Google Patents the Design of Search Results Page

prostoalex writes "ZDNet is reporting that USPTO issued a patent to Google, Inc. for 'ornamental design for a graphical user interface'. This is not, as ZDNet points out, a software patent (which is usually issued as a utility patent), but a design patent, which governs the look and feel of the product and prevents others from directly copying it." Ironic, given Google's recent slip-up of copying a Yahoo page. In news on the flipside, Google has launched a patent search service (in beta).

Re:Look and feel patent? Prohibited long ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Design patents aren't "look and feel" they're "exact look". Unlike utility patents, a design patent covers one thing and one thing only: the decorative appearance of something. So I can make a doorknob that looks a particular way, and since it's a physical object and not a play, song, book, whatever, it's not copyrightable but with the design patent, I can prevent other companies from making the exact same doorknob. But I can't stop them from making a "kind of roundish square doorknob", which was the idea behind the feel part of the "look and feel" patent attempt.

RTFA

[Frankie70]

On the subject of them "copying" a Yahoo page:

Has anyone thought that maybe, just maybe, that's a template provided by Microsoft? You know, since it's pitching the IE7 upgrade and all that.


From the article [zawodny.com],
Quote "And I've checked with our PR group to make sure that this wasn't just a template that Microsoft gave to all partners. It's not." Unquote.

Re:But Carbon Copy (of Lotus) was OK?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the heck can a perfect functional duplicate of a complete menu tree be OK, but a vague organization of elements on a web screen be copyrightable?

Probably because Lotus didn't bother to get a design patent on their interface. This may have something to do with them ripping off the interface from VisiCalc in the first place.

Design patent definition

[jbeaupre]

Since so many people are confused as to what a design patent is :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent [wikipedia.org]

And for those of you too lazy to even click: "In the United States, a design patent is a patent granted on the ornamental design of a functional item. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers (see Fig. 1) and computer icons are examples of what can be protected with design patents."