[Sigia-l] "best bets": trademarked? other names?

[Bill VanLoo]

Hello - 

I'm currently engaged in a project to redesign the search interface for one
of our clients. We're planning on implementing "Best Bets", the technique
for including human-selected URLs in the search results for specific search
phrases.

Now, when I'd first heard of these from Lou Rosenfeld, he mentioned that
"Best Bets" originated at Microsoft. My question: does Microsoft own a
patent or trademark on this technique or the name "Best Bets"? If not, I'd
like to call ours "Best Bets" in hopes that users will be familiar with the
term from other sites (read: microsoft.com). If they do own a
trademark/patent, I'll gladly take suggestions for alternate names.

For what it's worth, a look at the US Patent & Trademark Office's site
didn't turn anything up anything relevant. Speaking of search interface
design, the USPTO sure could use a look at theirs...

    http://www.uspto.gov/

Thanks,

Bill
-- 
i33 detroit
system architect