Google Patents the Design of Search Results Page 114
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).
Look and feel patents, like software patents... (Score:3, Insightful)
that's what's copyright is for!
padding the patent portfolio (Score:5, Insightful)
In theory a problem for all the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (*ahem* confuse 'em?)" school of search destinations, but.. Google will never enforce the patent, so its probably moot...
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graphically speaking [kotay.com]
But Carbon Copy (of Lotus) was OK? (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago, there were Lotus 1-2-3 clones, which copied not only the general visual appearance but the actual menu layout, sequences, names, and functionality.
One of the more famous was literally named "Carbon Copy." That was the product name. Really.
Lotus took the company to court and lost. IIRC The court ruled that it was OK to copy the look, feel, and details of the Lotus product's menus, because there was no other way to produce a competitive product.
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?
This is not a case of Google being evil (although they are), this is a case of a sea change in what the United States is willing to grant IP protection to.
But at least it was the Google News screen. I was afraid maybe they'd gotten a patent on the spare, lean, mean Google Search screen and that it would now be compulsory for everyone else to have a cluttered web page.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look and feel patents, like software patents... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Look and feel patents, like software patents... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look and feel patents, like software patents... (Score:4, Insightful)
Design patents have existed forever. They are really no big deal. An item has to be almost exactly the same to infringe on them.
Re:Look and feel patents, like software patents... (Score:2, Insightful)
Og: Hey, I just got this crazy idea of connecting two round stones to the ends of a horizontal pole. It'll make it easier to haul stuff around.
Me: Sounds great, but who will do your harvest duties while you build it? And how do you expect to get any money out of it, people will just copy you. I myself thought of this great tune, sang it to my wife and she loved it. But I'd never sing it public, they'd just learn it themselves and where's the money in that?
Og: Ya, that's a good point. Forget about it then.
Re:Look and feel patent? Prohibited long ago. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Do no evil (Score:3, Insightful)
A photographer buys a Hamburger at a popular fast-food chain. Takes it home and opens it up and takes a photograph of it.
OK, that photographer has copyright in the image
A 2nd photographer see this photo (on the 1st photographers website) takes a hamburger from the same food-chain, and shoots a drastically similar photograph (the pickle is on the other side).
There has been actual copying and this is a breach of the first photographer's copyright.
A 3rd photographer cooked his own hamburger, and decided to take a photo of it, and has never seen photographer 1 or 2's photos, and his photo turns out to be almost the exact same image of the 1st photographer.
This is not a breach of copyright since there was no copying. Proving that there was no copying may be difficult though. When there's a design patent, the equivalent of this 3rd photographer's actions would be illegal for violating the patent, even though in no possible objective sense could you suggest the 3rd photographer has done something wrong.
Design patents are evil like any other patent - the very concept of exclusivity even when somebody else independently invents the same thing amounts to perpetrating an injustice. It makes conduct illegal when the person engaging in that conduct has no knowledge of the circumstances making it illegal. Such laws can only be justified where independent invention is very unlikely and proving copying very difficult - factors which sadly do not apply for most patents.
Fortunately design patents have much shorter duration than invention patents./p>