Google Granted Design Patent for Its Homepage | Hacker News Reader

Google Granted Design Patent for Its Homepage

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20 pointsterpua7 comments

Note that this is a design patent. This is not a patent in the ordinary sense; it doesn't mean they're claiming ownership of the idea of a page with a logo and a search box.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent

Since it's a design patent you would have to be really, really, close to the design laid forth in the patent to infringe it.

Will this invalidate all search type pages with a logo on top, an input box, and a search button? No. Will this stop a company named go0g13 having a home page with a search box, and two search buttons under the box? Most likely.

Honestly though, there is no need for internet outrage about a design patent, taking off the "feeling lucky" button and not having a multi-colored logo similar to Google's should be enough to skate around it.

It really sucks when a company that supposedly has ethics high in their set of values does things like this.

If they would just come out and say we're just like all the other cutthroats out there it would be one thing, but to have all these lofty ideals and then to do stuff like this at the same time creates a real problem.

People will start to think that this kind of patent is ok. It's not. It's a web based user interface, a hole in a page with a couple of buttons next to it. There have been many sites before google that started out with an interface like that. The only thing special about the google page is that they kept it like that.

Until there is patent reform, all companies will engage in this kind of cover-your-ass patenting. There are too many patent trolls out there starting multi-million dollar lawsuits on the basis of seemingly frivolous, obvious, or otherwise vague patents. As a defensive measure, companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple and so on attempt to patent everything they can possibly think of in order to prevent lawsuits from patent trolls or rivals.

As they say, "don't hate the playa, hate the game." It was obvious in the late 1990s that intellectual property laws needed reform, and it's increasingly obvious by the day when we see companies being forced to patent things that appear obvious or trivial.

I don't think for a minute that Google is going to turn around and start suing every other website with a minimalistic search interface as their landing page. I think this is a purely defensive measure.

I don't know if it is necessarily bad for them to do this. If they don't what is to stop someone else from filing a similar patent and suing them. It seems like this is the best way for them to protect themselves.

If, on the other hand, they start using this patent to sue others: that would be very bad indeed.

I do not honestly know much about patents and the wording of laws, but on the Wiki page about Design Patents the phrase "Thus a design that was arrived at independently can still infringe a design patent." seems troubling. Hopefully it's as Perceval says, that they are just covering their ass from patent trolls.

Also Google's patent for "Collaborative web page authoring" http://bit.ly/2t287H seems more disturbing than the design one.

the two prominent button's

<sigh>

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