back to article Google gobbles kaput search robot Cuil's patents

Patents for a crappy, short-lived muffin-, strawberry- and porn-fuelled search engine created by three ex-Googlers have been scooped up by the Chocolate Factory. Cuil, which was pronounced "Cool" and was labelled as a GOOGLE KILLER – but in fact proved to be neither of those things – plonked itself on the interwebs in July …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not sure why

    Not sure why Google would want patents that supply poor results when they're doing a good job of that by themselves...

    1. dotdavid
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Not sure why

      I'm guessing it's in case Apple develop a search engine that supplies poor results and then tries to sue Google for patent-infringement.

      Something similar has happened in the past.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not sure why

      RTFLA, the patents aren't about search methods but about search user interface.

      "These pending patents tend to focus primarily upon search interfaces, such as how multiple tabs might be presented for query terms that might have different senses of meanings, different types of dropdowns from those to show finer levels of granularity of associated categories, and the ability to drill down and refine queries based upon related aspects"

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Once a Googler, always a Googler.

    Only way out is in a coffin.

  3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Not so crappy

    Cuil seemed to get most of the bugs out of the software some time before they ran out of money. I switched to it as default search engine for about six weeks until it stopped and they had some interesting stuff under development. Much more so than all the "identity traders" have managed to come up with in the last 18 months or so.

  4. mhenriday
    Boffin

    Just further evidence

    of the absurdity of granting patents on mathematical algorithms (aka software)....

    Henri

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