GoogleChairman Eric Schmidt once noted that the patent organization , to begin with designed to protect artificer , had degenerate into a swampland of lawsuits and creativity - kill holdup . " These patent of invention state of war are death , " he said in a 2012 schmoose at New York City ’s 92nd Street Y. " Everyone can find a anterior artistic creation for everything . So the new trick is to get judges to immobilise devices country by country . It ’s regretful for innovation " [ source : Ngak ] .
That aversion makes it all the more singular that Google has become one of the most prolific applier for patent of invention around . MIT Technology Review reported in 2013 that Google ’s head trust of scientist and engineers was winning about 10 patents every daytime that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office is assailable for business concern . Indeed , the company has become one of the top 10 patent of invention recipient role in the U.S. [ informant : Regalado ] .
Technology Review conjecture Google quietly changed its view on patents to protect its Android operating system of rules for roving devices , after seeing the style that Apple did the same when it bring in the iPhone in 2007 .
Many of its patents coverAndroid , as well as the lookup railway locomotive technology and other armed service that have been Google ’s bread and butter . Others have to do with game - changing future gadgetry that the Internet giant is originate , such as driverless machinelike cars . But Google ’s founding machine is also moil out even edgier introduction , many that might lead you scratch your head .
Here ’s a sample of 10 of the weirdest patents that Google has sought in recent years .
10: Social Networking Updates by Comic Strips
Back in ancient times — in on-line societal networking price , that ’s about 2006 — it was really cool to post atext messageon Facebook to inform all your friends that you were vacationing in Hawaii , starting a novel job or stimulate a mole removed at the dermatologist ’s office . ( OK , some people do share a little too much information . )
But now that we ’ve all record countless status updates , that medium has get a little , well , mundane . That may be why Google in 2010 filed a patent for a applied science called " Self - Creation of Comic Strips in Social Networks and Other Communications . " The latter would allow a social internet exploiter to post a multipanel cartoon online across a variety of networks .
According to the patent of invention app , a user would take a musical theme , and the software would propose acartoon , plus a title and textwhich the substance abuser could neuter to fit [ germ : Sampath ] . Google , which was awarded the patent in 2013 , has n’t yet marketed the comic - create app [ source : Frank ] .
9: Floating Wave-powered Server Farm
Every clock time you do aGoogle searchfor cute cat pictures , watch a YouTube video or get off a subject matter via Gmail , Google has to use electricity to bring home the bacon those servicing . The global information goliath fire up about 2.26 million megawatt - hour in 2010 — about the after part of the output of a typical nuclear power plant [ source : Albanesius ] .
Perhaps to subdue its public utility government note , Google filed a patent app for a " Water - Based Data Center " in 2008 . The latter would dwell of a flatboat or cargo ship equipped to capture vigor fromtidesand convert it to electrical energy , which then would be used to power row after row ofcomputer serversfor Google ’s global information connection [ source : Clidaras et al . ] .
While this might seem flat out of the old Kevin Costner dystopian sci - fi flick " Waterworld , " there have been some hints lately that Google might actually deploy such float deftness . The San Jose Mercury News report in October 2013 , for example , that Google was establish a secret four - story social structure atop a barge in the San Francisco Bay , for some hidden use . The newspaper also account that a similarly monolithic bodily structure atop a barge was moor in a harbor in Maine [ source : Bailey ] .
8: Gadget That Projects Keyboard Onto Your Hand
Google Glass , the applied science titan ’s realize vision of a wearable , voice and motion - activated calculator with an optical head - mounted showing that would resemble a pair of eyeglasses , would make us all into the equivalent of Tony Stark in the " Iron Man " picture .
But while that might theoretically free us from being deskbound and even from bear to sway bridge player - held devices such assmartphonesand lozenge , in practice there still would be a tricky downside . If you ’re in a noisy environment , phonation dictation are n’t go to influence very well , and prescribe anything long than a abbreviated einsteinium - ring mail is going to be a clumsy process for people who ’ve spent their whole lives typewrite stuff into a formal computer .
Not to worry , though . In 2013 , Google file away for a patent for a engineering called " Methods and Systems for a Virtual Input machine , " in which the Google Glass headset would externalize a virtualkeyboardonto a user ’s hand , turning it into a virtual smartphone - manner touch screen for the exploiter ’s other handwriting [ source : Newton ] .
7: Throat Tattoo Microphone With Optional Lie Detector
The alive television serial " Futurama " once jestingly suggest that future smartphone user would have an " eye - Phone " attached to their eyeballs , but Google ’s idea of implanting a microphone in users ' throats is n’t that much more far - out of a opinion .
The 2012 app program by Google ’s Motorola Mobility subsidiary , titled " couple an Electronic Skin Tattoo to a Mobile Communication machine , " would attach a digital tattoo — essentially , a lilliputian printed circuit — to the tegument on the outside of a user ’s pharynx . ( For those who associate neck opening tattoo with prison work party , the equipment also could be embed in a apprehension or necklace . )
The tiny equipment would admit both amicrophoneand a wireless transmitter , for relay the audio of the user ’s vocalization to a smartphone or other twist . grant to the letters patent covering , such an implant would be advantageous because it would cut background disturbance , so that " communicating can reasonably be improved"[source : Alberth ] .
And if that ’s not alien enough , there ’s more . Optionally , the pharynx tattoo could be configured to light up whenever the user ’s throat muscles flex . In plus , the clothes designer say they also could include a galvanic skin answer sensor , which would start the machine to operate as a lie demodulator [ source : Alberth , Myslewski , Schreier ] .
6: Image-capturing Walking Stick
One of Google Maps ' most appealing features is its online collection of street - level photographic vista , which allow user to swan neighborhood across the U.S. and in other nation as well . In plus to the common street scene , Google has begin posting 360 - degree images of tramp trail in North America , which its photographers have shot using cumbersome backpack - climb up cameras .
In 2013 however , Google was granted a patent for a equipment that would make shooting such landscapes far easy . The program , titled " Walking Stick with IMU [ inertial measurement unit ] , " essentially is just that — a staff with plant camera and location sensor , match with a switch at the bottom that have the cameras to rupture pictures whenever the stick taps the land .
While the gadget could be used by Google ’s own photographers , the patent program note that similar technology could be repurposed in cane , crutches and other mobility devices used by handicapped people . This would allow them to shoot and transmit pictures while their hands were otherwise occupied or if they had a condition that made it difficult to engage a camera [ source : Bishop , Ratner and Smith ] .
In a 2008 patent of invention app titled " Advertising Based on Environmental Conditions , " Google envisions equipping smartphones and other devices with a sensor that would detect temperature , humidity , sound , luminosity , and/or the chemic composition of the melodic line around a user . The mobile gimmick would transmit that data back to Google , which then would use it to send ads direct to the user ’s particular stage setting .
For instance , if you ’re in a red-hot , humid locale , you might see an ad papa on your screen from an air conditioning manufacturing business . And if you utilize your mobile telephone set while you ’re at an Adele concert , the engineering could institutionalize you ads for music by other British distaff singers or for restaurants faithful to the concert hall [ source : Heath ] .
4: Software for Splitting Restaurant Bills
This ever happened to you ? You go to arestaurantwith a bunch of Friend , and the waiter will not let split tab . So you offer to bear the bill , expecting to be reimbursed by the rest of the party for their share . The tricky part is , some of the group may " forget " to pay up you back .
But do n’t interest ; your days of reminding your friends to cough up may be come to an remainder , thanks to a solution being developed by Google . In 2013 , the company applied for a patent shout " Tracking and Managing Group Expenditures . " It envisions a package app — presumptively for smartphones — that not only calculate how much is owe to the person who is devote the server , but also mechanically transfers the money to that person ’s online account . Now all you have to do is get your friends to install this app before dining [ root : Green et al . ] .
3: Pay-per-gaze Advertising Tracking System
You may have interpret or heard advertising executives talk about how many eyeball their ads are attracting , butWeb page viewsdon’t really measure out the picture that advertising is making upon citizenry . There ’s no reliable fashion to tell how farsighted someone looks at an ad , or the sort of impression that it makes . Or at least there was n’t , until now .
2: Virtual Assistant That Tweets and Posts on Facebook
We all require to make an depression on online social internet by posting witty replies to other mass ’s tweets andFacebookstatus update . But let ’s face it , being clever and sententious is surd piece of work , and continually coming up with fittingly saucy digitalbon motscan take so much sweat that it becomes almost a full - clip Book of Job .
Would n’t it be so much easy if your electronic computer or smartphone helped you out ? Once again , Google seems eager to come to the rescue . In 2011 , the company look for a patent for " Automated Generation of Suggestions for Personalized Reactions in a Social internet . " The engineering science would look at others ' postings , comprehend up related information about the matter , and then mechanically propose " individualise " responses to them , based upon the app ’s recollection of how you ’ve responded to postings in the past tense
When the program wanted to make a post , it would notify you first and ask for your approval . That precaution would relieve you the plethora of having your electronic ringer post a apparently inner birthday salutation to aFacebook friendthat you scarce know [ origin : Bhatia ] .
1: The Heart-hand Gesture
Singer Taylor Swift may have popularized the gesture of using thehandsto make the physique of a heart , but that has n’t stopped Google from trying to patent it . The company filed an software in 2011 title " Hand Gestures to intend What is authoritative , " which seek to lay claim to " a hired hand motion forming an surface area recoil by two hands in a physical body of a emblematical heart . "
But unlike Swift , Google is n’t intending that move to be used to stand for heart for a celebrity boyfriend , whom you finally will break up with and then condemn in song lyrics . or else , it wants wearers of its Google Glass gimmick to be able-bodied to make the gesture at an physical object — say , agrande latteat Starbucks — in their nous - wax video television camera ’s field of persuasion and foreground it , catch a snap of it . The Google Glass wearer could then apply the equipment to brand the picture on Instagram , Facebook or Twitter [ source : Gomezet al . ,Vincent ] .
Lots More Information
I be engineering intelligence pretty closely , and when I aim this assignment I was cognizant of Google ’s push to make grow alien , game - changing gadgetry . But I have to say that once I start out looking at the mountain of patent that the company has been filing , I was astonished by the form of crazy hooey that the company ’s engineers and scientist have been dreaming up . It ’s almost as if they ’ve been channeling Jules Verne , the 19th - century scientific discipline fiction author who imagined submarines and space travel — ideas that in all likelihood seemed crazy at the fourth dimension . It would n’t surprise me if some of Google ’s more outlandish innovation someday are similarly banal .
