Web Browser Data Between Web Browsers (US Patent # 7805495)
Database Management Patents
Google has more than a few granted patents involving databases. There are many more listed in the category “Large File Space Indexing Patents”
- Assimilator Using Image Check Data (US Patent # 7542992)
McCarthy Software, Inc.
- Using Multiple Simultaneous Threads Of Communication (US Patent # 7328242)
- Methods And Systems For Processing Contact Information (US Patent # 7333976)
Design Patents
Design patents are filed to protect the look at feel of something, and the most important aspects of them aren’t the textual descriptions, but rather the images that accompany them.
- Graphical User Interface For A Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D528552 )
- Graphical User Interface For A Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D528553 )
- Graphical User Interface For A Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D529036 )
- Graphical User Interface For A Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D529037 )
- Graphical User Interface For A Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D529920 )
- Graphical User Interface (US Patent # D533561 )
- Graphical User Interface For A Display Screen (US Patent # D537834 )
- Graphic User Interface For A Display Screen (US Patent # D541291 )
- Display Device Showing User Interface (US Patent # D561193 )
- Display Screen With Graphical User Interface (US Patent # D566716 )
- Graphic User Interface Of Page Turning Elements For A Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D570359 )
- Graphical User Interface For Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D591304 )
- Graphical User Interface For Display Screen (US Patent # D592219 )
- Display Screen With Graphical User Interface (US Patent # D595304 )
- Graphical User Interface For A Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D599372 )
- Grapical User Interface For A Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal (US Patent # D601154 )
- Graphical User Interface (US Patent # D607465 )
- User Interface For Display Device (US Patent # D619614 )
- Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal With Teardrop-Shaped Marker Icon (US Patent # D620950 )
- Display Screen Of A Communications Terminal With Teardrop-Shaped Marker Icon (US Patent # D621413 )
- Display Screen With Graphical User Interface (US Patent # D621846 )
Distributed Data Patents
There are a few patents filed by Google that provide ways for people to share data, listed here.
- Method And Systems For Storing And Distributing Data (US Patent # 7734584)
- Sharing User Distributed Search Results (US Patent # 7844603)
IBM
- Distribution Of Digitally Encoded Presentations (US Patent # 5838912)
Document Presentation Patents
This particular patent didn’t seem to fit well in any of the other categories.
Peripheral Vision, LLC
- Automated Capture Of Technical Documents For Electronic Review And Distribution (US Patent # 5963966)
Duplicate Content Patents
Mostly focusing on duplicate content involving text, there are a few here that involve images, video, and audio as well.
- Detecting Query-Specific Duplicate Documents (US Patent # 6615209)
- Detecting Duplicate And Near-Duplicate Files (US Patent # 6658423)
- Detecting Duplicate And Near-Duplicate Files (US Patent # 7366718)
- Detecting Novel Document Content (US Patent # 7451120)
- Systems And Methods For Using Image Duplicates To Assign Labels To Images (US Patent # 7460735)
- Method And Apparatus For Producing A Signature For An Object (US Patent # 7523081)
- Duplicate Document Detection In A Web Crawler System (US Patent # 7627613)
- Modular Architecture For Entity Normalization (US Patent # 7672971)
- System For Automatically Managing Duplicate Documents When Crawling Dynamic Documents (US Patent # 7680773)
- Document Near-Duplicate Detection (US Patent # 7707157)
- Document Similarity Detection (US Patent # 7734627)
- Detecting Query-Specific Duplicate Documents (US Patent # 7779002)
- Approximate Hashing Functions For Finding Similar Content (US Patent # 7831531)
- Clustering By Previous Representative (US Patent # 7836108)
Ecommerce Patents
I somehow missed the “Gift registry” patent below when it was granted.
- Methods And Systems For Providing A Gift Registry (US Patent # 7603292)
- Distributed Electronic Commerce System With Centralized Virtual Shopping Carts (US Patent # 7640193)
- Cross Domain Customer Interface Updates (US Patent # 7860751)
- Distributed Electronic Commerce System With Centralized Point Of Purchase (US Patent # 7865399)
Email and Messaging Patents
Google has many patents involving email and IM. I included chat-based patents in this section as well. Some of these might play a role in whatever Google’s coming up with involving building a social network.
- Method System And Graphical User Interface For Dynamically Updating Transmission Characteristics In A Web Mail Reply (US Patent # 7269621)
- Electronic Messages With Embedded Musical Note Emoticons (US Patent # 7424682)
- System For Determining Email Spam By Delivery Path (US Patent # 7580981)
- Method And System For Activity Based Email Sorting (US Patent # 7587461)
- Verbal Labels For Electronic Messages (US Patent # 7627638)
- Systems And Methods For Graphically Representing Users Of A Messaging System (US Patent # 7627828)
- Methods And Systems For Processing Instant Messenger Messages (US Patent # 7680888)
- Integrated Conversations Having Both Email And Chat Messages (US Patent # 7680895)
- Methods And Systems For Developing An Instant Messaging Network (US Patent # 7685236)
- System For Reclassification Of Electronic Messages In A Spam Filtering System (US Patent # 7693945)
- Networked Chat And Media Sharing Systems And Methods (US Patent # 7761507)
- Method And System For Generating And Presenting Conversation Threads Having Email, Voicemail And Chat Messages (US Patent # 7769144)
- Conversation-Based Email Messaging (US Patent # 7788326)
- Email Conversation Management System (US Patent # 7814155)
- Time Line Display Of Chat Conversations (US Patent # 7814159)
- Displaying Conversation Views In A Conversation-Based Email System (US Patent # 7818378)
- Methods And Systems For Processing Offline Chat Messages (US Patent # 7831673)
- Voting In Chat System Without Topic-Specific Rooms (US Patent # 7860928)
- Chat System Without Topic-Specific Rooms (US Patent # 7865553)
IBM
- Method And System For Remotely Managing Electronic Mail Attachments (US Patent # 6256666)
Infoseek Corporation
- Method And System For Selectively Blocking Delivery Of Bulk Electronic Mail (US Patent # 6546416)
- Method And System For Selectively Blocking Delivery Of Bulk Electronic Mail (US Patent # 7194515)
Postini,Inc.
- System And Method For Filtering Electronic Messages Using Business Heuristics (US Patent # 7647321)
- Value-Added Electronic Messaging Services And Transparent Implementation Thereof Using Intermediate Server (US Patent # 6650890)
- Systems And Methods For Managing The Transmission Of Electronic Messages Through Active Message Data Updating (US Patent # 6941348)
- E-Mail Filtering Services And E-Mail Service Enrollment Techniques (US Patent # 7133660)
- Value-Added Electronic Messaging Services And Transparent Implementation Thereof Using Intermediate Server (US Patent # 7236769)
- E-Mail Filtering Services Using Internet Protocol Routing Information (US Patent # 7272378)
- E-Mail Policy Compliance Techniques (US Patent # 7277695)
- Value-Added Electronic Messaging Services Having Web-Based User Accessible Message Center (US Patent # 7428410)
- Data Storage And Retrieval Systems And Related Methods Of Storing And Retrieving Data (US Patent # 7584264)
- Collaborative Web Page Authoring (US Patent # 7584268)
- Zero-Minute Virus And Spam Detection (US Patent # 7603472)
- Electronic Message Source Reputation Information System (US Patent # 7668951)
- Source Reputation Information System For Filtering Electronic Messages Using A Network-Connected Computer (US Patent # 7676566)
- Electronic Document Policy Compliance Techniques (US Patent # 7761498)
- Source Reputation Information System With Blocking Of Tcp Connections From Sources Of Electronic Messages (US Patent # 7788359)
- Electronic Message Source Reputation Information System (US Patent # 7792909)
Event Modeling Patents
In my previous post on Google’s patents, I described these patents as involving “…the use and manipulation of databases, and include the creation of events that can trigger actions without changing the underlying structure of those databases.”
Starwave Corporation
- Method And Apparatus For Event Modeling (US Patent # 6341279)
- Method And Apparatus For Event Modeling (US Patent # 6578043)
- Method And Apparatus For Event Modeling (US Patent # 7373337)
Google Books Patents
A lot, but not all, of Google’s patents that involve Google Books, seem to focus upon ways to scan books.
- De-Warping Of Scanned Images (US Patent # 7463772)
- Detection Of Grooves In Scanned Images (US Patent # 7508978)
- Library Citation Integration (US Patent # 7526475)
- Systems And Methods For Glare Removal Using Polarized Filtering In Document Scanning (US Patent # 7561312)
- Acquiring And Using Three-Dimensional Information In A Document Scanning System (US Patent # 7586655)
- Imaging Opposing Bound Pages At High Speed Using Multiple Cameras (US Patent # 7605844)
- Pacing And Error Monitoring Of Manual Page Turning Operator (US Patent # 7619784)
- Three-Dimensional Calibration Using Orientation And Position Sensitive Calibration Pattern (US Patent # 7623274)
- Automatic Finger Detection In Document Images (US Patent # 7634112)
- Movable Document Cradle For Facilitating Imaging Of Bound Documents (US Patent # 7639406)
- Three-Dimensional Model Construction Using Unstructured Pattern (US Patent # 7660458)
- Computer-Implemented Interactive, Virtual Bookshelf System And Method (US Patent # 7778994)
- Query-Independent Entity Importance In Books (US Patent # 7783644)
Google Desktop Search Patents
I’m not sure whether Google is still pursuing their “Google Desktop Search,” but we may see aspects of it appearing in the operating systems that Google has been developing.
- Data Structure For Incremental Search (US Patent # 7512620)
- Temporal Ranking Scheme For Desktop Searching (US Patent # 7529739)
- Web Based User Interface For Selecting Options (US Patent # 7614018)
- Combined Title Prefix And Full-Word Content Searching (US Patent # 7617197)
- Systems And Methods For Generating Multiple Implicit Search Queries (US Patent # 7664734)
- Profile Based Capture Component (US Patent # 7680809)
- Systems And Methods For Ranking Implicit Search Results (US Patent # 7693825)
- Methods And Systems For Performing An Offline Search (US Patent # 7707142)
- Systems And Methods For Providing And Installing Software (US Patent # 7707573)
- Methods And Systems For Information Capture And Retrieval (US Patent # 7725508)
- Searching For User Interface Objects (US Patent # 7739272)
- Systems And Methods For Performing A Directory Search (US Patent # 7761439)
- Systems and methods for associating a keyword with a user interface area (US Patent # 7873632)
Google Finance Patents
This patent didn’t fit comfortably into any of the other categories.
- Computing A Group Of Related Companies For Financial Information Systems (US Patent # 7873595)
Google News Patents
There may be a few more patents in the Search Indexing Patents section that apply to Google News as well.
- Methods And Apparatus For Clustering News Content (US Patent # 7568148)
- Systems And Methods For Improving The Ranking Of News Articles (US Patent # 7577655)
Google TV Patents
While these may not be specifically about “Google TV,” they are specifically about TV. Many other patents may fit into this category, such as IBM patents on Video on Demand (VOD). but I placed those in the Images and Video Patents Category.
- Log Processing Of Channel Tunes And Channel Tune Times Generated From A Television Processing Device (US Patent # 7743394)
- Log Processing To Determine Impression Values Using Reliable Durations (US Patent # 7853969)
IBM
- Simplified Tv Viewer Response System And Method Using Special Codes And Subscriber Custom Calling Codes (US Patent # 6584613)
Handwriting Analysis
IBM
- Method And System For Automatically Segmenting And Recognizing Handwritten Chinese Characters (US Patent # 6519363)
- Handwriting Information Processing System With Charater Segmentation User Interface (US Patent # 6600834)
Hardware Patents
Google’s range of hardware patents is growing. Many of them seem to focus on improving Google’s computing power, but some of them are a little mysterious, like the acquisition of the Metaram memory module patents.
ASML Holding N.V.
- Large Field Of View Protection Optical System With Aberration Correctability For Flat Panel Displays (US Patent # 7158215)
Carl Meyer
- Energy Storage Circuit For DC-DC Converter (US Patent # 6538906)
- Cooling Baffle And Fan Mount Apparatus (US Patent # 6845009)
- Cable Management For Rack Mounted Computing System (US Patent # 6870095)
- Drive Cooling Baffle (US Patent # 6906920)
- Mounting Structures For Electronics Components (US Patent # 7113409)
- Modular Data Center (US Patent # 7278273)
- Systems And Methods For Automatic Repair And Replacement Of Networked Machines (US Patent # 7302608)
- System And Method For Providing Load Balanced Processing (US Patent # 7386616)
- Adjustable Monitor Cart (US Patent # 7419170)
- System And Method Of Accessing A Document Efficiently Through Multi-Tier Web Caching (US Patent # 7437364)
- Systems And Methods For Delay In Startup Of Multiple Components (US Patent # 7475267)
- Power Distribution Adaptable To Different Power Supplies (US Patent # 7479045)
- Systems And Methods For Detecting A Memory Condition And Providing An Alert (US Patent # 7499996)
- Water-Based Data Center (US Patent # 7525207)
- Motherboards With Integrated Cooling (US Patent # 7564685)
- Interim Power Source (US Patent # 7696643)
- Modular Computing Environments (US Patent # 7738251)
- Auto-Measurement And Calibration Of DC Resistance In Current Sensing Applications (US Patent # 7741983)
- Automatically Detecting A Computer Chassis Type (US Patent # 7768797)
- Controlled Power Cycling In Computing Devices (US Patent # 7774633)
- Detectable Null Memory For Airflow Baffling (US Patent # 7788421)
- Adaptable Computer Rack For Power Distribution (US Patent # 7830043)
- Secure Keyboard (US Patent # 7835521)
- Methods And Apparatuses For Identification Of Device Presence (US Patent # 7853703)
- Systems And Methods For Close Coupled Cooling (US Patent # 7864527)
Intel Corporation
- Methods To Deposit Metal Alloy Barrier Layers (US Patent # 7223695)
Metaram, Inc.
- Methods And Apparatus Of Stacking Drams (US Patent # 7379316)
- Interface Circuit System And Method For Performing Power Management Operations In Conjunction With Only A Portion Of A Memory Circuit (US Patent # 7386656)
- Interface Circuit System And Method For Autonomously Performing Power Management Operations In Conjunction With A Plurality Of Memory Circuits (US Patent # 7392338)
- Interface Circuit System And Method For Performing Power Management Operations Utilizing Power Management Signals (US Patent # 7472220)
- Integrated Memory Core And Memory Interface Circuit (US Patent # 7515453)
- Power Saving System And Method For Use With A Plurality Of Memory Circuits (US Patent # 7580312)
- Interface Circuit System And Method For Performing Power Saving Operations During A Command-Related Latency (US Patent # 7581127)
- System And Method For Power Management In Memory Systems (US Patent # 7590796)
- Methods And Apparatus Of Stacking Drams (US Patent # 7599205)
- System And Method For Simulating An Aspect Of A Memory Circuit (US Patent # 7609567)
- System And Method For Delaying A Signal Communicated From A System To At Least One Of A Plurality Of Memory Circuits (US Patent # 7724589)
- Interface Circuit System And Method For Autonomously Performing Power Management Operations In Conjunction With A Plurality Of Memory Circuits (US Patent # 7730338)
- Interface Circuit System And Method For Performing Power Management Operations In Conjunction With Only A Portion Of A Memory Circuit (US Patent # 7761724)
Zetta Research, LLC
- Bi-Directional DC Power Conversion System (US Patent # 6690585)
- Modular Computing System (US Patent # 7054963)
- Component For Use As A Portable Computing Device And Pointing Device (US Patent # 7054965)
- Electronic Device With Integral Connectors (US Patent # 7247032)
- Blended Transfer Function For Computer Pointing Devices (US Patent # 7274355)
- Docking Cable (US Patent # 7285021)
- Multiple Disparate Wireless Units Sharing Of Antennas (US Patent # 7352332)
- Non-Binding Sliding Display For A Handheld Electronic Device (US Patent # 7353053)
- Electronic Device With Integral Connectors (US Patent # 7357648)
- Keyboard With Variable-Sized Keys (US Patent # 7372454)
- Electronic Device With Integral Connectors (US Patent # 7390197)
- Docking Module Comprising A Dc-Dc Charger (US Patent # 7462073)
- Personal Computing Device Having Single-Cell Battery (US Patent # 7493500)
- Combined Outflow Portal For Acoustic And Thermal Energy (US Patent # 7518860)
- Docking Cable (US Patent # 7537485)
- Method For Protecting A Connection Interface In A Computer-Docking Assembly (US Patent # 7810222)
- Logical Battery Partitions Configured By User Interface (US Patent # 7873852)
Image and Video Patents
This seems to be one of the fastest-growing sections of Google’s patent portfolio. The Klipmark patents came to Google through Doubleclick, and the Duck Corporation patents via On2 Technologies.
- Building Parallel Hybrid Spill Trees To Facilitate Parallel Nearest-Neighbor Matching Operations (US Patent # 7539657)
- Annotation Framework For Video (US Patent # 7559017)
- Rollback In A Browser (US Patent # 7633510)
- Effects Applied To Images In A Browser (US Patent # 7634715)
- Optical Character Recognition Based On Shape Clustering And Multiple Optical Character Recognition Processes (US Patent # 7650035)
- Shape Clustering And Cluster-Level Manual Identification In Post Optical Character Recognition Processing (US Patent # 7697758)
- Embedded Navigation Interface (US Patent # 7707516)
- Methods And Systems For Image Sharing Over A Network (US Patent # 7770004)
- Method And Apparatus For Enhancing Object Boundary Precision In An Image (US Patent # 7813582)
- Serving Media Articles With Altered Playback Speed (US Patent # 7840693)
- Content-Aware Video Resizing Using Discontinuous Seam Carving (US Patent # 7873211)
- System And Methods For Detecting Images Distracting To A User (US Patent # 7877382)
- Reorganization Of Raw Image Data For Processing (US Patent # 7469059)
- Generating, Storing, And Displaying Graphics Using Sub-Pixel Bitmaps (US Patent # 7570828)
- Methods And Systems For Identifying An Image As A Representative Image For An Article (US Patent # 7580568)
- Distributed Processing When Editing An Image In A Browser (US Patent # 7631252)
- Selective Image Editing In A Browser (US Patent # 7631253)
- Method And System For Approving Documents Based On Image Similarity (US Patent # 7639898)
- High Resolution Replication Of Document Based On Shape Clustering (US Patent # 7646921)
- Blocking Of Unlicensed Audio Content In Video Files On A Video Hosting Website (US Patent # 7707224)
- Scoring Items (US Patent # 7751592)
- Automatic Determination Of Whether A Document Includes An Image Gallery (US Patent # 7788258)
- System And Method For Rating Documents Comprising An Image (US Patent # 7801738)
- Efficient Rendering Of Panoramic Images, And Applications Thereof (US Patent # 7843451)
- Video-Related Recommendations Using Link Structure (US Patent # 7853622)
IBM
- Multimedia Distribution Over Wide Area Networks (US Patent # 5568181)
- Video Optimized Media Streamer Having Communication Nodes Received Digital Data From Storage Node And Transmitted Said Data To Adapters For Generating Isochronous Digital Data Streams (US Patent # 5603058)
- Media Streamer With Control Node Enabling Same Isochronous Streams To Appear Simultaneously At Output Ports Or Different Streams To Appear Simultaneously At Output Ports (US Patent # 5668948)
- System And Method For Providing Merchant Information And Establishing Links To Merchants While Presenting A Movie (US Patent # 5696905)
- System And Method For Providing Merchant Information And Establishing Links To Merchants While Presenting A Movie (US Patent # 5715400)
- Video Data Streamer Having Scheduler For Scheduling Read Request For Individual Data Buffers Associated With Output Ports Of Communication Node To One Storage Node (US Patent # 5761417)
- Channel Conservation For Anticipated Load Surge In Video Servers (US Patent # 5768681)
- Video Optimized Media Streamer User Interface Employing Non-Blocking Switching To Achieve Isochronous Data Transfers (US Patent # 5805821)
- Multi-Node Media Server That Provides Video To Plurality Of Terminals From A Single Buffer When Video Requests Are Close In Time (US Patent # 5808607)
- Multimedia Server System And Method For Communicating Multimedia Information (US Patent # 5930493)
- System And Method For Enabling A User To Move Between Cyclically Transmitted Image Streams (US Patent # 6177930)
- Dynamic Modification Of Multimedia Content (US Patent # 6317795)
- System For Seamless Streaming Of Data Stored On A Network Of Distributed Primary And Target Servers Using Segmentation Information Exchanged Among All Servers During Streaming (US Patent # 6377996)
- Data Distribution System Using Coordinated Analog And Digital Streams (US Patent # 6675388)
- Control And Maintenance Of Multicast Distribution Employing Embedded Displays (US Patent # 6768737)
- System And Method For Enhanced Edit List For Recording Options (US Patent # 7212730)
- Personal Video Recording With Recovery Of Displayed Storage Space (US Patent # 7248776)
- Personal Video Recording With Further Compression Of Recorded Shows (US Patent # 7295753)
- Personal Video Recording With Storage Space Requirement Checking (US Patent # 7366398)
- Channel Merging Method For Vod System (US Patent # 7373653)
- Personal Video Recording With Storage Space Loans (US Patent # 7529471)
- Personal Video Recording With Pools And Groups (US Patent # 7532809)
- Video On Demand Configuring, Controlling And Maintaining (US Patent # 7540012)
- Channel Merging Method For Vod System (US Patent # 7673318)
Klipmark Corporation
- Method And System For Collecting And Providing Multimedia Content (US Patent # 7039684)
- In-Page Full Screen Internet Video Method (US Patent # 7788583)
Nevengineering, Inc.
- Labeled Bunch Graphs For Image Analysis (US Patent # 6222939)
- Wavelet-Based Facial Motion Capture For Avatar Animation (US Patent # 6272231)
- Face Recognition From Video Images (US Patent # 6301370)
- Labeled Bunch Graphs For Image Analysis (US Patent # 6356659)
- Video Superposition System And Method (US Patent # 6400374)
- Procedure For Automatic Analysis Of Images And Image Sequences Based On Two-Dimensional Shape Primitives (US Patent # 6466695)
- Method And Apparatus For Zoomed Display Of Characters Entered From A Telephone Keypad (US Patent # 6473006)
- Labeled Bunch Graphs For Image Analysis (US Patent # 6563950)
- Wavelet-Based Facial Motion Capture For Avatar Animation (US Patent # 6580811)
- Method And System For Customizing Facial Feature Tracking Using Precise Landmark Finding On A Neutral Face Image (US Patent # 6714661)
- Method For Optimizing Off-Line Facial Feature Tracking (US Patent # 6834115)
- Method And Apparatus For Image Analysis Of A Gabor-Wavelet Transformed Image Using A Neural Network (US Patent # 6917703)
- Method And System For Generating Facial Animation Values Based On A Combination Of Visual And Audio Information (US Patent # 6940454)
- System And Method For Feature Location And Tracking In Multiple Dimensions Including Depth (US Patent # 7050624)
- Method For Generating An Animated Three-Dimensional Video Head (US Patent # 7050655)
- Image-Based Search Engine For Mobile Phones With Camera (US Patent # 7565139)
- Image Based Multi-Biometric System And Method (US Patent # 7697735)
- Mobile Image-Based Information Retrieval System (US Patent # 7751805)
ON2 Technologies, LLC
- Method And Apparatus For Compression And Decompression Of Video Images (US Patent # 6108383)
- Apparatus And Method For Non-Sequential Image Data Transmission And Display (US Patent # 6292837)
- Method For Analysing The Content Of A Video Signal (US Patent # 6560366)
- Video Compression System (US Patent # 7027654)
- Method Of Improved Image/Video Compression Via Data Re-Ordering (US Patent # 7409099)
- Video Compression And Encoding Method (US Patent # 7499492)
- Video Compression And Encoding Method (US Patent # 7606310)
The Duck Corporation (On2)
- System For Manipulating Digitized Image Objects In Three Dimensioins (US Patent # 5999641)
- Data Compression Apparatus And Method (US Patent # 6181822)
- Apparatus And Method To Digitally Compress Video Signals (US Patent # 6327304)
- System For Manipulating Digitized Image Objects In Three Dimensions (US Patent # 6370267)
Intellectual Property Patents
- Automated Determination Of Validity Of Complaints (US Patent # 7680675)
- Automated Screening Of Content Based On Intellectual Property Rights (US Patent # 7870605)
Language Conversion Patents
- Predictive Conversion Of User Input (US Patent # 7506254)
Large File Space Indexing Patents
- Leasing Scheme For Data-Modifying Operations (US Patent # 7065618)
- System And Method For Encoding And Decoding Variable-Length Data (US Patent # 7068192)
- Systems And Methods For Performing Record Append Operations (US Patent # 7107419)
- System And Method For Searching An Extended Database (US Patent # 7174346)
- Namespace Locking Scheme (US Patent # 7222119)
- Large Scale Machine Learning Systems And Methods (US Patent # 7222127)
- System And Method For Selectively Searching Partitions Of A Database (US Patent # 7254580)
- Document Compression Scheme That Supports Searching And Partial Decompression (US Patent # 7319994)
- Large Scale Data Storage In Sparse Tables (US Patent # 7428524)
- Highly Compressed Randomly Accessed Storage Of Large Tables With Arbitrary Columns (US Patent # 7496589)
- Data Compression Of Large Scale Data Stored In Sparse Tables (US Patent # 7548928)
- Storing A Sparse Table Using Locality Groups (US Patent # 7567973)
- System And Method For Data Distribution (US Patent # 7568034)
- System And Method For Analyzing Data Records (US Patent # 7590620)
- Document Treadmilling System And Method For Updating Documents In A Document Repository And Recovering Storage Space From Invalidated Documents (US Patent # 7617226)
- System And Method For Dynamically Updating A Document Repository Without Interrupting Concurrent Querying (US Patent # 7634517)
- System And Method For Efficient Large-Scale Data Processing (US Patent # 7650331)
- Data Reconstruction From Shared Update Log (US Patent # 7668846)
- Systems And Methods For Prioritizing Error Notification (US Patent # 7689873)
- Index Updating Using Segment Swapping (US Patent # 7702614)
- Synchronizing Write Accesses (US Patent # 7720812)
- Accelerated Large Scale Optimization (US Patent # 7730074)
- Systems And Methods For Replicating Data (US Patent # 7739233)
- Scaling Machine Learning Using Approximate Counting That Uses Feature Hashing (US Patent # 7743003)
- Large-Scale Data Processing In A Distributed And Parallel Processing Enviornment (US Patent # 7756919)
- Low Overhead Thread Synchronization System And Method For Garbage Collecting Stale Data In A Document Repository Without Interrupting Concurrent Querying (US Patent # 7769792)
- Methods And Systems For Compressing Indices (US Patent # 7801898)
- Database Partitioning By Virtual Partitions (US Patent # 7809769)
- Searching Indexed And Non-Indexed Resources For Content (US Patent # 7818324)
- Incremental Data Warehouse Updating (US Patent # 7822712)
- Maintaining Data In A File System (US Patent # 7827214)
- Distributed Aggregation Mapping (US Patent # 7860822)
- Garbage Collecting Systems And Methods (US Patent # 7865536)
- Efficient Application Hosting In A Distributed Application Execution System (US Patent # 7877482)
Medical Patents
- Instrument For Medical Purposes (US Patent # 6684094)
Modeling and Maps Patents
I’ve included patents involving business listings in Google Maps, as well as driving directions patents in this section. I included Google navigation patents in the category on Vehicles.
- Address Geocoding (US Patent # 6934634)
- Digital Mapping System (US Patent # 7158878)
- Methods And Apparatus For Estimating Similarity (US Patent # 7158961)
- Generating, Storing, And Displaying Graphics Using Sub-Pixel Bitmaps (US Patent # 7209148)
- Method And Apparatus For Customizing Travel Directions (US Patent # 7239959)
- Techniques For Displaying And Caching Tiled Map Data On Constrained-Resource Services (US Patent # 7315259)
- Markup Language For An Interactive Geographic Information System (US Patent # 7353114)
- Using Boundaries Associated With A Map View For Business Location Searching (US Patent # 7373246)
- Determining Unambiguous Geographic References (US Patent # 7483881)
- Adaptive And Personalized Navigation System (US Patent # 7512487)
- Providing Routing Information Based On Ambiguous Locations (US Patent # 7571048)
- System And Method For Identifying Bounds Of A Geographical Area (US Patent # 7576754)
- System And Method For Identifying Geographical Areas That Significantly Overlap A Map View (US Patent # 7595725)
- Generating And Serving Tiles In A Digital Mapping System (US Patent # 7599790)
- Methods And Systems For Improving A Search Ranking Using Location Awareness (US Patent # 7606798)
- Dynamic Exploration Of Electronic Maps (US Patent # 7616217)
- Combined Map Scale And Measuring Tool (US Patent # 7620496)
- Markup Language For Interactive Geographic Information System (US Patent # 7643673)
- Classification Of Ambiguous Geographic References (US Patent # 7716162)
- System For Automatically Integrating A Digital Map System (US Patent # 7730389)
- Streaming And Interactive Visualization Of Filled Polygon Data In A Geographic Information System (US Patent # 7746343)
- Geographic Coding For Location Search Queries (US Patent # 7747598)
- Map User Interface (US Patent # 7779360)
- Viewport-Relative Scoring For Location Search Queries (US Patent # 7792883)
- Processing An Image Map For Display On Computing Device (US Patent # 7796837)
- Indexing Documents According To Geographical Relevance (US Patent # 7801897)
- System Using Router In A Web Browser For Inter-Domain Communication (US Patent # 7809785)
- Scoring Local Search Results Based On Location Prominence (US Patent # 7822751)
- Visually-Oriented Driving Directions In Digital Mapping System (US Patent # 7831387)
- Local Item Extraction (US Patent # 7831438)
- Searching Structured Geographical Data (US Patent # 7836085)
- Business Listing Search (US Patent # 7840407)
- Secondary Map In Digital Mapping System (US Patent # 7865301)
- Method For Automatic Alignment Of Raster Data With Vector Data In A Geographic Information System (US Patent # 7869667)
IBM
- Virtual Map System And Method For Tracking Objects (US Patent # 6377296)
- Method And Apparatus For End-To-End Travel Time Estimation Using Dynamic Traffic Data (US Patent # 7236881)
Keyhole, Inc.
- Server For Geospatially Organized Flat File Data (US Patent # 7225207)
Wildtangent, Inc.
- Method And Apparatus For Distributing And Displaying Maps Electronically (US Patent # 6724382)
Multi-Language Patents
- Systems And Methods For Using Anchor Text As Parallel Corpora For Cross-Language Information Retrieval (US Patent # 7146358)
- System And Method For Providing Preferred Language Ordering Of Search Results (US Patent # 7451129)
- Augmenting Queries With Synonyms Selected Using Language Statistics (US Patent # 7475063)
- Systems And Methods For Translating Chinese Pinyin To Chinese Characters (US Patent # 7478033)
- Displaying Original Text In A User Interface With Translated Text (US Patent # 7801721)
- Fault-Tolerant Romanized Input Method For Non-Roman Characters (US Patent # 7810030)
- Simplifying Query Terms With Transliteration (US Patent # 7835903)
Network Patents
- Loadbalancing Multiple Files Across Computing Devices (US Patent # 7631310)
- Method And Apparatus To Avoid Network Congestion (US Patent # 7675857)
- Method And System For Discovering Network Paths (US Patent # 7760735)
- Estimating A Dominant Resource Used By A Computer Program (US Patent # 7797692)
- Network Transfer Protocol (US Patent # 7817631)
- Systems And Methods For Relating Network Traffic Using Traffic-Based Signatures (US Patent # 7881255)
- Technique For Regulating Link Traffic (US Patent # 7882231)
- Udp Transport For Web Services (US Patent # 7882268)
IBM
- Method And Apparatus For Reserving System Resources To Assure Quality Of Service (US Patent # 5581703)
- Method And Apparatus For Reserving System Resources To Assure Quality Of Service (US Patent # 5701465)
- Representing,Configuring, Administering, Monitoring, And/Or Modeling Connections Using Catalogs And Matrixes (US Patent # 7277931)
Ortiz & Lopez, PLLC
- Distributing Packets More Evenly Over Trunked Network Links (US Patent # 7710966)
Tudor Empire, LLC
- Method And Apparatus For Reference Establishmemt When Preferences In A Donor Device Are Unavailable (US Patent # 5630159)
- Method And Apparatus For Personal Attribute Selection And Management Using A Preference Memory (US Patent # 5633484)
- Method And Appararus For Personal Attribute Selection And Management Using Prediction (US Patent # 5814798)
Organizational Communications Patents
- Distributed Metrics Collection (US Patent # 7801955)
IBM
- Doing Business Employing Linked Trees Having Retrievable Embedded Information (US Patent # 6647394)
Personal Data Patents
- Automatically Generating And Maintaining An Address Book (US Patent # 7634463)
- Dynamically Autocompleting A Data Entry (US Patent # 7685144)
- Method, System, And Graphical User Interface For Meeting-Spot-Related Contact Lists (US Patent # 7797642)
IBM
- System And Method For Automatically Generating A Third Party Notification When A Traveler Is Overdue (US Patent # 6691029)
Personalized Homepage Patent
- Proxy Server Collection Of Data For Module Incorporation Into A Container Document (US Patent # 7725530)
- Remote Module Incorporation Into A Container Document (US Patent # 7730082)
- Message Catalogs For Remote Modules (US Patent # 7730109)
Personalized Search Patents
- Personalizing Anchor Text Scores In A Search Engine (US Patent # 7260573)
- Methods And Systems For Personalized Network Searching (US Patent # 7523096)
- Generating Specialized Search Results In Response To Patterned Queries (US Patent # 7593939)
- Access Controlled Search Results (US Patent # 7600263)
- Variably Controlling Access To Content (US Patent # 7603355)
- Personalization Of Placed Content Ordering In Search Results (US Patent # 7693827)
- Variable Personalization Of Search Results In A Search Engine (US Patent # 7716223)
- Systems And Methods For Providing Searchable Prior History (US Patent # 7730054)
- Scalable User Clustering Based On Set Similarity (US Patent # 7739314)
- Systems And Methods For Providing Subscription-Based Personalization (US Patent # 7747632)
- Systems And Methods For Demoting Personalized Search Results Based On Personal Information (US Patent # 7827170)
Phrase-Based Indexing Patents
- Automatic Taxonomy Generation In Search Results Using Phrases (US Patent # 7426507)
- Phrase-Based Indexing In An Information Retrieval System (US Patent # 7536408)
- Semantic Unit Recognition (US Patent # 7580827)
- Phrase Identification In An Information Retrieval System (US Patent # 7580921)
- Phrase-Based Personalization Of Searches In An Information Retrieval System (US Patent # 7580929)
- Phrase-Based Generation Of Document Descriptions (US Patent # 7584175)
- Phrase-Based Searching In An Information Retrieval System (US Patent # 7599914)
- Detecting Spam Documents In A Phrase Based Information Retrieval System (US Patent # 7603345)
- Index Server Architecture Using Tiered And Sharded Phrase Posting Lists (US Patent # 7693813)
- Information Retrieval System For Archiving Multiple Document Versions (US Patent # 7702618)
- Phrase-Based Detection Of Duplicate Documents In An Information Retrieval System (US Patent # 7711679)
Infoseek Corporation
- Real-Time Document Collection Search Engine With Phrase Indexing (US Patent # 5920854)
- Real-Time Document Collection Search Engine With Phrase Indexing (US Patent # 6070158)
Radio Patents
DMARC Broadcasting Co.
- Dynamic Data Delivery Apparatus And Method For Same (US Patent # 7313359)
- Dynamic Data Delivery Apparatus And Method For Same (US Patent # 7313360)
- Dynamic Data Delivery Apparatus And Method For Same (US Patent # 7313361)
- Dynamic Data Delivery Apparatus And Method For Same (US Patent # 7315726)
- Dynamic Data Delivery Apparatus And Method For Same (US Patent # 7363001)
- Method And Apparatus Using Geographical Position To Provide Authenticated, Secure, Radio Frequency Communication Between A Gaming Host And A Remote Gaming Device (US Patent # 7460863)
- Dynamic Selection And Scheduling Of Radio Frequency Communications (US Patent # 7647038)
- Dynamic Selection And Scheduling Of Radio Frequency Communications (US Patent # 7660557)
- System And Method For Providing A Digital Watermark (US Patent # 7672337)
- System And Method For Media Play Forecasting (US Patent # 7676405)
- Broadcast Monitoring System And Method For Intelligent Optimization (US Patent # 7711313)
Reviews and Recommendations Patents
- Identifying Clusters Of Similar Reviews And Displaying Representative Reviews From Multiple Clusters (US Patent # 7558769)
- Product Recommendations Based On Collaborative Filtering Of User Data (US Patent # 7590562)
- Systems And Methods For Reputation Management (US Patent # 7827052)
- Collective Ranking Of Digital Content (US Patent # 7840563)
- Method And System For Obtaining Feedback For A Product (US Patent # 7860803)
RSS Patents
Feedburner, Inc.
- Method And System For Processing Published Content On The Internet (US Patent # 7640184)
- Indirect Subscriptions To Top N Lists Of Content Feeds (US Patent # 7590691)
Search Display Patents
Disney Enterprises, Inc.
- System And Method For Selecting Content For Displaying Over The Internet Based Upon Some User Input (US Patent # 6728705)
- System And Method For Selecting Content For Displaying Over The Internet Based Upon Some User Input (US Patent # 7424478)
- Systems And Methods For Highlighting Search Results (US Patent # 6839702)
- Identifying Navigation Bars And Objectionable Navigation Bars (US Patent # 7089490)
- Interface For A Universal Search Engine (US Patent # 7447678)
- Method And System For Autocompletion Using Ranked Results (US Patent # 7487145)
- Web Page Zoom Feature (US Patent # 7487447)
- Method And System For Url Autocompletion Using Ranked Results (US Patent # 7499940)
- System And Method For Navigating Within A Graphical User Interface Without Using A Pointing Device (US Patent # 7552400)
- Data Object Visualization (US Patent # 7555471)
- System And Method For Indicating Web Page Modifications (US Patent # 7559016)
- Determination Of A Desired Repository (US Patent # 7584177)
- System And Method For Providing Text Summarization For Use In Web-Based Content (US Patent # 7587309)
- User Interface For Facts Query Engine With Snippets From Information Sources That Include Query Terms And Answer Terms (US Patent # 7587387)
- Enhanced Search Results (US Patent # 7624101)
- Event Searching (US Patent # 7647353)
- Automatic Completion Of Fragments Of Text (US Patent # 7657423)
- Systems And Methods For Sorting And Displaying Search Results In Multiple Dimensions (US Patent # 7660822)
- Number-Range Search System And Method (US Patent # 7693824)
- Search Engine With Fill-The-Blanks Capability (US Patent # 7693829)
- Systems And Methods For Providing A Graphical Display Of Search Activity (US Patent # 7694212)
- Enhanced Document Browsing With Automatically Generated Links To Relevant Information (US Patent # 7698626)
- Generating Query Suggestions Using Contextual Information (US Patent # 7725485)
- Labeling Events In Historic News (US Patent # 7739254)
- Browseable Fact Repository (US Patent # 7774328)
- Displaying Facts On A Linear Graph (US Patent # 7778952)
- Generating Structured Information (US Patent # 7788293)
- Anticipated Query Generation And Processing In A Search Engine (US Patent # 7836044)
- Document Search Engine Including Highlighting Of Confident Results (US Patent # 7836391)
- Alternate Methods Of Displaying Search Results (US Patent # 7853606)
Search Indexing Patents
There are a lot of patents listed in this section that could be broken down into smaller categories. I may try to do that in the future.
Applied Semantics, Inc.
- Meaning-Based Information Organization And Retrieval (US Patent # 6453315)
- Systems And Methods For Customizing Behavior Of Multiple Search Engines (US Patent # 7801876)
- Methods And Apparatus For Using A Modified Index To Provide Search Results In Response To An Ambiguous Search Query (US Patent # 6529903)
- Information Extraction From A Database (US Patent # 6678681)
- Techniques For Finding Related Hyperlinked Documents Using Link-Based Analysis (US Patent # 6754873)
- Methods And Apparatus For Using A Modified Index To Provide Search Results In Response To An Ambiguous Search Query (US Patent # 6865575)
- Methods And Apparatus For Determining Equivalent Descriptions For An Information Need (US Patent # 6941293)
- System And Method For Supporting Editorial Opinion In The Ranking Of Search Results (US Patent # 7096214)
- Methods And Apparatus For Providing Search Results In Response To An Ambiguous Search Query (US Patent # 7136854)
- Method Of Spell-Checking Search Queries (US Patent # 7194684)
- Link Based Clustering Of Hyperlinked Documents (US Patent # 7213198)
- Detecting Quoted Text (US Patent # 7222299)
- Method And Apparatus For Learning A Probabilistic Generative Model For Text (US Patent # 7231393)
- Ranking Documents Based On Large Data Sets (US Patent # 7231399)
- Identification Of Semantic Units From Within A Search Query (US Patent # 7249121)
- Decompression Of Block-Sorted Data (US Patent # 7254689)
- Systems And Methods For Associating A Keyword With A User Interface Area (US Patent # 7272601)
- Systems And Methods For Constructing A Query Result Set (US Patent # 7281008)
- Systems And Methods For Performing Point-Of-View Searching (US Patent # 7296016)
- Methods And Systems For Identifying Manipulated Articles (US Patent # 7302645)
- Systems And Methods For Performing In-Context Searching (US Patent # 7305380)
- Distributed Crawling Of Hyperlinked Documents (US Patent # 7305610)
- Anchor Tag Indexing In A Web Crawler System (US Patent # 7308643)
- Methods And Systems For Generating Textual Information (US Patent # 7310633)
- System And Methods For Automatically Creating Lists (US Patent # 7350187)
- Methods And Apparatus For Increasing Efficiency Of Electronic Document Delivery To Users (US Patent # 7363291)
- Method And Apparatus For Characterizing Documents Based On Clusters Of Related Words (US Patent # 7383258)
- Identifying Language Attributes Through Probabilistic Analysis (US Patent # 7386438)
- Methods And Apparatus For Determining Equivalent Descriptions For An Information Need (US Patent # 7392244)
- Named Url Entry (US Patent # 7401072)
- Locating Meaningful Stopwords Or Stop-Phrases In Keyword-Based Retrieval Systems (US Patent # 7409383)
- Methods And Systems For Capturing Information (US Patent # 7412708)
- Method For Searching Media (US Patent # 7437351)
- Systems And Methods For Unification Of Search Results (US Patent # 7437353)
- Query Boosting Based On Classification (US Patent # 7440968)
- System And Method For Providing Preferred Country Biasing Of Search Results (US Patent # 7451130)
- Providing Capitalization Correction For Unstructured Excerpts (US Patent # 7451398)
- Support For Object Search (US Patent # 7454398)
- Methods And Systems For Improving A Search Ranking Using Population Information (US Patent # 7454417)
- Object Categorization For Information Extraction (US Patent # 7464090)
- Method And System For Query Data Caching And Optimization In A Search Engine System (US Patent # 7467131)
- Performing A Parallel Nearest-Neighbor Matching Operation Using A Parallel Hybrid Spill Tree (US Patent # 7475071)
- Systems And Methods Of Replicating All Or Part Of A Data Store (US Patent # 7499958)
- Methods And Systems For Improving A Search Ranking Using Related Queries (US Patent # 7505964)
- Systems And Methods For Information Extraction (US Patent # 7505984)
- Managing Urls (US Patent # 7509315)
- Method For Detecting Link Spam In Hyperlinked Databases (US Patent # 7509344)
- Methods And Systems For Assisted Network Browsing (US Patent # 7516118)
- Category Suggestions Relating To A Search (US Patent # 7523099)
- Query Rewriting With Entity Detection (US Patent # 7536382)
- Search Engine With Multiple Crawlers Sharing Cookies (US Patent # 7546370)
- System And Method For Identifying Compounds Through Iterative Analysis (US Patent # 7555428)
- Integration Of Multiple Query Revision Models (US Patent # 7565345)
- System And Method Of Accessing A Document Efficiently Through Multi-Tier Web Caching (US Patent # 7565423)
- Customization Of Search Results For Search Queries Received From Third Party Sites (US Patent # 7565630)
- Multiple Index Based Information Retrieval System (US Patent # 7567959)
- Merging Objects In A Facts Database (US Patent # 7567976)
- Systems And Methods Of Synchronizing Indexes (US Patent # 7581227)
- Browser-Based Spell Checker (US Patent # 7584426)
- Method And Apparatus For Generating A Preference Ranking (US Patent # 7587391)
- System And Method Of Accessing A Document Efficiently Through Multi-Tier Web Caching (US Patent # 7587398)
- Determining Document Subject By Using Title And Anchor Text Of Related Documents (US Patent # 7590628)
- Method And Apparatus For Reducing Memory Usage By Encoding Two Values In A Single Field (US Patent # 7592930)
- System And Method For Enabling Website Owners To Manage Crawl Rate In A Website Indexing System (US Patent # 7599920)
- Methods And Systems For Opportunistic Cookie Caching (US Patent # 7600028)
- Search Result Ranking Based On Trust (US Patent # 7603350)
- Variable-Length Compression Technique For Encoding Or Decoding A Sequence Of Integers (US Patent # 7609000)
- Rank-Adjusted Content Items (US Patent # 7610282)
- Preferential Ranking Of Code Search Results (US Patent # 7613693)
- Inferring Search Category Synonyms From User Logs (US Patent # 7627548)
- Determining Query Term Synonyms Within Query Context (US Patent # 7636714)
- Information Extraction From A Database (US Patent # 7650330)
- Variable-Length Compression Technique For Encoding Or Decoding A Sequence Of Integers (US Patent # 7652596)
- Interactive Financial Charting And Related News Correlation (US Patent # 7653582)
- Filtering Search Results Using Annotations (US Patent # 7668812)
- Identifying Inadequate Search Content (US Patent # 7668823)
- Systems And Methods For Inferring Concepts For Association With Content (US Patent # 7673253)
- Methods And Systems For Improving Text Segmentation (US Patent # 7680648)
- Methods And Systems For Detecting And Extracting Information (US Patent # 7689536)
- Programmable Search Engine (US Patent # 7693830)
- Aggregating Context Data For Programmable Search Engines (US Patent # 7716199)
- Document Ranking Based On Semantic Distance Between Terms In A Document (US Patent # 7716216)
- Ranking Documents Based On User Behavior And/Or Feature Data (US Patent # 7716225)
- Scheduler For Search Engine Crawler (US Patent # 7725452)
- Custom Search Index (US Patent # 7725453)
- System And Method For Updating Facts In A Fact Repository (US Patent # 7739212)
- Facilitating Searches Through Content Which Is Accessible Through Web-Based Forms (US Patent # 7739258)
- Detecting Spam Related And Biased Contexts For Programmable Search Engines (US Patent # 7743045)
- Finding Text On A Web Page (US Patent # 7752222)
- Learning Facts From Semi-Structured Text (US Patent # 7769579)
- Web Crawler Scheduler That Utilizes Sitemaps From Websites (US Patent # 7769742)
- Method And Apparatus For Classifying Documents Based On User Inputs (US Patent # 7769751)
- Limiting Requests By Web Crawlers To A Web Host (US Patent # 7774782)
- Determining Quality Of Linked Documents (US Patent # 7783639)
- Method And System For Dynamically Generating Search Links Embedded In Content (US Patent # 7788245)
- Systems And Methods For Category-Based Search (US Patent # 7788274)
- Entity Name Recognition (US Patent # 7792837)
- Systems And Methods For Determining Document Freshness (US Patent # 7797316)
- Sitemap Generating Client For Web Crawler (US Patent # 7801881)
- System And Method For Determining A Composite Score For Categorized Search Results (US Patent # 7814085)
- Automatic Generation Of Rewrite Rules For Urls (US Patent # 7827254)
- Identifying The Unifying Subject Of A Set Of Facts (US Patent # 7831545)
- System And Method For Displaying Both Time Information Search Results And Internet Search Results (US Patent # 7836041)
- Methods And Systems For Efficient Query Rewriting (US Patent # 7840547)
- Search Engine Cache Control (US Patent # 7840557)
- Sitemap Generation Where Last Modified Time Is Not Available To A Network Crawler (US Patent # 7865497)
- Query Revision Using Known Highly-Ranked Queries (US Patent # 7870147)
- Representing N-Gram Language Models For Compact Storage And Fast Retrieval (US Patent # 7877258)
- Selectively Deleting Clusters Of Conceptually Related Words From A Generative Model For Text (US Patent # 7877371)
Groupfire, Incorporated d/b/a/ Outride, Inc.
- System And Method For Searching And Recommending Objects From A Categorically Organized Information Repository (US Patent # 7031961)
- Interface And System For Providing Persistent Contextual Relevance For Commerce Activities In A Networked Environment (US Patent # 7089237)
Infoseek Corporation
- Document Retrieval Over Networks Wherein Ranking And Relevance Scores Are Computed At The Client For Multiple Database Documents (US Patent # 5659732)
- Method For Automatically Selecting Collections To Search In Full Text Searches (US Patent # 5845278)
- Performing Automated Document Collection And Selection By Providing A Meta-Index Values Identifying Corresponding Document Collections (US Patent # 5983216)
- Methods For Iteratively And Interactively Performing Collection Selection In Full Text Searches (US Patent # 6018733)
- Document Retrieval System With Access Control (US Patent # 7031954)
Invenda Corporation
- Presentation Of Search Results Using Dynamic Categorization (US Patent # 6385602)
Verizon
- Adaptive Ranking System For Information Retrieval (US Patent # 5321833)
Security Patents
- Image Distortion For Content Security (US Patent # 7561755)
Green Border Technologies, Inc.
- Methods And Systems For Providing A Secure Application Environment Using Derived User Accounts (US Patent # 7191469)
- Method And System For Assured Denotation Of Application Semantics (US Patent # 7406542)
- Systems And Methods For Secure Client Applications (US Patent # 7694328)
- Altered States Of Software Component Behavior (US Patent # 7698713)
Segmentation Patents
- Document Segmentation Based On Visual Gaps (US Patent # 7421651)
- Agent Rank (US Patent # 7565358)
- Methods And Systems For Analyzing Data In Media Material Having Layout (US Patent # 7801358)
Shopping Search Patents
- Methods And Systems For Output Of Search Results (US Patent # 7647300)
- Method And System To Produce And Train Composite Similarity Functions For Product Normalization (US Patent # 7702631)
- Methods And Systems For Information Extraction (US Patent # 7836038)
Social Networking Patents
- Methods And Systems For Requesting And Providing Information In A Social Network (US Patent # 7359894)
- Location-Based Social Software For Mobile Devices (US Patent # 7593740)
- System And Method For Impromptu Shared Communication Spaces (US Patent # 7610287)
- Methods And Systems For Providing Blog Information Associated With A Member Of A Social Network (US Patent # 7613769)
- Automatic Generation And Recommendation Of Communities In A Social Network (US Patent # 7680770)
- Methods And Systems For Triggering Actions (US Patent # 7702653)
- Methods And Systems For Controlling Access To Relationship Information In A Social Network (US Patent # 7716140)
- Open Profile Content Identification (US Patent # 7730017)
- Methods And Systems For Endorsing Local Search Results (US Patent # 7827176)
- Method, System, And Graphical User Interface For Identifying And Communicating With Meeting Spots (US Patent # 7831917)
Software Patents
- Hypertext Browser Assistant (US Patent # 7421432)
- Access To A Target Object With Desired Functionality (US Patent # 7644416)
- Autosave Functionality For Web Browser (US Patent # 7882072)
Vehicle Patents
- Vehicle Information Systems And Methods (US Patent # 7469827)
- Generating Attribute Models For Use In Adaptive Navigation Systems (US Patent # 7680749)
IBM
- Method For Representing Automotive Device Functionality And Software Services To Applications Using Javabeans (US Patent # 6236909)
- Method And Apparatus For Displaying Information In A Vehicle (US Patent # 6356812)
- Method And Apparatus For Presenting Traffic Information In A Vehicle (US Patent # 6442473)
- Autonomous Destination Determination (US Patent # 7418342)
- Dynamic Vehicle Grid Infrastructure To Allow Vehicles To Sense And Respond To Traffic Conditions (US Patent # 7425903)
- Method And System For Sending Events Between Vehicles (US Patent # 7443284)
- Systems And Methods For Generating Pattern Keys For Use In Navigation Systems To Predict User Detinations (US Patent # 7487017)
- Dynamic Vehicle Grid Infrastructure To Allow Vehicles To Sense And Respond To Traffic Conditions (US Patent # 7782227)
- System For Sending Events Between Vehicles (US Patent # 7821381)
Virtual Machine Task Management Patents
Peakstream Inc.
- Multi-Thread Runtime System (US Patent # 7814486)
Visual Modeling
@Last Software, Inc.
- System And Method For Three-Dimensional Modeling (US Patent # 6628279)
Voice Search Patents
- Voice Interface For A Search Engine (US Patent # 7027987)
- Method And System For Processing Queries Initiated By Users Of Mobile Devices (US Patent # 7643822)
- Automatic Language Model Update (US Patent # 7756708)
Verizon
- Word Dependent N-Best Search Method (US Patent # 5241619)
Web Authoring Patents
- Web Page Authoring Tool For Structured Documents (US Patent # 7536641)
- Methods And Apparatuses For Formatting Web Pages (US Patent # 7581173)
- Formatting A User Network Site Based On User Preferences And Format Performance Data (US Patent # 7603619)
- Online Content Collaboration Model (US Patent # 7797274)
- Web-Page Authoring Tool For Automatic Enrollment In Advertising Program (US Patent # 7840648)
Web Spam Patents
- Information Retrieval Based On Historical Data (US Patent # 7346839)
- Captcha-Based Spam Control For Content Creation Systems (US Patent # 7680891)
Weight Loss Patents
This may or may not be a mistake on the part of the patent office. Based upon the title, it might not seem to be a Google patent, but when you see terms like “Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient,” you wonder.
- Method Of Assaying Satiety Enhancing Tastants (US Patent # 7820208)
Wireless and Mobile/Phone Patents
I wasn’t surprised that this seems to be the quickest growing category in my look at Google’s patents. I suspect that it will continue to grow at a pretty quick rate in the future.
Access Co., LTD.
- Method And System For Providing Information For Identifying Callers Based On A Partial Number (US Patent # 6813344)
- Technique Allowing A Status Bar User Response On A Portable Device Graphic User Interface (US Patent # 6868283)
- Method And System For Providing Information For Identifying Callers Based On A Partial Number (US Patent # 7200211)
- Technique Allowing A Status Bar User Response On A Portable Device Graphic User Interface (US Patent # 7289772)
- Method And Apparatus For Notification On An Electronic Handheld Device Using An Attention Manager (US Patent # 7370289)
- Method And System For Providing Information For Identifying Callers Based On Partial Number (US Patent # 7852996)
ADC Telecommunications, Inc.
- Point-To-Multipoint Digital Radio Frequency Transport (US Patent # 7639982)
- Assessing Wireless Network Quality (US Patent # 7392017)
- Emulating A Messaging Operation For Mobile Devices (US Patent # 7546131)
- Mobile Sitemaps (US Patent # 7653617)
- Charting Audible Choices (US Patent # 7715531)
- User Interface For Mobile Devices (US Patent # 7779370)
- Displaying Information On A Mobile Device (US Patent # 7788577)
- Compressing Hyperlinks In A Hyperlink-Based Document (US Patent # 7809697)
- System And Method For Adding Dynamic Information To Digitally Signed Mobile Applications (US Patent # 7877461)
Gossett and Gunter, Inc.
- Application Of A Pseudo-Randomly Shuffled Hadamard Function In A Wireless Cdma System (US Patent # 6829289)
- Baseband Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Transceiver (US Patent # 6982945)
- Communications Network Quality Of Service System And Method For Real Time Information (US Patent # 7142536)
- Method And System For Temporal Autocorrelation Filtering (US Patent # 7352833)
- Lpc Filter For Removing Periodic And Quasi-Periodic Interference From Spread Spectrum Signals (US Patent # 7453921)
- Signal Spectrum Spreading And Combining System And Method (US Patent # 7545849)
- Method And System For Temporal Autocorrelation Filtering (US Patent # 7733943)
Hitachi
- Display System Capable Of Accepting User Commands By Use Of Voice And Gesture Inputs (US Patent # 5600765)
IBM
- Response Determination Method, Communication Method, And Wireless Transceiver (US Patent # 6574453)
- Remote Web Page Reader (US Patent # 6718015)
- Method, Apparatus, And Communication System For Setting Up A Communication Session (US Patent # 6766007)
- Method And Apparatus Of Disseminating Broadcast Information To A Handheld Device (US Patent # 6968568)
- System And Method For Providing Directions (US Patent # 7035650)
Myriad France SAS
- Predictive Data Entry Method For A Keypad (US Patent # 5911485)
- Method Of Displaying Elements Having A Width Greater Than A Screen Display Width (US Patent # 6147670)
- Predictive Data Entry Method For A Keypad (US Patent # 6150962)
- Method For Displaying Selectable And Non-Selectable Elments On A Small Screen (US Patent # 6209009)
- Scrolling Method And Apparatus For Zoom Display (US Patent # 6288718)
- Method And Apparatus For Displaying A Record From A Structured Database With Minimum Keystrokes (US Patent # 6370518)
- Method And Apparatus For Flexibly Linking To Remotely Located Content On A Network Server Through Use Of Aliases (US Patent # 6457060)
- Application Launcher For A Two-Way Mobile Communications Device (US Patent # 6463304)
- Remote Bookmarking For Wireless Client Devices (US Patent # 6560640)
- Hypermedia Identifier Input Mode For A Mobile Communication Device (US Patent # 6708214)
- Method And System For Processing Overloaded Keys Of A Mobile Device (US Patent # 6907273)
- Heuristically Assisted User Interface For A Wireless Communication Device (US Patent # 7003327)
- Dynamic Display For Communication Devices (US Patent # 7020849)
- Graphical User Interface Features Of A Browser In A Hand-Held Wireless Communication Device (US Patent # 7130894)
- Application-Based Protocol And Proxy Selection By A Mobile Device In A Multi-Protocol Network Environment (US Patent # 7277915)
Verizon
- Neural Network Model In Pattern Recognition Using Probabilistic Contextual Information (US Patent # 4941178)
- Method And Filter For Enhancing A Noisy Speech Signal (US Patent # 5148488)
- Recognizer For Recognizing Voice Messages In Pulse Code Modulated Format (US Patent # 5495553)
- Apparatus And Accompanying Methods For Preventing Toll Fraud Through Use Of Centralized Caller Voice Verification (US Patent # 5502759)
- Telephone Based Credit Card Protection (US Patent # 5513250)
- Intelligent Recognition Of Speech Signals Using Caller Demographics (US Patent # 5553119)
- Selection Of A Voice Recognition Data Base Responsive To Video Data (US Patent # 5586171)
- Transaction Implementation In Video Dial Tone Network (US Patent # 5594789)
- Single Tree Method For Grammar Directed, Very Large Speech Recognizer (US Patent # 5621859)
- Automated Directory Assistance System Using Word Recognition And Phoneme Processing Method (US Patent # 5638425)
- Automated Voice Synthesis Employing Enhanced Prosodic Treatment Of Text, Spelling Of Text And Rate Of Annunciation (US Patent # 5652828)
- Telephone Based Credit Card Protection (US Patent # 5655007)
- Method Of Training A Speaker-Dependency Isolated-Word Speech Recognizer With Automated Supervision Of Training Sufficiency (US Patent # 5664058)
- Intelligent Recognition (US Patent # 5666400)
- Methods And Apparatus For Activating Telephone Services In Response To Speech (US Patent # 5719921)
- Methods For Controlling The Generation Of Speech From Text Representing Names And Addresses (US Patent # 5732395)
- Automated Speech Recognition Using A Plurality Of Different Multilayer Perception Structures To Model A Plurality Of Distinct Phoneme Categories (US Patent # 5745649)
- Adaptive Methods For Controlling The Annunciation Rate Of Synthesized Speech (US Patent # 5749071)
- Method For Synthesizing Speech From Text And For Spelling All Or Portions Of The Text By Analogy (US Patent # 5751906)
- Name And Address Processor (US Patent # 5761640)
- Methods And Apparatus For Performing Specker Independent Recognition Of Commands In Parrallel With Speaker Dependent Recognition Of Names, Words Or Phrases (US Patent # 5832063)
- Methods For Controlling The Generation Of Speech From Text Representation One Or More Names (US Patent # 5832435)
- Methods And Apparatus For Generating And Using Garbage Models For Speaker Dependent Speech Recognition Purposes (US Patent # 5842165)
- Multi-Dialect Speech Recognition Method And Apparatus (US Patent # 5865626)
- Improved Automated Voice Synthesis From Text Having A Restricted Known Informational Content (US Patent # 5890117)
- Speech Recoginition Methods And Apparatus (US Patent # 5893059)
- Methods And Apparatus For Generating And Using Speaker Independent Garbage Models For Speaker Dependent Speech Recognition Purpose (US Patent # 5895448)
- Client/Server Speech Processor/Recognizer (US Patent # 5960399)
- Methods And Apparatus For Decreasing The Size Of Generated Models Trained For Automatic Pattern Recognition (US Patent # 5963902)
- Personal Dial Tone (US Patent # 5978450)
- Phonetic Voice Activated Dialing (US Patent # 5991364)
- Method And Apparatus For Transitioning From One Voice Recoginition System To Another (US Patent # 6014624)
- Rejection Grammar Using Selected Phonemes For Speech Recognition System (US Patent # 6016470)
- Personal Dial Tone Service With Personalized Caller ID (US Patent # 6038305)
- Providing Enhanced Services Through Double Siv And Personal Dial Tone (US Patent # 6067347)
- Methods And Apparatus For Generating And Using Out Of Vocabulary Word Models For Speaker Dependent Speech Recognition (US Patent # 6076054)
- Monitoring For Key Words With Siv To Validate Home Incarceration (US Patent # 6101242)
- Providing Enhanced Services Through Double Siv And Personal Dial Tone (US Patent # 6122357)
- Providing Enhanced Services Through Siv And Personal Dial Tone (US Patent # 6167119)
- Methods And Apparatus For Efficiently Providing A Communication System With Speech Recognition Capabilities (US Patent # 6229880)
- Voice Activated Web Browser (US Patent # 6311182)
- Computer System For Matching A New Data Entry To An Entry In An Existing Database Using An Existing Field Specifically A Phone Number (US Patent # 6374241)
- Voice Response Apparatus And Method Of Providing Automated Voice Responses With Variable User Prompting (US Patent # 6385584)
- Adaptive Partitioning Techniques In Performing Query Requests And Request Routing (US Patent # 6393415)
- Data Enhancement Techniques (US Patent # 6397228)
- Personal Dial Tone Service With Personalized Call Waiting (US Patent # 6404858)
- System And Method For Voice Activated Dialing And Routing Under Open Access Network Control (US Patent # 6404876)
- Apparatus For And Method Of Disambiguaion Of Directory Listing Searches Utilizing Multiple Selectable Secondary Search Keys (US Patent # 6421672)
- Method And Product For Performing Data Transfer In A Computer System (US Patent # 6421683)
- Techniques For Performing Incremental Data Upates (US Patent # 6493721)
- Generic Object For Rapid Integration Of Data Changes (US Patent # 6496843)
- Method For Using Data From A Data Query Cache (US Patent # 6519592)
- Efficient Data Transfer Mechanism For Synchronization Of Multi-Media Databases (US Patent # 6578056)
- Voice Activated Web Browser (US Patent # 6618726)
- Method For Detecting Incorrectly Categorized Data (US Patent # 6640228)
- Method For Performing A Data Query (US Patent # 6643640)
- Networked Voice-Activated Dialing And Call-Completion System (US Patent # 6665377)
- Voice Dialing Using Speech Models Generated From Text And/Or Speech (US Patent # 6690772)
- Personal Dial Tone Service With Personalized Call Waiting (US Patent # 6704405)
- Methods And Apparatus For Providing Speech Recognition Services To Communication System Users (US Patent # 6741677)
- Methods And Apparatus For Initiating A Voice-Dialing Operation (US Patent # 6744860)
- Voice Dialing Methods And Apparatus Implemented Using Ain Techniques (US Patent # 6744861)
- Methods And Apparatus For Generating, Updating And Distributing Speech Recognition Models (US Patent # 6823306)
- Personal Dial Tone Service With Personalized Call Waiting (US Patent # 6829332)
- Techniques For Web Site Integration (US Patent # 6912525)
- Methods And Apparatus For Performing Speech Recognition And Using Speech Recognition Results (US Patent # 6915262)
- Voice Dialing Using Text Names (US Patent # 6963633)
- Personal Message Service With Enhanced Text To Speech Synthesis (US Patent # 7027568)
- System For Obtaining Forwarding Information For Electronic System Using Speech Recognition (US Patent # 7031438)
- Voice-Activated Call Placement Systems And Methods (US Patent # 7127046)
- Voice Response Apparatus And Method Of Providing Automated Voice Responses With Silent Prompting (US Patent # 7260187)
- Systems And Methods For Using One-Dimensional Gaussian Distributions To Model Speech (US Patent # 7295978)
- Methods And Apparatus For Performing Speech Recognition Over A Network And Using Speech Recognition Results (US Patent # 7302391)
- Systems And Methods For Providing Automated Directory Assistance Using Transcripts (US Patent # 7401023)
- System And Methods For Using Transcripts To Train An Automated Directory Assistance Service (US Patent # 7447636)
Granted Patents Assigned to Exaflop
Client/Server Patents
Hewlett-Packard Development
- Method For Selectively Restricting Access To Computer Systems (US Patent # 6195698)
- Cofiguring Client Software Using Remote Notification (US Patent # 6219698)
Email and Messaging Patents
Hewlett-Packard Development
- Replacing Large Bit Component Of Electronic Mail (E-Mail) Message With Hot-Link In Distributed Computer System (US Patent # 6009462)
- Method And Apparatus For Organizing And Accessing Electronic Mail Messages Using Labels And Full Text And Label Indexing (US Patent # 6029164)
- Method And Apparatus For Publishing Information To A Communications Network And Enabling Subscriptions To Such Information (US Patent # 6044372)
- Method For Filtering Mail Messages For A Plurality Of Client Computers Connected To A Mail Service System (US Patent # 6092101)
- Integrated Content Guide For Interactive Selection Of Content And Services On Personal Computer Systems With Multiple Sources And Multiple Media Presentation (US Patent # 6172677)
- Web-Based Electronic Mail Server Apparatus And Method Using Full Text And Label Indexing (US Patent # 6185551)
- Technique For Dynamically Generating An Address Book In A Distributed Electronic Mail System (US Patent # 6189026)
Hardware Patents
Exaflop
- Data Center Uninterruptible Power Distribution Architecture (US Patent # 7560831)
- Data Center Power Distribution (US Patent # 7646590)
- Orthogonally System Arrangements For Data Center Facility (US Patent # 7724518)
- Server Power Measurement (US Patent # 7768254)
- Changing Data Center Cooling Modes (US Patent # 7864530)
- Updating A Power Supply Microcontroller (US Patent # 7870379)
Search Indexing Patents
Hewlett-Packard Development
- Apparatus And Method For Discovering Context Groups And Document Categories By Mining Usage Logs (US Patent # 6502091)
- Integrated Content Guide For Interactive Selection Of Content And Services On Personal Computer Systems With Multiple Sources And Multiple Media Presentation (US Patent # 7418672)
- Integrated Content Guide For Interactive Selection Of Content And Services On Personal Computer Systems With Multiple Sources And Multiple Media Presentation (US Patent # 7694235)
Quite the comprehensive listing. Just the sheer number of patents in some areas, like the image and video patents, really gives you an insight into not just where Google’s priorities have been, but where their focus may be going forward.
Oh, and the “Method Of Assaying Satiety Enhancing Tastants” really gave me a good laugh.
That IS quite a spread. Some of these, as you alluded to in your post, seem to be quite a distance away from their core business.
This one will catch the interest of internet marketers for sure: Document Near-Duplicate Detection (US Patent # 7707157)
Things of this sort always do.
By the way…this list is HUGE!
Wow, this must be the single most detailed and reader-friendly list of this kind anywhere. I bet it will be linked as a reference many times. Maybe you should convert it into a page with a fixed address and update it when you have the time and inspiration.
And looking at the list – talk about loosing focus! If it goes on like this, Google will soon be as famous as IBM for this, with employees holding contests on who pushes the most hilarious patent through the system. I hope they don’t assign a cash bonus for each patent application, or you’re going to have a hard time listing them all!
Unfortunately, with the current situation about patents, they probably have to do this to have bargaining power against potential lawsuits from other heavy patent holders. The one on weight loss is still a mystery for me.
Hi Paul,
Thank you. It is interesting to see where Google is going with their acquistions and development of their patent portfolio. I read this morning that Google might be one of the bidders in acquiring Nortel’s patents, which number around 4,000 and include a number of inventions involving 4G networks. I wouldn’t be surprised if they made that acquisition.
Some odd and interesting math in that Sateity patent. 🙂
Hi Mark,
Can we say that search is still Google’s core business? I’m not sure these days.
The duplicate content patents are interesting. The ones involving audio and video, where a the sounds and visuals are translated into histograms that can be compared to other histograms seems pretty smart on its face.
Yes, the list is huge. That’s partially why I didn’t include the pending patent applications. Going from 187 granted patents a couple of years ago to more than 800 is quite a leap.
Hi Val,
Thanks. The static page idea for these is something I should probably consider.
I’m not sure if the list evidences a complete loss of focus. Some of the patents are out there, like the weight loss, the medical device, and the self driving car patents, but I can see how many of the others can relate to each other. If the web is moving more towards something that people will connect to on mobile devices, then Google’s foray into wireless and phone patents isn’t surprising. And many of the hardware patents relate to Google’s insistence on building most of their own hardware infrastructure.
It does help to have patents as protection from others, and I’m sure that has driven a number of the acquisitions as well.
Talk about diversification! I’m a bit curious as to why they would invest in radio patents. Not that I feel like traditional radio is dead, but I don’t see Google rivaling Clear Channel any time soon. Am I wrong in the assumption that radio waves, i.e. AM & FM, are fundamentally different from whatever waves/spectrum/frequencies are used to produce Wi-Fi internet? Though if they are the same it would make a lot of sense.
Thanks for the list Bill! Google sure is a really incredible company and it’s really interesting to get some insight into what they are doing.
Bill, just tell me pls that you didn’t read every single patent from Google !?
Lol, I have to ask you the same thing as Nedim: please don’t tell me you’ve read through every single one of their patents 🙂
And I have to agree with Harry: Google is surely but slowly taking over the world!
/Kim.
Google is starting to creep me out.
They steal your heart first with a clean search engine and then they silently take over the world a few years later. And you don’t even mind because you like the bright coloured logo so much…
Google sure acquired a lot of wireless or mobile phone patents. This just shows that they’re up to something in this kind of arena. Well, maybe it has to do something with online users going mobile when surfing the internet especially when they’re on the go.
Great list Bill.
Google appears to be pretty stealthy with a lot of their applications as well – I keep running across search engine patent filings from people who live in Mountain View, San Jose, etc. where the Google company name is not on the application, but the filing is done by one of several law firms Google uses.
Often when I dig into the names of the people, they have the same names as Google employees – maybe they are delaying the “assignment” of the application by employees to Google to keep them under the radar, or perhaps it’s just poor process on their part. There’s quite a few of these applications out there, that would make an interesting list as well some day.
Hi Gary,
I agree. I was surprised by some of the patents that they had acquired elsewhere, and the scope of inventions that they covered.
Hi FinallyFast
There is a lot of diversity. Most, but not all, of the radio patents involve coming up with ways to advertise on radio, and most of them come from Google’s acqusition of DMARC Broadcasting. The founders of DMARC have both left Google, and a few of the patents that Google owned involving radio have been sold.
Hi Nedim,
I haven’t read all of Google’s patents, especially many of the ones that were acquired from Verizon and IBM. But, I’ve been reading the search related ones, and search related patents from Yahoo and Microsoft as well as from other companies. Lots of patents.
Hi Harry,
They are a different company than they were just a few years ago. I’m still sometimes mesmerized by the bright shiny logo.
Hi Kim,
I can only handle about 20 or so a week, so not all of them. But, a lot of them. And throw in the ones from other search engines, and companies like IBM and Xerox and PARC (The Palo Alto Research Center), it keeps me busy.
Hi Ted,
Thank you.
I run across a few that haven’t been assigned to Google yet, too. They don’t necessarily have to be assigned to Google while they are pending, and I run across some granted patents where I’ve done searches on the names of the inventors in the past, and hadn’t seen those patents before. Saw a couple of those from Google this week.
The list of published pending applications is even bigger than this one, and it took more than a couple of days to put this list together.
As you mentioned, most patents are related to advertising in some way (not surprising when 93% of their profit comes from there). What about the Motorola deal? What I’ve heard Google got over 17000 patents from there… Will this make Google move more into the mobile market or what should they use these patents for? Anyway, not for advertising..
Hi William,
No doubt, there are a good number of patents related to advertising of some type amongst Google’s patent portfolio, but many of their patents are focused upon different aspects of search, web crawling, indexing web pages, and sorting and reranking search results.
I haven’t gone through the 17,000 or so Motorola patents – it such a large number and my concern is more search than mobile. I suspect that there probably are some Motorola patents that involve mobile adverting though – it definitely would be surprising if there weren’t.
Hi Bill, comprehensive list of patents, cyrus says u r the man to follow as u read most of them and he was right.
Good list and article.
Hi Aman,
Thank you.
I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to do another list like this in the future for Google’s patents. They’ve acquired too many more since the time that I wrote this, and I believe the are closer to 3,000 now than 1,000.
Cool – three of them that have my name as inventor were among those assigned to Google. Thanks Bill!
Congratulations, BMG.
Of course, you now have me very curious as to your identity.
Hi Bill,
This list is crazy! I have a few questions for you (maybe somewhat elementary). I have come up with an idea (please note I’m not a programmer) for a very specific type of search engine that ultimately will make money off of advertising. With Google owning or trying to develop/buy patents how will that affect future entrepreneurs that want to use similar technologies?
For example, say that someone searches “best apples in Upstate NY” and Google has the patent for promoting specific advertisers to the key words in the search phrase, does that mean that another search engine cannot use that type of technology for connecting advertisers to the searcher?
Thanks Bill!
Hi Oskar,
Thanks.
Google has published a good number of patents about advertising systems that they either are using, or might use, and you don’t necessarily want to run afoul of those, but it is possible to try to develop something different and use that. You might want to either research what they are doing, or have someone do that for you, and talk to a patent attorney. Note that Google doesn’t have a monopoly on showing advertisements based upon keywords in search phrases, and that there are other companies that also have patents in this area as well.