The book I read maybe wrong......but I still like it

I've been reading Don Tapscott's wonderful book Wikinomics. I think its really good, even better than the long tail, as Tapscott really gets to the crux of API's and the sharing mentality on the web in the web 2.0 world. But, in some section 'I just think he's wrong. For example, when Tapscott writes:-
'Google's spectacular growth from the late entrant into the internet search game to dominant global company rest, in large part, on an open approach to innovation.'
Well, there not that open. Brin and Page have copyrighted pagerank even though it was there PH.D dissertations. I'm not knocking Google (viacom and microsoft are doing that a lot better). But, Tapscott's book is keen to mention how educational institutes work together with business, to improve tools. Google could see pagerank was an advancement (though Battelle's book says some of the idea's had already been there before). I would still recommend the book though.