Google Universal Search Disclosed
November 4, 2008
It’s official as of November 4, 2008. Google has a patent for universal search. You can download and read US7,447,678 here. The inventors were Marissa Mayer, Bret Taylor, and Orkut Buyukkokten. The abstract for the invention said:
A search engine may perform a search for a user search query over a number of possible search categories. For example, the search query may be performed for general web documents, images, and news documents. The search engine ranks categories based on the search query and/or the documents returned for each category and presents the search results to the user by category. Higher ranking categories may be presented more prominently than lower ranking categories.
The idea is that a user’s query is passed across separate content domains. The Google interface displays the most relevant results from each collection in separate containers. Some vendors deliver federated search with content from different sources in a single list, deduplicated, and relevance ranked. Even Google offers an integrated list of results with text, news and video displayed in a single list type view. The key point is that Google has a patent, which gives the universal search “invention” some heft and edge.
Now some Googlers are eager to point out that a patent by Google doesn’t mean anything except that an engineer had a good idea. No use may be made of the invention. Furthermore some Google inventions have zero connection with what Google actually does. I dismiss these assertions as baloney. Google files and pursues fewer patent applications than other intellectual property hot houses. Google knows what it is doing and what it is patenting.
For patent enthusiasts such as my friend Cyrus, the intrepid Googler who has much marketing sizzle but the merest hint of patent savvy, I want to reproduce Google’s official patent diagram showing how the universal search results appear in tidy rectangular boxes. Each container houses a separate results list, making it dead easy for a user to spot a video or a link to a news item.
Why is this important? Google could make life difficult for vendors with federated search systems by rattling its saber. The vendors will rattle sabers back at Google. The fact is that Google’s dominance is so great that smaller vendors may turn and run when it sees the shadow of Google fall across their office door and when the tinkling sounds of a sword’s unsheathing is heard.
Stephen Arnold, November 6, 2008
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