There’s been a lot of rumbling around the blog and news worlds in the past few days about a patent application Google filed that could change how the search company sorts and displays news stories.The patent could help Google adjust news story ranking according to quality, rather than by relevance or date of posting.According to Barry Fox of New Scientist, Google plans to use techniques described in various patents to build a database that can compare the credibility of news sources and change the ranking of search results based on a news source’s quality. He writes:“The database will be built by continually monitoring the number of stories from all news sources, along with average story length, number with bylines, and number of the bureaux cited, along with how long they have been in business. Google’s database will also keep track of the number of staff a news source employs, the volume of internet traffic to its website and the number of countries accessing the site.”However, Gary Price, news editor at Search Engine Watch, points out in his blog that the patent application was filed with the USPTO about 18 months ago. He writes:“This means that it’s very likely that one/some/many/all or none of the concepts are already being utilized in the Google News algorithm.”Price, who has been keeping an eye on search-related patents for awhile, says the patent awarding process can be very slow and doesn’t always reflect immediate product or service developments. The text of the patent application can be found here. Technology Industry