Under the AIA, patent owners may now “virtually mark” their products with a patent notice by affixing to the patented article the word “Patent” (or abbreviated to “Pat.”) followed by the URL address of the web page that will have the patent(s) associated with the product. We have more information about Virtual Patent Markings on our patent law firm website including examples of how to mark your products and example virtual marking web pages.
Category: Granted Patents
Amazon One-Click Patent Passes Reexamination
PatentlyO has a good discussion relating to the infamous Amazon.com “One-Click Patent” reexamination proceedings. It appears that Amazon’s patent will remain valid after a few claim amendments during reexamination.
Read the entire discussion at PatentlyO.
Google Receives Patent for Enhanced Search Results (U.S. Patent No. 7,624,101)
On November 24, 2009, Google was awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,624,101 titled “Enhanced Search Results.” This patent is for the Google search technology you see today when searching for a business where the results includes a phone number, address and a map for the business. Below is the Abstract and Figure 1 from the patent.
A method includes receiving a search query from a user and generating search results based on the search query. The method may also include providing the search results and information identifYing at least one ofa telephone number or an address associated with a first one of the search results to the user. The method may further include providing a link to a map associated with at least the first search result to the user.
Google Local Search Patent – Figure 1
DOCUMENT: U.S. Patent No. 7,624,101
Google Awarded Design Patent for Interface (US D599,372)
On September 1, 2009, google was awarded United States Patent No. D599,372 for its graphical user interface (GUI). This is a design patent and therefore only protects the ornamental features of the Google search page (i.e. the patent does not protect the function of the interface or how Google does its searching). Design patents last for 14 years from their issue date, so this patent will expire on September 1, 2023. Interesting, it appears that Google’s current website design would not infringe this patent because of the differences in appearances and layout. Below is a figure from the Google patent illustrating the ornamental design Google received a patent on:
InventLaw.com - Patent and Invention Information 