Google patents the Doodle, confusion follows

It took Google ten years to secure a patent for its ‘Doodles’ – possibly reflecting how it is not exactly clear what is being patented. After all, the Google Doodle – the different versions of the Google logo on the search page – change all the time. Can you patent change?

Before we get all existential here, we should probably go back to the facts. The patent is technically for ‘systems and methods for enticing users to access a website’, and what’s patented is the company’s system of changing its logo to correspond to specific events.

So does that mean you’d be in breach of Google’s patent if you changed ANY logo according to events? Does this mean the end to shopping bags with snowflakes at Christmas? What about the Red Cups at Starbucks? Easter chocolate? This has ramification, folks.