Google finally received patent from UPTO

September 3, 2009

Google finally has successfully patented its home page last Tuesday, September 2.

The US Patent and Trademark Office awarded the company’s software engineer Mountain View—for its “ornamental design for a graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal"—with Patent Number D. 599,372

The image is from Google’s home page since 2004. Everything inside the dotted line or “ghost line” is patented, except the dotted Google logos—which are already trademarked. In 2004, the company submitted a patent application for both results page and home page design.

In 2006, the home page became a separate application in 2006. "It's very hard to infringe a design patent. Someone almost has to copy it exactly, and their intent isn't really an issue," said Boston patent lawyer Doug Wolf.

It took the search engine company five and a half years to finally patent the white rectangle on their home page.