Is the Mediabot patented?

Can an SE patent a bot?

[Clark]

I'm curious if Google's Mediabot is patented or if Overture/other future competitor's will have the legal right to copy the idea? If they can lock out others from doing the same, I think adsense can maintain the lead much easier. If not, then others will come in (though Google will still lead the space).

I would imagine it would be hard to patent the bot since they didn't invent spidering urls...

[justageek]

I would have to say - nope. I've had the pleasure (sometimes not so pleasurable) of being involved with the Internet for many years now. I can assure you that Google did not invent this and contextual advertising has been around for quite sometime. Given that, and the fact that you cannot patent something that's been in public domain, and as you pointed out that spiders have been around long before Google was even a thought, I'd have to say no again :-)

What they do have a patent on (since they bought Applied Semantics) is a method to determine contextual relevancy. But even that method is really not designed for what it is being used for so who cares?

One more thing. I'll bet no one can tell me who started the whole keyword buying thingy and when. Anyone want to take a guess?

[Clark]

GoTo.com claimed [cnn.com] to have patents on it as far as I recall but I doubt it. I thought of it before I ever heard of goto.com so I'm sure there were plenty others too.

[justageek]

Good try Clark. Hint: The earliest I know of that a keyword buying system was actually placed on a search engine was back in 1995.

[Clark]

Bob Searchking Massa?

[justageek]

Lycos.