Google is seeking to patent a technology meant to help its Google News section sort stories based on their overall quality, which could augment the current methods of ranking results by date and relevance to search terms.

In separate filings with the U.S. and world patent offices, Google detailed a new formula it has developed to help rank news stories in Web search results. The system would allow the company to sort news by source, rather than based merely on a story's direct relation to a certain search term or the time at which articles were published.

The company's filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, submitted in September 2003, describes the news-rating technology as a tool that "ranks the list of (search results) based at least in part on a quality of (their) identified sources." The technology, based on work by researchers Michael Curtiss, Krishna Bharat and Michael Schmitt, would let Google prerank content from specific news outlets to ensure that those stories appear above other search results.

Company representatives did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.

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