minstrel
02-26-2004, 11:54 AM
Excerpts from ZDNet: Patents raise stakes in search wars (http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5165272.html):
Web companies are quietly amassing arsenals of search patents, as they prepare for a high-stakes war over the profitable technology that could one day control how most people get information.
The battle lines were drawn last week, when Yahoo dumped longtime partner Google as its provider of Web navigation software and so set off a search engine arms race.
The two companies have been tussling for months over a patent for a bidding system--the money engine that powers search-related advertisements--that Yahoo inherited after its acquisition of Overture Services last year. Although the case is unfolding very quietly, it offers an early sign of the intensification of intellectual property struggles over Web search, analysts said.
"Yahoo v. Google is part of the iceberg under the surface," said David Jacobs, an attorney for Lucash, Gesmer and Updegrove, a law firm based in Boston. "A lot goes on behind the scenes, like the exchange of 'nastygrams' between attorneys, and much of that moves the industry or is a drag on it, however you want to look at it."
... few turf wars have erupted so rapidly, and with such sweeping potential consequences, as they have in the search industry... [since] about two years ago, when it was realized that search results had the power to influence transactions. Search-engine advertising is now one of the fastest-growing segments of the rebounding Internet marketing sector... It's led to a feeding frenzy, according to some search industry insiders.
"They file patents like they're going out of style," said Jason Weiner, who plans to launch a new Web search engine called Dipsie later this year. "It's gotten much more important to make sure IP is protected off the bat."
For its part, Yahoo holds the keys to a storehouse of patents amassed through two major acquisitions in the last 14 months--Inktomi and Overture... Before its takeover by Yahoo, Overture bought AltaVista and so acquired some of the oldest patents on Web search. When AltaVista was part of Digital Equipment, it secured seven patents on Web crawling technologies, seven on indexing and two on query processing. It has 16 patents pending related to forward-looking search technologies. In addition, with its $280 million buyout of Inktomi, Yahoo picked up another handful of search-related patents.
Google holds at least eight patents, but it might have more. Those include patents on methods for information extraction from a database and for detecting duplicate and near-duplicate files. Google founder Larry Page was part of a group at Stanford that patented PageRank, a formula for calculating the importance of Web pages, based on the number of other pages linked to it.
At the same time, Microsoft holds general search-related patents that include methods for searching information in directory listings; a system for improving search area selection; and a third method of "concept" searching that uses a Boolean or keyword search engine.
Online retailer Amazon.com has also laid claim to a patent that could affect search-related advertising. In March, it updated an application for a method of auctioning off ads that appear on a Web page.
Recently awarded search patents include one granted to NEC for a "focused search engine" and one awarded to Alexa Internet, part of Amazon.com, for tracing Web surfing history.
Web companies are quietly amassing arsenals of search patents, as they prepare for a high-stakes war over the profitable technology that could one day control how most people get information.
The battle lines were drawn last week, when Yahoo dumped longtime partner Google as its provider of Web navigation software and so set off a search engine arms race.
The two companies have been tussling for months over a patent for a bidding system--the money engine that powers search-related advertisements--that Yahoo inherited after its acquisition of Overture Services last year. Although the case is unfolding very quietly, it offers an early sign of the intensification of intellectual property struggles over Web search, analysts said.
"Yahoo v. Google is part of the iceberg under the surface," said David Jacobs, an attorney for Lucash, Gesmer and Updegrove, a law firm based in Boston. "A lot goes on behind the scenes, like the exchange of 'nastygrams' between attorneys, and much of that moves the industry or is a drag on it, however you want to look at it."
... few turf wars have erupted so rapidly, and with such sweeping potential consequences, as they have in the search industry... [since] about two years ago, when it was realized that search results had the power to influence transactions. Search-engine advertising is now one of the fastest-growing segments of the rebounding Internet marketing sector... It's led to a feeding frenzy, according to some search industry insiders.
"They file patents like they're going out of style," said Jason Weiner, who plans to launch a new Web search engine called Dipsie later this year. "It's gotten much more important to make sure IP is protected off the bat."
For its part, Yahoo holds the keys to a storehouse of patents amassed through two major acquisitions in the last 14 months--Inktomi and Overture... Before its takeover by Yahoo, Overture bought AltaVista and so acquired some of the oldest patents on Web search. When AltaVista was part of Digital Equipment, it secured seven patents on Web crawling technologies, seven on indexing and two on query processing. It has 16 patents pending related to forward-looking search technologies. In addition, with its $280 million buyout of Inktomi, Yahoo picked up another handful of search-related patents.
Google holds at least eight patents, but it might have more. Those include patents on methods for information extraction from a database and for detecting duplicate and near-duplicate files. Google founder Larry Page was part of a group at Stanford that patented PageRank, a formula for calculating the importance of Web pages, based on the number of other pages linked to it.
At the same time, Microsoft holds general search-related patents that include methods for searching information in directory listings; a system for improving search area selection; and a third method of "concept" searching that uses a Boolean or keyword search engine.
Online retailer Amazon.com has also laid claim to a patent that could affect search-related advertising. In March, it updated an application for a method of auctioning off ads that appear on a Web page.
Recently awarded search patents include one granted to NEC for a "focused search engine" and one awarded to Alexa Internet, part of Amazon.com, for tracing Web surfing history.