Wow. No more copying Google's UI now, eh?

From Dirson via the new http://www.SearchEngineLand.com :

<< As shown on this official document [*] by the 'US Patent and Trademark Office', Google patented a "Graphical User Interface", corresponding to their search results page. >>

[*] http://static.flickr.com/129/320381518_a5db1dbc74_o.jpg

From: http://google-blog.dirson.com/post.new/0416/
Via: http://searchengineland.com/061212-075651.php

I guess this is some kind of defense patent that's meant to make sure no one can sue Google for patent infringement for them displaying SERPs as they do (as opposed to an aggressive patent, which they use to sue others – they wouldn't risk hurting their image so badly, would they?). And this shows us how incredibly flawed the system of software patents seems to be...

According to you, what means "Term: 14 years"?

Good point, Philipp. I would think that's most probably the case here.

Someone who knew much about patents (not me!) once described the patent wars as a kind of cold war scenario with the H bomb – both sides think they must have the bomb, yet none of the sides want to use it. E.g. (a hypothetical case) Amazon patented the shopping cart icon and the related items lists. But ShopHereNow.com patented cookies to store previous items and animated mouse cursors for registered customers. Now Amazon cannot attack ShopHereNow based on the shopping cart icon infringement by ShopHereNow, because Amazon themselves infringe on the animated mouse cursors part... so both parties call it peace.

Well, and then there's the patent mafia suing making a business out of hording software patents and suing people...!