Google has been awarded a patent that describes a software method for selectively restricting the availability of content on the basis of access privileges and geographical location. On the surface, it may look like this patent covers techniques for censoring politically sensitive content in specific countries—a practice that Google has recently spoken out against in its ongoing feud with China. A closer look at the patent's claims, however, shows that it has little to do with censorship and may actually relate to the company's controversial book scanning initiative.

Patent #7,664,751, "Variable user interface based on document access privileges," submitted to the patent office in September, 2004 and was awarded to Google on Tuesday. Like most patents, it is written to be very broad, but it identifies some specific use cases. The major case it covers is a system where the availability of scanned documents, such as books and magazines, is constrained to selected portions or restricted entirely based on access privileges that are derived from copyright law and other related factors. In cases where access is limited or restricted, the patent explains that the software could supply the user with links to buy the full document.

How copyright law necessitates location-based filtering

Most countries are party to the Berne Convention, an international treaty that set the groundwork for modern copyright law. It's important to understand, however, that the Berne Convention and subsequent agreements of a similar nature merely define a set of minimum standards. Individual countries can establish longer copyright terms or enforce additional restrictions. Many countries, including the United States, allow copyright to last longer than the minimum that is mandated by international treaties.

A book that is considered part of the public domain in one country may still be covered under copyright law in another country. The lack of consistency in copyright law between nations has raised some really peculiar issues for content distributors. For example, Project Gutenberg Australia freely offers the full text of books by Charles Williams (my favorite author) even though the same text can't be published on the main Project Gutenberg website.

Different countries also have completely different ways of defining and protecting Fair Use rights. It may be entirely permissible to publish properly attributed excerpts of considerable length in some countries while others would view the same behavior as highly damaging and criminal.

These issue can arguably be attributed to the general brittleness of modern copyright law and the trend towards blatantly unreasonable copyright extension, but that's not something that can be fixed overnight on a global scale. Attempts at international harmonization of copyright seem to tilt towards the Machiavellian end of the spectrum, making it worse for everybody instead of better. For now, companies like Google that want to publish content and make it available to an international audience on the Internet have no choice but to play by the rules that have been established by individual governments.

We've already seen some major friction between Google and various publishing companies in countries where the laws are somewhat different. Google is working on negotiating a settlement with authors in the United States to legitimize its book scanning effort, but it lost a lawsuit in France where a court declared that the program is categorically a violation of the country's copyright law. Similarly, a Belgian court banned Google from indexing news that is published by 20 companies in the country.

The specific technology described in Google's patent enables the search giant to deal with the inconsistencies in regional copyright law by programmatically managing access control in a manner that is more conducive to compliance with its legal obligations as a content distributor.

Patent questions

The validity of Google's patent and the possibility of prior art is a matter that is open to debate. The question of whether patents on software are valid could soon be addressed by the Supreme Court, which is evaluating a lower court decision that partially shot down the legal basis on which business method patents are rationalized.

The fact that Google was awarded the patent likely means that Project Gutenberg and other content distributors who face the same kind of copyright dilemmas as Google may not be able to implement similar systems without licensing the patent. It's unclear, however, if Google would even consider enforcing the patent in the event that it is infringed. The company has stated in the past that its patent portfolio is for defensive purposes, a position that is supported so far by its actions.

Regardless of the patent's validity or substance, the underlying problem that the described technology can solve is a very real issue for Google and a number of other companies that are struggling to contend with copyright chaos.