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September 28, 2013
Alan Emtage: The Man Who Invented The World's First Search Engine (But Didn't Patent It)
The Huffington Post | Posted: 04/01/2013 4:42 pm EDT | Updated: 04/16/2013 4:51 pm EDT
Alan Emtage invented the world's first search engine, but he didn't earn a single cent from his groundbreaking invention. "I wrote a piece of code that gave birth to a multibillion-dollar industry," he tells The Huffington Post in an exclusive video interview. "I didn't make any money off of it, but I wouldn't change anything."
The self-proclaimed geek majored in computer science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and was working as a systems administrator for the School of Computer Science, where he was responsible for finding software for students and faculty. At the time, there was no other way to locate the software beyond a manual search through the directory archives, a "tedious process" that he decided to automate.
"We built this very simple program that allowed people to do the search themselves," the native of Barbados says. The program needed a name, so Emtage called it "Archie," which is "archive" without the V. Within months, half the internet traffic to Canada was going to the innovator's machine.
"At the time, nobody was making money off of the Internet, and we didn't patent any of the original ideas behind Archie," he explains. "So the patents would have been where I would have made the money." Archie used the same techniques that every current search engine uses, so, Emtage adds, "in that way, Archie was the great great grandfather of Google and all of those other search engines."
Today, the Search industry earns $780 billion dollars annually. Emtage sees none of that money, but he is completely at ease with it. "I don't feel like a father of anything," he states. "It's not how I think of myself really ... Every now and again, I interact with somebody who's a real idiot, and I think to myself, 'Yeah, but you know what? I invented the search engine.'"
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01:09 PM on 05/08/2013
What else can he say!11:57 AM on 05/08/2013
Actually any patent would have belonged to the school he worked for05:33 AM on 08/07/2013
mpt at all true.05:33 AM on 08/07/2013
*not at all true09:24 AM on 05/08/2013
You are kidding. Every programmer has created search engines that weren't patented and I'm sure someone else did it first. This guy isn't too intelligent if he really thinks that was the first search engine.04:46 PM on 05/08/2013
Absolutely the case. It is the development of internet communications and matching search terms against a database that we call modern search, but it is unlikely that his was the first search tool. I'll bet that if he documented when he did it, hundreds could come forward demonstrating what they did even before that. In any case, matching search words or combination of words against a database is not a patentable process, or if it is, it should not be. Early text editors including one I wrote in 1969 did that as well. Modern search is a combination of many different technologies coming together, each with its own cycle and history of development. It is an evolving thing. Rarely is technology developed from scratch. Usually incremental improvements of existing technologies form the basics for new things. There are exceptions, truly ground breaking things, like the laser, vacuum tube, and many others, but this is not one of them.
07:51 AM on 05/08/2013
Patents have a time limit and "run out" after a number of years. All new patents are published in a gazette so everyone can see how your invention works openning it up to thieves. You can spend all of your time and money pursuing these thieves.
As a result, you wont have much time to work on much else.
The technology I've invented makes me the wealthiest person on earth. I don't even have one patent. Instead they are trade secrets. I purposely destroy any notes or models I have constructed. Some of the things I have invented are beyond incredible.
01:07 PM on 05/08/2013
The fact you keep posting bogus claims is what is incredible....05:41 PM on 05/08/2013
Gotta admit though, Al sure has one very active imagination!!There are More Comments on this Thread. Click Here To See them All
02:13 AM on 05/09/2013
I never make bogus claims. I said I started the first US political party based on the internet. When you checked that guess what ? I did.I said I found the particle that causes gravity. Guess what ? I did.
I said I discovered a new technology called photon exchange worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Guess what ? I did.
I said I own all of the Photon Exchange technology making me the wealthiest person on Earth. Guess what ? I am.
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10:50 PM on 05/07/2013
No patent - no invention. Sorry.... I felt the same way when I invented the cupcake!10:42 PM on 05/07/2013
Did he invent Veronica too?09:32 PM on 05/07/2013
THERE IS ONE OF THESE OUT THERE THAT INVENTED SOMETHING BUT...........LOLThis user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
09:01 PM on 05/07/2013
Oops - I said I had three stories in my family, but let me add one more I almost forgot about. My now-ex-husband's brother came to him and the other brother with the suggestion for an investment. A friend had told him about a fried chicken franchise that was in its infancy stage and suggested it might be a good idea. My ex and his other brother said there was no way another fried chicken place could possibly complete with Kentucky Fried Chicken and declined, convincing the brother that suggested it that they were right. Well, I don't remember which it was but I do know for sure that it was either Church's or Brown's that they declined.09:08 AM on 05/08/2013
Never heard of either one here in PA...This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
11:44 AM on 05/08/2013
You have Church's in Norristown, Philadelphia, Woodlyn, and Wyncote PA, syl1969. However, you do not have Brown's.This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
08:51 PM on 05/07/2013
There is possibly a story like this in almost every family. I have three: 1) An uncle pulled an old hoop out of his attic (the kind that kids used to roll down the street with a stick) and wondered if it could be used for something. He stuck his arm in it and set it rolling around his arm. If only he had thought of putting it around his waist! Hello, hula hoop! 2) Same uncle thought the eraser on the end of a pencil was too small and desk erasers were too big, as were the existing erasers for typewriter/ink. He suggested making an eraser that could be sharpened like a pencil - in instead of a strip of graphite, just put in a strip of eraser. Two kinds - one for pencil and the other for ink. He sent the idea to Faber, the pencil manufacturer. They said it wasn't practical but, guess what? Two years later Faber marketed them - and my uncle had no proof that it was his idea. 3) My daughter, at age 10, did the same thing with her idea: coffee bags. Unbeknownst to me (she wanted to surprie me), she sent the idea to Folger's. They told her it wouldn't work but 8 years later, guess what? You got it! If she had told me before she sent the idea in I would have warned her to make sure she could prove she was the inventor. Oh, well, c'est la vie!09:26 PM on 05/07/2013
Back several years ago, I used to know a guy,oh never mind, I just made that up.
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11:37 AM on 05/08/2013
I didn't make it up, BigLon. What motive would I have for doing so?This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
08:28 PM on 05/07/2013
in 1987, I was a junior in high school taking a computer business class that had nothing but Apple IIc computers. the teacher liked staring at me and said I had an aura that was so bright, it was unlike anything she had seen. she was a mystic who said I would someday help realize her vision of people all over the world communicating from any country. she said I would have connections in government. when clinton was running for potus in 1992, a secret service agent I knew asked me to speak to someone in government. he thought he was speaking to someone with a college degree, but I didn't have one. he wanted to hang up on me. when I spoke of a psychic from high school who said I would help realize her vision of using a computer to communicate, like a phone, from any country in the world, he said the government has something like that, but only for government and military purposes only. I asked why can't the public use the technology, and it might help the economy.not long after, the internet was allowed to be used by the public and the multi-trillion $ tech industry occurred. all I did was be at the right place to meet certain people, and at the right time, but remembered my teacher Gladys Brewer's vision. now, gore claims to be the father of the internet.
11:58 AM on 05/08/2013
Actually Gore never said that at all05:14 PM on 05/07/2013
Talking about missing out on billions. I grew up with Steven Chen three houses away in Fairway Estates in Prospect Heights, IL. We hung out until we both went to separate colleges, him U of I and me Northwestern, and I ended up staying in the city. We talked about a youtube type program when we were in high school and apparently he took it serious. I am not doing terrible in my life as I own my business and have 175 people working for me, but to think if I would have stayed in touch with him I could have been a part of history.This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
01:49 PM on 04/06/2013
The "secret" to patents, copyrights and trademarks is that they're only as good as your ability to enforce them -- which is to say, how much money you've got for lawyers. Better to simply document date of origination, and make it formal only if and when you see substantial money from it.12:41 PM on 04/06/2013
"Within months, half the internet traffic to Canada was going to the innovator's machine." Ummm...that's not how a search engine works.05:09 AM on 04/05/2013
The inventor of the wheel forgot to get a patent too.....oh well.07:58 PM on 05/07/2013
umm,....i believe he met-up with a T-Rex on his way to the patent-office.08:29 PM on 05/07/2013
Hate to bring this up....but I responded to this one month ago.....that's a month ago....okay?There are More Comments on this Thread. Click Here To See them All
04:52 AM on 04/05/2013
That blows. What does he do now? Or did I miss that? Or is this just classic huffPo reporting? He might be making a good living, seeing as he is a very smart guy.
