DiDigital

Technology Patents: Useful and Ridiculous

Named after its co-developer, Larry Page, PageRank is the technology on which Google’s search engine was founded. Using a series of calculation that decide the relevance of a particular page to a searcher’s query, it determines the order in which results are returned. Google continues to develop PageRank, but the original patent is still one of the most significant for any web-based search engine, ensuring top results are the most recent and of highest quality. Although the patent is assigned to Stanford University, where it was developed in 1998, Google has exclusive licence rights.

Smartphone integration

One of the patents that kickstarted the smartphone race was granted in 2005 to Palm co-founder, Jeff Hawkins. It sets out an “integration of the handheld computer and telephony” that allows users to switch between the phone and computer functions of their mobile. Such technology is extremely familiar to all smartphone users today, making this a key patent for for the industry. The patent has been cited a lot more frequently than most intellectual property claims,. Microsoft, for has referenced the patent some 38 times.

Driverless cars

One of Google’s recently acquired patents, around driverless car technology, shows the firm’s vision of the future. It outlines technology to allow drivers to hand over control of their vehicle to a computer, capable of navigating itself through sensing its environment. The patent is a victory for Google, which has been out on the road this year demonstrating the benefits of robot vehicles. Executives argues robotic cars will lead to fewer accidents and other benefits such as the ability to summon an empty car.

Ridiculous patents

Page up, page down

In 2008 Microsoft was granted a patent on the page up/page down functions found on almost every computer keyboard today. According to the filing, this allows users to “begin at any starting vertical location within a page, and navigate to that same location on the next or previous page”. The triviality of the patent drew widespread derision, but Microsoft said it was an innovation that improved user experience.

Google Doodle

Google’s popular homepage doodles have become an integrated feature of its search engine, often used to commemorate a significant day with a graphic or cartoon sketch. Earlier this year, Google won a patent to protect this feature, which credits Google’s team as the “inventors” of having a changing logo to celebrate special events. Other search engines will not be allowed to incorporate similar features into their sites, nor change their homepage to display any form of story.

Tap to call

Apple won the latest battle in the going patent war this week against smartphone manufacturer HTC, which it accused of copying one the iPhone’s touchscreen functions. The patent describes the function as “a system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer generated data” which refers to users tapping a phone number in an email or text message to call it. HTC has stated the result was still a victory as several other infringement claims by Apple were rejected, but the Taiwanese firm will be forced to remove tap to call, a basic feature, from its devices.