SearchKing vs. Google - latest Options

Google's motion to have the case dismissed was not accepted by the judge, and the idea that Google might have to turn over their algorithm isn't so 'out of the question' after all. The judge found that it might well happen, albeit in a protected manner - so that the rest of us can't get a look.

The judge's ruling, concerning a discussion in a different thread here, is that PageRank is opinion, and is protected by the first ammendment. This raises another interesting aspect. Apparently, you can't get a patent on an opinion, and Google have applied for a patent on PageRank. Interesting, huh?

Phil.

...yes the plot thickens. For those who thought that this would be a slam-dunk case in Google's favor, it appears that there were more to the facts

Furthermore, the judge agrees that google's page rank is merely an opinion and protected by the first amendment. The problem that google now has is that you can not patent, or receive a doctorate from Stanford, with an opinon

Can't say I've seen the documents Mr King is referring to, however I had assumed that the display of PageRank (the expression) is an opinion, but the technology that enables that expression to happen is IP created by Google, therefore patentable?

Like Excel. You can't patent spreadsheet data, but you can patent the code that makes the spreadsheet happen.

...however I had assumed that the display of PageRank (the expression) is an opinion, but the technology that enables that expression to happen is IP created by Google, therefore patentable? 

One *might* assume that however, if so, either way it would depend on how the patent application was written as to what they were attempting to patent.

All this makes me think Google PR is more and more like a voting poll and SearchKing was attempting to make sales based on "popular" votes registered by Google. This is done in advertising all the time ("89% of people using blah drug reported no side effects"), or the price of TV commericals goes WAY up for placement during a popular show or event, such as the SuperBowl. If SearchKing offered to give Google a cut of his monies, would Google have felt differently about the whole matter?

Financial investments are made based on opinions all the time. US Presidents are elected that way too. You can put a patent on the product technology but sales based on what that product produces are up for grabs, and Google is trying to forbid something it can't control - the use of its opinon machine results.

Wouldn't that be like Statistic gathering firms and marketing data collection firms attempting to control how the results of their polls, surveys, and tests are being used once they release their data?

What I find interesting is the weight some people put on Google and Alexa toolbars. Neither tool is an accurate *random cross section* of user data.

Kim

If SearchKing offered to give Google a cut of his monies, would Google have felt differently about the whole matter?

If Google accepted money from PRAD's sales, Google would be selling PageRank and there really would be a storm. They ain't gonna do that.

Phil.

I agree Phil. They couldn't do that because it would violate their own policy. But this sure has me thinking about the ramifications of a company's technology and possible use (or abuse) of the data it produces. It's no wonder there's an Agreement thingy we all "sign" when we download software, etc.

Kim

What I find interesting is the fact that doctoral dissertations were written, defended and accepted, based on the assertion that PageRank is NOT an opinion, but the result of a mathematical equation. PhD's were issued based on that assertion. Now the very people who received those PhD's are arguing that the thing that was NOT an opinion when the doctoral review board looked at the information, is absolutely an opinion now that the courts are looking at the same information. Seems to me that either the doctoral review board or the courts have received a load of manure.

PageRank -- patent 6,285,999

"Various aspects of the present invention provide systems and methods for ranking documents in a linked database. One aspect provides an objective ranking based on the relationship between documents. Another aspect of the invention is directed to a technique for ranking documents within a database whose content has a large variation in quality and importance. Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a document ranking method that is scalable and can be applied to extremely large databases such as the world wide web.

...

"Because citations, or links, are ways of directing attention, the important documents correspond to those documents to which the most attention is directed. Thus, a high rank indicates that a document is considered valuable by many people or by important people. Most likely, these are the pages to which someone performing a search would like to direct his or her attention. Looked at another way, the importance of a page is directly related to the steady-state probability that a random web surfer ends up at the page after following a large number of links. Because there is a larger probability that a surfer will end up at an important page than at an unimportant page, this method of ranking pages assigns higher ranks to the more important pages."

Doesn't sound like "opinion" enters into PageRank at all!

It's really both. Take a bread slicing machine. It's an electro-mechanical invention that can be patented. But what the thickness of the slices should be to please the average consumer is a matter of opinion, and can be changed as the opinion changes.

It's the same with PageRank. The PageRank system is the invention. The way that it works is a part of the invention. But the exact formula for arriving at the invention's product (the PageRank value for each webpage) is a matter of opinion, and it can be tweaked and altered according to changing opinion. The invention turns out objective results that are based on Google's opinion.

Phil.

It's really both. Take a bread slicing machine. It's an electro-mechanical invention that can be patented. But what the thickness of the slices should be to please the average consumer is a matter of opinion, and can be changed as the opinion changes.

It's the same with PageRank. The PageRank system is the invention. The way that it works is a part of the invention. But the exact formula for arriving at the invention's product (the PageRank value for each webpage) is a matter of opinion, and it can be tweaked and altered according to changing opinion. The invention turns out objective results that are based on Google's opinion.

Phil.

Thus it can not be patented

Well, Google tries to capture the opinions from all the publishers on the Web and measure it. But if few people artificially gain more votes this is like cheating, so Google has to counter that.

It has to!

Getting a PhD for theoretically saying it is possible to do this and that is okay.

Changing the business model so that it works, is okay, too! The PhDs weren't issued for a working business model! If Google were just as explained in those dissertation(s) it wouldn't return good results anymore and no one would use it, but it still would work fine!

PhilC wrote:

The judge's ruling, concerning a discussion in a different thread here, is that PageRank is opinion, and is protected by the first ammendment.

There have been documents filed by SK requesting the judge to take another look at that, due to the patents filed and PhD granted. I'm not sure that its an open and shut decision here - it may be subject to further argument and discussion in the courts.

The SearchKing attorneys are obviously NOT being intimidated by Google whatsoever and are certainly on top of the case. The point is, IMO, that Google has gotten so used to changing their story to suit their current needs, that this time they are being forced to make a choice and either choice is going to put a crimp in their unscrupulous conduct on the Net.

Picking up on the cre8pcblog http://www.cre8pc.com/blog/archive/2003_01...e.html#90249932

<<Moderator's Note: The link no longer works, as you'll see if you continue to read the posts. Simply click http://www.cre8pc.com/blog instead. -- Kim >>

There seems to be a lot of confusion going on with regards to the SearchKing VS Google lawsuit. Reading LawMeme's take on the whole thing one would believe that the SearchKing VS Google case is over, it is far from over. The judge responded to both Google's request for dismissal (denied) and ruled against SearchKing on 2 of the 4 points for the temporary injunction, but the case was NOT dismissed. The plot thickens as Google admits to manually manipulating the PageRank (PR) something that Google said that they would never do - noting that those references have now mysteriously disappeared from the Google pages as of recent. In addition, LawMeme conveniently left out the SearchKing attorney's response to the court. Not to mention the convenient non-mention of the next step in the proceedings.

This case has opened up many other questions, one as indicated by the judge, Google's 1st amendment right to their opinion - however if PageRank is an opinion then it appears that PageRank can NOT be patented - Google has a Patent pending. Apparently you can not patnet an opinion generated by device, mechanical, mathmatically especially once that non-human generated opinion is manually manipulated or human altered - noting that the judge pointed out that their device had been breeched with the manual manipulation (parphrasing). Furthermore, apparently Mr. Brin received his doctorate based on the PR and thus his doctorate "could" be called into question. Thus if all comes about as it appears possible, then if Google wins the court case, they lose the patent bid and then Mr. Brin's doctorate is called into question. It is all becoming very complicated and interesting. For further debate on the whole issue and the collateral issues now being brought out in the case, you can read the posts and debate going on at LawMeme's website just below the article - very interesting reading!

]http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.p...e&sid=863[/url]

Didja mean http://www.cre8pc.com/blog/archive/2003_01...e.html#90238832

In denial. Judge says \"No\" to SearchKing's motion for a preliminary injunction.

In any case, nice to have someone around trying to make heads or tails outta this stuff.

If anyone uses MSIE 6.0, the archive link to the Cre8pc blog will throw a JavaScript error. It was a freebie blog script I had found, but has this bug. Have to replace it. One of these days...when I find time :wink:

Kim
http://www.cre8pc.com/blog/

Psst, I get 29 Javascript errors (having all the debuggers installed). Might want a new script sooner

You're kidding! Time to kill it then. 29. That's insane :shock:

Now, to figure out where I stuck that danged code....

K.

I'm using IE6 and I'm not having any trouble??

I did comment the script out, but Blogger is having some trouble today and FTP'ing to my server is slow to nothing for some reason...anyway, when I check my blog on my laptop and click via the "link" that can used to bookmark an entry, IE6.0 throws the error. But on my desktop box using IE5.5 it works fine. Am seeking new code...in the meantime, just going to the Blog URL works fine. It's the actual link to the entry that throws errors.

Thanks for the feedback. I needed the kick in the pants to fix it. :roll:

Kim