Didn't they think it was fishy when Google credited 11 inventors on two continents in its newly-issued patent? That's a lot of brainpower for child's play, and even for, as the patent calls it, a broader "WEB-BASED SYSTEM FOR GENERATION OF INTERACTIVE GAMES BASED ON DIGITAL VIDEOS." (Thanks to commenter theodp for pointing the patent out to us.)

Google illustrated the patent with pictures of the age-old kids game "rocks, paper, scissors," and described some very boring uses, like:

Clicking on an annotation corresponding to a 'rock', "paper", or "scissors" menu item leads to separate video or portion of the same video depicting a tie, a win, or a loss, respectively, each outcome potentially leading to the display of additional annotations representing a second round of the game.

Whatever. This will be used immediately for porn. And even though that sort of thing is not allowed on YouTube per se, Google will earn further insane riches on the royalties.

Apple's innovation over previous head mounted displays is, in part, to separate the laser engine from the headgear, stowing the engine in a separate unit connected to the frames via fiber optic cable. Such an "iGlasses" setup, as our tipster calls it, would allow a more immersive television, gaming or conferencing experience when using, say, an iPhone. Or you could just walk around pretending to be a commando from the future, with frickin' laser breams attached to your head.

It's not clear whether Jobs will ever turn this officially-designated innovation into a product; his company boasts an impressive cash hoard with which it funds more research than it can use. Many of the patents from Apple's seemingly endless stream are never heard from again. The obsessive CEO remains, by all accounts, infatuated with his forthcoming tablet product at the moment, so we're not counting on being able to buy iGlasses anytime soon. But simply by putting the patent into the trophy case, Apple adds a little something to its mystique among its growing base of fans, the press included.

The first page of the patent is below, along with one drawing; we've archived the full filing here. AppleInsider summarized the application back in April.

Google had more luck patenting the design of its search results, which were submitted along with the home page in early 2004 and cleared the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office at the end of 2006. The home page, in contrast, was split off into a separate application, receiving its design patent for a "Graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal" just yesterday. The document (see below) is as minimalist as the interface, containing a single illustration of Google.com, with the company logo depicted in dotted lines to indicate it is not an integral part of the patent.

In other words, subject to how the patent is enforced, Google owns the idea of having a giant search box in the middle of the page, with two big buttons underneath and several small links nearby. Since the time of the patent application in 2004, the company has moved some links, for searching News and Groups and other alternate databases, from directly above the search box to the top of the home page. But Google presumably believes its patent is broad enough to cover the variation.

It's not clear how the company, already under scrutiny from antitrust regulators, will wield the patent against competitors. The Yahoo Search page, depicted at left, bears a striking resemblance to Google.com, while Microsoft's Bing, which features a photo and several headlines, is more distinct. But there mere existence of the patent should create enough uncertainty to scare some worried startups away from Google's stripped down look. So while people may flock to the search engine for its clean, minimalist design, in so doing they are supporting a company that is poised to retard the spread of such an aesthetic online.

Google's shareholders will be more pleased, of course, as will staff. Google diva Marissa Mayer, the overachieving VP of search, added another patent to her trophy case with the decision. Powerful executive; athlete; fashionista; and genius inventor of this totally unprecedented rendering of HTML. Is there anything Mayer can't do?

Patent document:

After leaving Microsoft, Myhrvold went into the patent business. His Intellectual Ventures works like this: Buy up patents, then use them to bludgeon large tech companies into forking over fees or making investments in Intellectual Ventures.

In the course of his short career, Zuckerberg, as a tipster reminded us, has accumulated a nice array of patents. They're related, as you might guess, to social networking and digital media. Could he use them against his rivals via Myhrvold, raising some money for Facebook in the process?

Given the interlocking web of interests a young Silicon Valley company like Facebook must weigh, the answer is likely to sound familiar to any user of the social network: It's complicated.

Why is a cable company dabbling in the e-books business? Aside from running Discovery, Hendricks has long played at being a part-time inventor. In 1999, he and two co-inventors filed for a patent, granted in 2007, on an "electronic book security and copyright protection system" which included "a portable book-shaped viewer is used for secure viewing of the text."

Sounds like Hendricks might have a case against Amazon.com, whose Kindle is widely viewed as the first e-book reader with commercial promise. But why does he care? The answer may lie in another patent Hendricks registered, which describes a system for transmitting e-books over "video signals" — an apparent reference to cable-TV systems. Discovery styles itself as a "nonfiction media company." Either Hendricks fears Amazon getting a lock on the nonfiction market. Or perhaps he's just wasting corporate resources to bolster his reputation as an inventor.

To date, he has raised $5 billion, but only brought in $1 billion. Myhrvold has gotten everyone from the Journal to BusinessWeek to the New Yorker to write about his big, scary patent operation.

Have any of those credulous journalists stopped to ask if Myhrvold might be a better publicist than a businessman? By Myhrvold's own admission, Intellectual Ventures is an operation which thrives by constantly extracting money from new investors. Perhaps Myhrvold should take out a patent on the Ponzi scheme.

Microsoft flirted with acquiring Overture, but Bill Gates ultimately nixed the deal. Instead, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel bought the company, launching it into the paid-search business in competition with Google, which had been contesting Overture's patent. The companies ultimately settled and Google agreed to license the patent, but the terms of the settlement were murky. Tellingly, Google's SEC filings mentioned that the license was "fully paid" and "perpetual", but not, as is usually done in such licenses, irrevocable.

Could Yahoo — or Microsoft, if it succeeds in acquiring Yahoo or Yahoo's search business — revoke Google's license, and thereby put billions of dollars at risk? Unless the companies reveal the terms of the agreement, we won't know. It doesn't seem plausible that Google executives would risk massive fraud lawsuits by hiding such a big vulnerability.

But it certainly explains why Microsoft keeps making a run at Yahoo — and why Yahoo insists it's undervalued. But would Steve Ballmer really offer $45 billion of Microsoft shareholders' money to destroy a rival? That's the one part of this outré theory that really fits.

(Photo by emigh)

The plan is for companies that buy into Allied Security to buy up unused patents, issue themselves nonexclusive licenses for a song and then sell the patents. While it's not clear if Allied Security is a nonprofit, former IBM veep Brian Hinman who heads up the organization asserts it's not a profit-making venture. IBM, of course, has done much to refashion itself as a promoter and producer of open-source software — something anathema to Microsoft's culture.

The same can't be said of Intellectual Ventures, which was founded by former Microsofties Nathan Myhrvold and Edward Jung, Intel's Peter Detkin, and Gregory Gorder of Seattle law firm Perkins Coie, which counts Microsoft as a top client. Myhrvold has been buying up patents left and right, and while his company has yet to sue anyone, he hasn't ruled it out. Microsoft executives have traditionally aped Bill Gates hard-line rhetoric when it comes to intellectual property, and there's little reason to believe Myhrvold and company are any different. While Google is also an investor in the fund (along with Apple and eBay), the Mountain View company must be worried enough about the fund's plans and ties to have helped create a potential competitor.

In other words, if Intellectual Ventures continued to aggregate patents in a competitive vacuum, it could become just as if not more dangerous a monopoly than Microsoft in the company's heyday by commanding premium royalties or denying access to patents entirely in order to hobble products and competitors. It's yet to be seen if Intellectual Ventures will carry water for the Redmond software giant in court, and for now, Allied Security is collection of legal documents and yet an actual owner of patents, but this could shape up to be one of the most boringly important battles in the coming years.

Specifically, they said Google's engineers would create cookies that "crumble," or self-delete. But then, after the deal went through, Google CEO Eric Schmidt publicly backtracked on this pledge. Bharat's patent is just further proof of Google's institutional, tech-obsessed indifference to privacy.

Apple points to the obvious advantages of shopping online, such as being continuously open for business 24/7, allowing consumers to quickly use search functions to find multiple items and of course the best of all, never having to leave the house to shop.

The decision won't get TiVo into EchoStar's machines. Consider that bridge burnt. But investors likely believe the ruling will strengthen TiVo's hands in negotiations with other pay-TV providers, who may fear a patent suit if they don't get in bed with TiVo. Already, TiVo provides software for Comcast DVRs.

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