I’ve always been fascinated by just how deep Google’s reach goes. How much intellectual property (IP) have they actually innovated and how much have they simply bought through acquisitions?

A fascinating piece of research has just landed in my lap courtesy of our friends at www.cambridgeip.com, and it’s very revealing.

The report is an overview of Google’s patent activities since 1997. So basically:

• How big is the Google patent space and how has it evolved over time?
• What innovations have they been directly or indirectly connected too?
• What are Google’s key patents?
• Who are the key inventors Google works with?
• What are the markets they are pioneering in?

So. ‘Tell us something revealing’ I hear you cry!

Mr Brin and Mr Page have definitely been visionary and inspirational leaders. But they have by no means been the most innovative minds at Google over the past 10 years. Google holds over 1,355 published patents and patent applications and if you look at the top 10 inventors you'll see that the company is full of very smart cookies.

Reading top inventor Georges Harik’s bio is pretty eye-opening. Under his leadership, his team was directly responsible for some of Google’s most successful initiatives: Gmail, Google Talk, Google Video, Picasa, Orkut, Google Groups and Google Mobile.

The fact that Google’s founders are not on the top inventor list and that their company holds less patents than Yahoo! (1,633)  and Microsoft (40,296), is probably a testament to attracting great talent and investing in the companies that already have it (and their patents).

The patent activity of the top guys is a good indication of which new areas the talent is focusing on. In case you were wondering what Georges is up to next, it might be something to do with social networking and I doubt it's Facebook. He has filed at least two patents under the name of PAGEBITES INC (linked to IMO) for ‘Method for information gathering and dissemination in a social network’. And if you want a £25 000 dollar sign-on bonus, they are hiring.

There is a lot more in the report but I’ll let you check it out for yourselves. Happy snooping.