I noticed via CNet.com and GigaLaw.com that Google has apparently decided to take another step in the ongoing battle among technology comapnies to determine what company can obtain the patent that most infuriates the blogging and Internet community. I believe that Google's patent application for "embedding advertisements in syndicated content" for placing ads in RSS feeds has now put Google comfortably into first place over a host of challengers, capping a recent flurry of efforts that included Microsoft's custom emoticons patent application.

Even though some might complain about the apparent incongruity of Google's aggressive use of intellectual property laws to protect its own intellectual property while developing a business with a market cap in the billions based at least in part on caching copies of other peoples' copyrighted materials on the basis of a "fair use" argument, I choose not to go that route. In fairness to Google, I will assume that the headlines I've seen do not do justice to the nuances in the Google patent application, which I invite you to read for yourself (in part to illustrate why I would not ever want to be a patent lawyer and read patents all day long).

On the other hand, I will also note that I've been talking on my blog and elsewhere about placing ads in RSS feeds for several years and never even once thought that the idea of trying to patent "ads in feeds" (even "automatically") was something I might try to patent. It seemed a little, well, obvious. Probably the hundreds of others discussing ads in feeds over the past few years have reached the same conclusion.

I now wonder if my cautious approach as compared to Google's very aggressive approach to this "invention" and the patent process explains why Google is worth billions of dollars and, sadly, my net worth is far less. The future, at least in the patent world, seems to belong to the filers and not the thinkers and talkers.

Maybe I still have time to try to get that patent for my idea of a combination computer mouse and electric razor to help you freshen up before late afternoon meetings or after-work events.

In fairness, however, let's read the actual text of the patent as well as the articles about it, and then make up our minds. It might be possible to interpret the following paragraph, for example, in many ways:

"47. A system for generating information including targeted ads, the method comprising: a syndicated information and ad mixer including: means for receiving information in a syndicated format; means for receiving a first targeted ad from an automated ad server system; and means for combining the first targeted ad with the received information to generate a set of response information which is also in a syndicated content format."

But, I'm no patent lawyer - just someone trying to make some sense out of all this stuff.