Some early versions of PageRank are discussed the PageRank: Standing on the shoulders of giants
My question is whether any of the prior art mentioned in the article would be sufficient to invalidate Google's Patent 7,269,587 on the PageRank algorithm?
It seems to have the same premise as Google's PageRank.
Patent: 7,269,587
Inventor: Larry Page
Assigned to: Stanford University (now licensed exclusively to Google)
Priority date: Jan 10, 1997
The main independent claim is as follows:
A computer implemented method for calculating an importance rank for N linked nodes of a linked database, the method comprising:
(a) selecting an initial N-dimensional vector p0, wherein each component of p0 represents a probability that a user will start at a given node, wherein each node of the N linked nodes is a computer-readable document containing information;
(b) computing an approximation pn to a steady-state probability p∞, wherein each component of p∞ represents a probability that the user will randomly end up at a particular node after following a number of forward links, in accordance with the equation pn=Anp0, where A is an N×N transition probability matrix having elements A[i][j] representing a probability of moving from node i to node j; and
(c) determining a rank r[k] for a node k from a kth component of pn, wherein r[k] represents an importance of the information contained in node k.