Google patents their "Google doodles"

Some recent decisions made over at Mountain View haven't been very popular, especially by some of us at TFTS World Headquarters. Here's something that's sure to get the ire of many more internet citizens. Google has been awarded a patent for their Google Doodles. You know what that is – when it's a major holiday or Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday, they change the Google logo to a nice little drawing. That is called a Google Doodle and now, Google owns it.

Patent wording has always been clumsy in the computer era, and Google, in their patent filing, described their Google Doodles as "systems and methods for enticing users to access a web site." Google has actually been trying to get this patented for some time. Google filed for the patent on April 30th, 2001, with the "inventor" being named none other than Google Co-Founder and VP Sergei Brin. Some sites have described Google's attempts to patent the Doodles a "10 year battle."

Old-time computer enthusiasts are already crying fowl. PLATO, an automated mainframe computer system from the 1960's, would present users each day with a themed logo on holidays (Jack-O-Latern head on Halloween, Turkey on Thanksgiving, etc.). This has lead to people already screaming that "Google ripped off PLATO!" I'm not sure that anybody will bother to legally challenge Google in court on this – considering that the Control Data Corporation which developed the PLATO system is long out of business.

This patent award could be timely for Google. The company has been facing increased mindshare competition from Bing and Blekko, at least in the elitist geek Twitter crowd. Maybe they'll try to get some licensing fees from Microsoft for the cool Bing background that changes every day?

(Published by TFTS - March 23, 2011)