Remember All Those 'Influence' Ad Companies? They May Have A Patent Problem

from the ah-google dept

It was just a couple weeks ago that we (skeptically) noted that there were a bunch of companies trying to create systems to use things like a "FriendRank" to use "influence" to help advertise. However, it looks like those companies may have to deal with a bit of a patent block. Slashdot points out that Google has applied for a patent on just such a process to establish a sort of "FriendRank." Of course, the fact that there are a bunch of companies all trying to do this (prior to this patent application being published) certainly suggests that this is hardly the sort of breakthrough that requires a patent (though, it seems likely that those other companies are also applying for patents, meaning we may soon have yet another patent thicket).

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