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Inventor in the context of a U.S. patent has a very narrow and technical meaning, different from the broader concept of "coming up with something." Larry Page a
by Kranar 1mo ago
Inventor in the context of a U.S. patent has a very narrow and technical meaning, different from the broader concept of "coming up with something." Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed PageRank together as grad students in Stanford's Digital Library Project, led by Hector Garcia-Molina. This is simply undisputable and both are listed as co-authors of the PageRank paper [1]. The list of inventors on a patent, especially nowadays, should not be seen as a historical finding about credit.
[1] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-PageRank-Citation-Ranking-%3A-Bringing-Order-to-Page-Brin/eb82d3035849cd23578096462ba419b53198a556 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-PageRank-Citation-...
- pcrh 1mo agoInventorship of patents has a clear legal basis, and is quite different from the basis of scientific authorship. The system disincentifies adding "ghost" inventors since incorrect listing of the inventors can invalidate a patent. So, yes, it's likely that the patent attorneys hired by Stanford advised that only Page should be listed as an inventor. Stanford gets its money via the assignment, not the inventor list.
- srean 1mo agoIf I recall correctly, it was for course project for the class taught by late Rajeev Motwani. Not contradicting your comment, adding more context.