Page Rank Patent

Just how strong is Googles patent?

[red_bull]

I know that PageRank is a patent of Google but just how strong a patent is it. Surely PR is just a methos for displaying something that happent naturaly on the internet. " A vote from site A to site B is classed as a vote for site A from site A" with or without pagerank this would still be the case. Surely a lot of search engines must use some form of ranking that is based on link counting and importaint linkt mean more that minor links.

[deltakits]

They just can't use the *term* PageRank

[JayC]

They just can't use the *term* PageRank

Nope, it's more than that. You can patent methods and procedures, and that's what the PageRank patent [164.195.100.11] covers.

By the way, as was recently mentioned in another thread, and can be seen on that USPTO document, the patent doesn't actually belong to Google, but to the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. The patent predates Google.

Use of the term "PageRank" would be covered by trademark, not patent... but as of right now I can't find it in the USPTO's TESS database.

[Brett_Tabke]

I'd like to hear from the patent experts, what this exceprt under Goverment Interests means:

STATEMENT REGARDING GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

This invention was supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant number IRI-9411306-4. The Government has certain rights in the invention

Must have something to do with funding at the Stanford cs dept?