Who owns the patent to Google’s original search algorithm?

Who owns the patent to Google's original search algorithm?

To find the answer, we used Google's search algorithm, and the answer is Stanford University.

According to Quara user Tom McFarlane, "The invention was made by Larry Page while he was a graduate student at Stanford University. As a result, the patent rights were assigned to Stanford. It was Stanford that applied for and was granted the patent. Google licensed the rights from Stanford."

Page is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Google Inc.

"Page earned his master’s degree in computer science at Stanford," it says on Stanford's website. "While pursuing his PhD at Stanford, Page and fellow student Sergey Brin developed the 'PageRank' algorithm, which calculated the relevance of a web page to the user’s query based in part on the number of other pages that linked to it. PageRank became the foundational technology of Google, which he and Brin started in 1998 with Page as the first CEO. From 2001 to 2011, Page was president of products, then resumed responsibility for day-to-day operations as CEO."

According to the site, he has received many honors for his work.

"Page is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," the site says. "He has received the Marconi Prize, given to those who achieve advances in communications and information technology for the social, economic and cultural development of all humanity."

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Google’s original search algorithm belongs to Stanford University