Exploring Google’s Patents: A Beginner’s Guide
This piece will guide you on how to read and understand patents filed by Google. To do this, we need first to establish a few rules that will provide a solid foundation for your understanding. These rules have been formed through experiences gathered from our source at Reader Wall.
Avoid Misinterpretations
Many people incorrectly read patents like it’s a treasure hunt, looking for secrets about Google’s algorithms. This approach often sends them down a rabbit hole of confusion, leading to miss the broader context of the patent. Avoid making this mistake by reading the entire document for a comprehensive understanding, rather than focusing on isolated sections or sentences.
Understand The Full Context of Patents
A patent is made up of multiple sections that contribute to its overall meaning. Much like an elephant’s trunk, ears, tail, and legs all add up to form the whole animal, each part of a patent has its integral role. To truly understand a patent, it’s essential to step back and view it in its entirety.
Google Search and Its Multitude of Algorithms
Google Search isn’t just one algorithm; it consists of many, including the Ranking Engine and the Indexing Engine. Other elements of search include ingesting fetchlogs, rendering and converting fetched data, extracting links, meta and structured data, scheduling new crawls, and building the index.
Avoid Making Assumptions
When reading a patent, refrain from making assumptions or believing something is implied. Patents are traditionally explicit regarding their purpose and functionality, seldom leaving room for guesswork. If a patent is used for ranking, it will state this fact explicitly.
Importance of Context
The context of how an invention can be used is often overlooked in patent interpretation. If you find the word “entity” repeated in a document, it generally refers to a variety of items, subjects, or objects the invention can be applied to as opposed to being the focus of the patent.
Examples of Misinterpretation
A patent titled “Identifying subjective attributes by analysis of curation signals” mentions entities 52 times in the document, leading many to incorrectly believe the patent is about entities. However, this is misleading; the use of “entity” is simply for inclusionary purposes, alluding to the variety of items, subjects, or objects the invention can be applied to.
Components of A Patent
Each patent includes an Abstract, Background, Summary, explanation of drawings, Detailed Descriptions, Embodiment Examples, Claims, and Citations. Each component plays a role in explaining what the patent covers, its purpose, and its applications.
Expert Advice on Reading Patents
Jeff Coyle, co-founder of MarketMuse, who has filed several patent applications, and a 20+ year SEO, advises using Google Patent’s optional ‘non-patent literature’ Google Scholar search to find articles that may help in understanding a patent. He also suggests reviewing connected patents and non-patent citations, child/priority patents/applications, and patents filed by the same authors to gain a fuller context.
Conclusion
Patents have their formal structure and purpose—with practice, you can navigate this language efficiently. Do not be discouraged if you find it challenging at first. With consistent effort, you will be able to understand patents better than many in the industry currently can.
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