Google Content Assembly, the Result List Edition

December 12, 2009

I am burned out on the Google publishing angle. I was going to ignore this December 10, 2009, patent application “Displaying Compact and Expanded Data Items.” You can find the document on USPTO’s fabulous Web site at www.uspto.gov. If you are think about result lists, you may want to take a gander at this system and method for creating a shrinkydink result.

Cyrus, dear Cyrus, this is a fine Google patent diagram. (Cyrus thinks I make up these diagrams in Photoshop. Nope, this is a Google-generated screenshot with the nifty Google dotted line annotations.

When the user clicks, the shrinkydink transforms. Clever stuff. Here’s the Google golden prose, lovingly crafted by Google wizards and the legal eagles at Harrity & Harrity:

A system sends a search query to a search engine and receives from the search engine, responsive to the search query, a document comprising a first search result item and a second search result item. The system visually renders a portion that includes less than an entirety of the first search result item and includes the second search result item, where the portion is visually rendered in a region of the document. The system receives a selection of the first search result item from a user and visually expands the region of the document to a size sufficient to render an entirety of the first search result item based on the selection. The system visually renders the entirety of the first search result item within the expanded region of the document.

If on the other hand, you know everything about Google because you have read the Sergey-and-Larry-eat-pizza books, skip this 23 page document. I read these succinct, sizzling sentences from the Google and its advisors. I don’t know enough, which is why I am an addled goose.

Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009

I am disclosing to the USPTO that I was not paid to use the USPTO system nor write this newsy item. I love working with patent documents. Money is secondary to the thrill I get from these easy-to-read gems of non-fiction.

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Google, News, Publishing, Technology, Text processing

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.