[Infowarrior] - Google Patents World's Simplest Home Page

[Richard Forno]

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5350982/google-patents-worlds-simplest-home-page

After a five-and-a-half-year fight, Google and its attorneys have  
managed to convince federal bureaucrats to bestow a patent on the  
company's iconic home page. We always thought the page was brain-dead  
simple, but apparently it's an innovative "graphical user interface."

Google had more luck patenting the design of its search results, which  
were submitted along with the home page in early 2004 cleared the U.S.  
Patent and Trademark Office at the end of 2006. The home page, in  
contrast, was split off into a separate application, receiving its  
design patent for a "Graphical user interface for a display screen of  
a communications terminal" just yesterday. The document (see below) is  
as minimalist as the interface, containing a single illustration of  
Google.com, with the company logo depicted in dotted lines to indicate  
it is not an integral part of the patent.

In other words, subject to how the patent is enforced, Google owns the  
idea of having a giant search box in the middle of the page, with two  
big buttons underneath and several small links nearby. Since the time  
of the patent application in 2004, the company has moved some links,  
for searching News and Groups and other alternate databases, from  
directly above the search box to the top of the home page. But Google  
presumably believes its patent is broad enough to cover the variation.