Bender writes "CNet is reporting that Amazon has acquired the rights (at least in the USA) to 'Affiliate Programs.' This may have an adverse consequence on things like CDNow banners."
I think I'll patent the name Jeff Bezos. Then I'll sue him for using his name to own amazon.com then I'll patent thinking and sue everyone.. hahahah!! Just about everything amazon.com ever did was done before them. (programming wise for sure) It's unfortunate that they are going to force groups that are already struggling to keep the web free to fight legal battles against them. We should start a fund to help battle their rediculous assertions.
Re:first post
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
That'd be a trademark, not a patent, since the quotes around "hot grits" seem to indicate that you're referring to the phrase rather than the physical object...
C'mon, offtopic? This should at least qualify as good enough to not mark off as that. It seems to do a pretty good job of mocking the fact that Amazon decides to patent things that seem obvious and that are actually in use in many places.
Maybe bdumm is on to something? I think it's a safe bet that Amazon is going to move in on First Post technology soon and start suing anybody who infringes on that patent. Trolls beware!
It's so hard to find some of the things that are on Amazon once in a while though.. Makes it tough to hold to those boycott tendencies.
-- A planet where apes evolved from men?
Long live the apes.
Re:first post
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
When the police tell you to get down on the ground and you reach into your pocket to pull out your...wallet, you deserve to be shot.
...then I'll patent thinking and sue everyone.. hahahah!!
Actually, you couldn't sue everyone for infringement of your "thought patent". The employees of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for example, wouldn't be subject to your suit.
-- Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
Re:first post
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Anonymous Coward
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This is possibly the best first post ever. Moderate up further.
we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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Nastard
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· Score: 1
i like em personally. good service
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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CharlesG
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· Score: 1
Hell yes we boycott them! Amazon can take their fscking patents, fold them until they're all sharp corners, and stick them where the sun don't shine (and I don't mean Barrow, Alaska in January). Who needs the barstids, anyway, when we've got Barnes and Noble?
--
"Early to rise, and early to bed /
Makes a man healthy but socially dead" -- Yakko Warner
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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Cb22
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because if they keep getting away with this crap, eventually everyone ELSE who once also offered good service will go out of business when amazon finally manages to patent the concept of business itself...
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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lunatik17
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Yeah, I noticed that B&N has revamped their site quite a bit. Unless you want to buy a video, they're pretty much identical.
Okay, I have to say it. How the HELL did this get patented?! One-click shopping was bad enough, but the USPTO guys must have their heads way up their asses to let this one through. *sigh* I suppose we can expect a patent on e-commerce.
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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Anonymous Coward
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I said the same thing.. the first 3 times...
This is the 'last straw'... Fsck Amazon... I really don't know what to feel about the internet movie database.... which i beleive is owned by amazon.... I'd really hate to "Boycott" that... But this!... First it was telling the whole world what you bought...next the One Click... there was somthing else... I don't remember.. but this... this is it... someone point me to the Boycott HQ... Fsck AMAZON and the ship they came in on...
BTW... what the Fsck is this "Fscking" all about? Am I using the word correctly?
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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kwsNI
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· Score: 2
I'm hoping if I don't go AC, the moderators will be nice tonight. I think that everyone needs to remember:
Sorry for the repetition. Just thought it might be helpful to get the attention...
kwsNI
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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Anonymous Coward
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Thanks for the NOamazone.com links:o) *Great*
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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Zurk
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Actually amazon.com is patenting business processes and not technology per se. Affiliate programs are a business process as is 1 click shopping. theres no technical hurdles to implmenting either and both have been available in the real world for eons but amazon did it first online and grabbed a patent. The real problem of course is proving that it was a natural progression from the real world to the virtual and there is no virtual prior art available as far as i know.
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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VB
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· Score: 1
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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lunatik17
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but amazon did it first online and grabbed a patent.
Excuse me? No they did not. Afilliate programs have been used on the net for quite some time, certainly before Amazon was ever founded. There is an unbelievable amount of prior use here--if they even try to enforce this, they're in trouble:)
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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Anonymous Coward
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boycotting is peachy keen but when you are not a spoiled kid with your parents money you sometimes have to buy whatever is cheapest. compare amazon.com's price to BN.com, fatbrain.com and others with the Design Patterns book (hardcover). amazon.com is around $35 or somesuch iirc and everywhere else is $45+. it's not one way one right, people do what they can with what they have. boycotting is all fine and good but if amazon.com get's 1% of my online purchases don't complain about it.
Re:we do we boycott these guys anyways ?
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davis689
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· Score: 1
If price is the only consideration, it is rare that Amazon is cheapest. So if your parents have cut you off then maybe you should look at bestbookbuys.com before you buy. I found about 10 places that have Design Patterns for less than the $45 you quoted and 3 of them had it for less than Amazon.
No kidding! The guidelines for what is patentable state that whatever it is must be "new, nonobvious and useful" (source). Ask any of the thousands of businesses/websites that have been offering affiliate programs for years, or tons of people who have been participating in affiliate programs (myself included) and you will find that they are not new. This method having been around for a while, I'd also say that it is no longer nonobvious. Back when affiliate programs first starting poping up they were nonobvious. Now, as common as they are, they are a pretty obvious method of advertisement.
It looks like the patent judges (or whoever does the deciding for these things) are about as clueless as the rest of'em.
The USPTO is a bit clueless. They have been granting patents for very obvious ideas (e.g., shopping carts, 3rd party advertising serving, one-click shopping, etc.) and for the on-line implementation of non-patentable real-world business practices.
Companies both big and small know this. They exacerbate the problem by flooding the USPTO with more patents on the trivial and obvious. The game is to build a portfolio you can leverage.
US Patent #5727163: Secure method for communicating credit card data when placing an order on a non-secure network
I hate to say this, but Amazon already -has- patented taking credit card numbers over the phone. No joke. Go read the summary.
-- --
sigs cause cancer.
Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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John+Miles
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· Score: 5
...and start typing www.noamazon.com instead.
This seems like a worthwhile time to call attention to the efforts of one of my office pals. Visit http://www.noamazon.com for some excellent links to alternative sites for the merchandise purveyed by Amazon.
We've tried to get Slashdot to mention this site as a "quickie" news item, but apparently they are an (ahem) Amazon affiliate themselves.:-)
-- Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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jesser
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noamazon.com is in no way affiliated with or authorized by Amazon.com, or any other company for that matter. Since some booksellers don't call their analogs of amazon's program "affiliate programs", and since noamazon.com hides its link URLs behind a cgi script, that doesn't tell me that noamazon.com isn't making money from his links. If noamazon.com is making money, then I'm jealous of the person who came up with the idea (since he's probably making quite a bit), but he shouldn't try to hide the fact.
--
-- The shareholder is always right.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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John+Miles
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· Score: 2
Actually, the links are cgi-trapped so that we can tell how many potential Amazon customers are being redirected to competing vendors.
Experience has shown that complaining to Jeff Bezos about Amazon's abuse of the US patent system earns you a cheery "We are proud of our innovative business practices, and we believe that we're entitled to patent protection" spiel in reply.
Our thinking is, if we can demonstrate to Bezos that we sent 10,000 people to Barnes & Noble or DVD Express, he might be convinced to re-examine his company's "innovative" business strategy.
That's the idea, anyway.
-- Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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jesser
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Actually, the links are cgi-trapped so that we can tell how many potential Amazon customers are being redirected to competing vendors.
Ok, this is moving into flamebait territory, but you never said noamazon.com doesn't make money from the links.
--
-- The shareholder is always right.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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Booker
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Awesome - how about a running counter on your page? (not a visit counter, but a "click out" counter) You need some buttons to link with, too.:) ----
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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auntfloyd
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· Score: 3
We would also like to make it clear that we do not accept kickbacks, advertising money, or bribes. This site is about freedom from bogus software patents and harmful litigation, not money. None of the sites on our list of links paid us, nor will we allow anyone to pay us for a link in the future. We will, however, listen to all of you when chosing sites as alternatives to patent-happy companies. Send your favorite honest Internet commerce site to us at links@noamazon.com.
So yes, they do say that they don't make money.
~~~~~~~~~ auntfloyd
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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John+Miles
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· Score: 1
Sorry, you're right. To clarify, noamazon.com absolutely, positively does not make money from any aspect of its existence, including the cgi links.
Now, I can't speak for the author -- although he occupies the office adjacent to mine, he's out of town today. But I doubt he'd say "get lost" if B&N were to offer him a $1,000,000 Award for the Promotion of Good Corporate Citizenship, or anything.:-)
Seriously, I don't believe he has any plans to turn the site into any type of profit center. If he does, I haven't heard anything about it.
-- Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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Jeff_at_RAD
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· Score: 1
No money is made whatsoever on noamazon.com. Technically, it looses $30 bucks a month to Pair for hosting it .
The only reason we run the site is because of Amazon's patent madness.
Funny sidenote: 7% of noamazon.com's traffic comes from www.amazon.com.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Looks like a regular link...
Trying 216.92.118.211... Connected to noamazon.com. Escape character is '^]'. GET/cgi-bin/url.cgi?www.barnesandnoble.com HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 06:05:05 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.3 Location: http://www.barnesandnoble.com Connection: close Content-Type: text/html
[...etc...]
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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jesser
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7% of noamazon.com's traffic comes from www.amazon.com
comes from amazon.com?
--
-- The shareholder is always right.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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Jeff_at_RAD
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· Score: 1
Yup, all 7% comes from one address at amazon.com (their proxy, probably).
Gots to love Analog.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Did you mail about the noamazon page ?
And yes, you should put a counter on the web page (or maybe a page that would be update a few time a day). This way everyone will see how effective noamazon is (and people will probably use it more to improve its effectiveness)
And it is no good that./ didn't run a story about noamazon.
Cheers,
--fred
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
> Did you mail about the noamazon page ?
Fsck./. is bugged. I selected plain old text and it removed the mail address between the brackets.
I meant: did you mail amazon@gnu.org about the noamazon page ?
Cheers,
--fred
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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Nik4
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· Score: 1
Well i just did that. Amazon has a nice;-) feature to cancel unshipped orders. i used that and reordered at bn.com.
btw, bn.com does not have this feature (atleast not so obvious on the website) of cancelling unshipped orders. though this is the first time i used bn.com, i found the Amazon site to be much faster and easier to use.
Amazon (if you are reading)...you don't need stupid patents to win, your execution seems to be good enough for that....but if you persist with your 'patents'........well i just moved my $$$s.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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cyberdonny
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> Funny sidenote: 7% of noamazon.com's traffic comes from www.amazon.com.
... and how many visits did you get from their lawyer's office? Watch out, these things can happen faster than you expect. Case in point: last summer, I put up a protest site against E*Trade for all the hoops that they made us open source programmers jump through in order to participate in the Red Hat IPO. And sure enough, in less than two week, I got frequent visits from lsglaw.com... They insisted for about two more weeks, until they got tired about the "interesting computing experience" that I inflicted on them using a.htaccess file
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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jkovach
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· Score: 1
We've tried to get Slashdot to mention this site as a "quickie" news item, but apparently they are an (ahem) Amazon affiliate themselves.:-)
Just like Slashdot always criticizes DoubleClick while serving DoubleClick ads on some of their pages.
Re:Stop typing www.amazon.com....
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Evro
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Yeah, but at least they report things on DoubleClick at all. This way, they can at least say that they are unbiased. But I agree, it is very hypocritical -- they acknowledge that Amazon and DoubleClick engage in highly unethical practices but they still support them. And didn't CmdrTaco invent AdFu so that he wouldn't have to pay DoubleClick? Now he does. Some things about Andover's takeover were very bad.
In a move that could dramatically change the biological systems on Earth, Amazon.com has applied for a patent on air, at least in the United States. Air is a technology used by Amazon.com employees to import oxygen into their and their customers' blood supplies, where it can be carried to the vital organs for the exchange of som carbon dioxide.
This "air" is commonly used by many organisms, including Amazon competitors, to sustain life. Amazon's possession of a patent on the technology could allow the company to prohibit others from using it, or Amazon could charge them a fee if they want to use it.
"If they choose to enforce this, it may radically impact aspects of emerging lifeforms, natural and artificial," Rob Labatt, an analyst at the research firm Gertner Group, said Friday. "The vital question is whether they'll enforce it."
"Are the going to patent affiliate programs next?" said John Segrich, an analyst CIBC World Markets, and frequent air-user, who follows Amazon.com. "I would certainly think this will be quickly challenged."
Amazon wouldn't say today what plans it has for the new patent.
No... no... no... They're trying to trademark the word book. See that way they get book.com, book.net, and book.org away from the real domain name owners for FREE. Thank you, ICANN.;*)
Does Amazon know that they are using my patented technique for patenting.......everything?
Anyway, I've been researching new ways to transfer information. I've since come up with a revolutionary new way to transfer data between users, and I am applying for a patent on each step of it.
First, data is transferred to a new material which is essentially just processed wood pulp. The data is then transfered to this material via a "printer." This new product is something which I will not call a book. Rather, I will call it an "organic data transfer device."(tm) Consequently, I can now sue Amazon for selling illegal goods which violate my patent. I can also sue for making it so darn worthwhile because of their "Affiliate" program, as well as suing for making it so easy, with "one click shopping."
"Are they going to patent air next?" said John Segrich, an analyst with CIBC World Markets, who follows Amazon.com.
Some analyst this guy is! Everyone knows that patents only apply to processes, not physical quantities. Patenting the process of breathing, perhaps, but patenting the air itself? Why, that's absurd!
On a more serious note, it seems Amazon.com has finally found its economic niche -- bringing down the entire global internet economy through frivolous patents and lawsuits. It's too bad it won't actually ever make them profitable. The sooner this company dies, the better.
--
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Patenting the process of breathing, perhaps, but patenting the air itself? Why, that's absurd!
Yes, it's absurd. And that's the point he's trying to make.
Re:Some analyst
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
If you read the next line, he says "On a more serious note". Clearly, he meant that paragraph to be taken as humor.
Re:Some analyst
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The fault is in the patent office, not Amazon. Any company would want to patent some technique that they run the business with. If they don't patent it, somebody else will. The only thing that can happen is that if the company is good then it won't sue the others, but in this case, they will. The patent office is the place where everything is broken down. They are stupid.
Re:Some analyst
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Well at least theyll make money selling their patents:), da bastards.
Does anyone know what happens to patents if the company that holds them dies? Certainly if these patents hold up they are worth as much as the company itself. With these patents Amazon will never die - more likely it will be bought out by some other huge online retailer/entity in order to own inherit their patents. AOL maybe?
On a more serious note, it seems Amazon.com has finally found its economic niche -- bringing down the entire global internet economy through frivolous patents and lawsuits. It's too bad it won't actually ever make them profitable. The sooner this company dies, the better.
Though we'll all rejoice when Amazon goes under, however, they will be liquidated to pay off some of their debt. Part of the assets liquidated will include intellectual property. Their silly patents are witus until they are either:
crushed in court
purchased by parties unwilling to enforce them
expired.
-- - You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!
Re:Some analyst
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
When a corporation is dissolved, its property goes to the shareholders. So probably one of the shareholders would get the patent.
This is extremely rare, however. Companies almost always are sold to some other corporation rather than being dissolved.
Any company would want to patent some technique that they run the business with. If they don't patent it, somebody else will.
Exact
The only thing that can happen is that if the company is good then it won't sue the others, but in this case, they will.
So they are not good which is what we are telling. Amazon was right to try to patent defensively but using the fact that the system is flawed doesn't make you a saint, it just make you a legal criminal, which is what Amazon are.
Some analyst this guy is! Everyone knows that patents only apply to processes, not physical quantities. Patenting the process of breathing, perhaps, but patenting the air itself? Why, that's absurd!
As a matter of fact, one of the goals of the WTO is to make it possible to patent a product instead of just a process. So before, somebody could just come along and create a better process and patent it, but if the WTO gets its way, a corporation will have the ability to patent a product (drug companies are especially excited by this one) and in the process effectively killing innovation and advancement and allowing the corporation a monopoly on their product. This is especially detrimental in the case of third world nations that are in dire need of medicine but the prices are inhibiting the process and millions of people are dying as a result.
I'm patenting spamming
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
As my patent on spamming was recently approved, I am sending a cease and desist order to all spammers out there to....well...cease and desist in spamming!
In my opinion, all patent laws should be abolished and copyright and trademark laws too for that matter. They were supposedly created to protect people from the big bad corporations, but they obviously are not working as intended since any corporation with a big bad bank account can just do whatever they want to anyway. If not totally abolish the laws, at least they could restrict patents and copyrights to individual owners instead of corporations. - Minister of Propaganda,
Re:Crap, not again.
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Minister of Propaganda
Propaganda? pffft. I'm going to be the Minister of Love in the new Nickoslavian regime.
Trying to force the issue?
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interiot
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· Score: 3
I'm in awe yet again... I can't believe that Amazon really expects to keep getting broad-reaching patents without something happening. My only conclusion is that they must be doing this to force the courts to realize how idiotic some software patents can be. And they get to make a buck or two along the way.
I contend that a really evil company would be more stealthy in trying to take over the world. For instance, if Microsoft had been not -quite- so pushy in forcing hardware OEMs to bundle their OS, they might have been able to amass power longer without drawing negative attention, and thus be better prepared for the negative attention when it happened.
You say that you can't believe that Amazon expects to get these, but put yourself in their shoes... if the USPTO is going to grant stupid patents, why not apply for them?
What's the worst that's going to happen to them? The USPTO will revoke the patents? Big deal.
Re:Trying to force the issue?
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interiot
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· Score: 1
Exactly. It's a similar distinction between good hackers and bad crackers...
Hackers find problems and bring them to the attention of the public so they can get fixed asap.
Crackers find problems and then exploit them.
Really bad nasty evil crackers find problems, but only exploit them when a really tasty target comes along so that the exploit doesn't get publicly known until it can be used to get lotsa $$$.
So... amazon would probably rate somewhere in the middle of the scale... slightly above script kiddies, but not much.
Re:Trying to force the issue?
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GenCuster
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· Score: 2
O.K. So all Amazon is trying to do is end this evil patent system, by getting as many broad-reaching patents as possible. This is like me saying I murdered a person, just to expose the evils of the capitol punishment system. You would justifiably fry me for this.
No, applying Ocram's razor, the argument that Amazon is trying to generate positive attention, to divert minds from their lack of profitability is a much stronger argument. If a investor thinks that their is even half a chance of winning the sure to come patent battle it increases the perceived value of their stock. They are going to face increasing pressure to turn a profit, the longer they can postpone this crunch the more they can cash out before the stock begins to fall.
So Amazon behaving as such is not a truly evil company. They are simply a company acting to preserve their bottom line as long as they can.
Nate Custer
-- "The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm; usually because they could not walk"
Nietzsche
Re:Trying to force the issue?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
it's beginning to sound like Jeffy has envy of his buddy across the lake from him, old Borgy-Bill himself...
And like old Borgy-Bill, homeboy up here has got to be taught that throwing your gorilla-ness around don't cut it.
I got it. Figure a way (be creative) to make his stock price tank enough to where he's easy pickings, then put a bug in old Borgy-bill's ear. They deserve each other.
Ne-c'est-pas?
Go ahead, tank my karma. I got it to burn. Burn... burn, Jeff, burn.... grrrrrrrrr...
(he's not pissed off, is he?)
Re:Trying to force the issue?
by
browser_war_pow
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· Score: 1
This one won't hold up because they were CLEARLY not the creator of the affiliate program concept. Their first one might but this one simply cannot unless the judge (assuming they go to court with this) has a brain with the capacity of a labotomized lab rat stoned on heroin.
Re:Trying to force the issue?
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powerlord
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· Score: 2
Which does birng to mind a question...
Considering their lack of profitability, how long could they actually maintain a 'Patent battle' in the courts? (as they may innevitably have to face).
-- This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Re:Trying to force the issue?
by
chizz
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· Score: 1
William of Occham, popularly referred to as william of Occam is going to be pleased, somebody else has patented his razor! This post uses only recycled pixels
I'd like to take a moment to thank Amazon.com for forcing the issue of patent reform. If they maintain their current rate of ridiculous patenting, the patent office will soon be forced out of their complacent attitudes towards patents on the unpatentable. Without Amazon exploring the frontiers of idiotic patents, this process might takes years longer, making the damage much worse in the long run.
Now back to your regularly scheduled "i've patented xyz" posts.
- The unpublished preface to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Mycroft-X
Amazon.com to patent the finders fee
by
fluxrad
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· Score: 1
In a recent release from the Associated Press. A spokesperson for Amazon.com (R) recently announced said company's pantenting of the "Finders Fee." The details of the plan are vague but basicaly are as follows
If a person or any person they know buys something that Amazon.com previously had listed...Amazon.com has legal rights to recover from both parties any money involved in the transaction.
Anything sold on ebay.com or any or any bn.com or barnesandnoble.com site is subject to an Amazon.com "finders fee."
Any children born in the United States are also subject to said "finders fee" and will be summarily taken into custody if the parents refuse to or are unable to pay. This is of course to cover the costs of implementation and research for "finders fee" v1.0.2
Unconfirmed rumors state that in early march of 2001, Amazon.com will merge with AOL and Microsoft Corporation to consumate the largest merger in corporate history. While details are sketchy, a source inside Amazon told us, "...this will finally help us bring about a master race of albino "E-children" to take over the world..."
-FluX flux is a renowned jackass columnist for such publications as slashdot.org and...um...did we already say slashdot?
-FluX ------------------------- Your Ad Here! -------------------------
-- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Gosh, I'm already boycotting 'em as a result of their last patent.
What's the next step?
Something more active, like informing others about what's going on and asking them to join your boycott. And I don't mean other Slashdotters, I mean people who think of Amazon.com first when they think "buy on the internet"; I mean your friends and family that mostly know about what's on the internet from the commercials on TV.
I'm a college student, so I went home for xmas break. While there I told friends who had been looking at Etoys.com for gifts for their kids about etoy.com -- I was able to get from them the "that's not right" reaction I felt. Then I named other places they could buy toys for their kids online. I like to think I swung a few dollars away from a company I felt wasn't playing nice on the internet.
So, if you feel your own personal boycott isn't effective enough, if you feel they are continuing to act the bully, if you feel they are becoming worse neighbors instead of better, then tell more people about it. Convince others (and not just others here, or on other forums where these discussions are the norm) to join you in your boycott.
What's the next step? TPing Bezos' front lawn and putting a flaming bag of dog crap on his front porch?
Sounds good...
We meet at 11:30 at the 7-11 down the street, Waitaminute. It's Friday. He might be up late plotting his next fiendish patent (I hear "clicking a button" is still up for grabs). Better make it 12:30am.
Signal11. You in? Thought so. You're in every thread. Alright, hit the PriceClub and get as much TP as you can. No, it doesn't matter what type. We're talkin' *volume* here, brudda.
Kintanon, go get some grocery bags. Paper, not plastic this time.
Kaminsky, you drive.
Alright, now you guys. The Grits boys. We need all the dogcrap you can find. Lots of it. No, I don't know where to find some. I thought you guys knew all the best spots. Just get moving, and HEY!!! WAITAMINTUE!! Don't put the dogcrap down your pants! It's not Hot Grits. Whaddayamean ya wanted to see what it felt like? We need this shit for Bezos.
*TICK*TOCK*TICK*TOCK*
Alright. TP? "Check!" Paper bag "Check!" Dog Crap? "...and Hot Grits too..." Whatever.
There's his door, right past the Naked Petrified Natalie Port...HEY!...Anyways.
Grits boys, start with the TP. We'll get the bag ready.
What?!? We forgot matches? Dammit, alright what was it Linus said. "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome?", shit no, that was Clint Eastwood. Dammit!
Kaminsky, you wired? Good. Toss me your Palm V. Just one quick post to/. Waitasec...we need to make sure it gets read. Hey, Signal11, feel like burning off some Karma here? Whaddaya mean you need it all? You only have like 10,000.
"Subject: GPL = Borg!!!" "Admit it. You're all just Jealous of JC Bill Gates cuz you wish you had the same amount of control!!.. you won't be happy until the GPL has assimilated everything, and noone can make money doing software stuff no more. Well, RoR, cuz the last laugh will be on you when you put yoursleeves out of jobz, and are all forced to learn VB cuz windows still Rulz, you freaking pinko commiez!!!
Discuss amongst yourselves"
That should do it. Luckily, there's no Katz threads on right now, or noone would have seen it from the background noise. Just give it a a little more time...
Hey!! Grits Boyz!!! Put the TP in the TREES, not down your pants!
*Don's Palm V begins to smolder, as Signal11's Karma takes a nosedive*
Signal11: man, am I gonna have to post a lot tomorrow to get that back...
*lights the bag*
Alright guys! Hit the doorbell and RUN FOR IT! This'll show him that we won't take his bid for world domination lying down...
ROTFLMLO! I must say, you are one of the few people who really deserves a rating-5-funny score! Now you just need to get one of these in every thread, and the quality of Slashdot will be much improved! The Trolls won't be able to post, they'll be laughing so hard!;)
-RickHunter --"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." --Gray council, Babylon 5.
US6029141: Internet-based customer referral system
by
waldoj
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· Score: 3
Amazon wants money..........
by
billybob
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· Score: 1
The way I see it... amazon is in need of some serious cash, since they've already lost many many millions. All this patent BS is an easy way for them to sue people, or maybe even raise their stock if investors feel like they own the copyright to some cool technology.
I think this whole thing is sad... amazon is such a great place to get books, but they keep doing things like this that I don't think is good business practice.
-- Joseph?
Re:Amazon wants money..........
by
GenCuster
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· Score: 1
No, Amazon cannot possibly be hoping to become profitable simply by patenting. However, they may be trying to buy time to become profitable. If an investor hears that Amazon has obtained this patent it increases the value of Amazon in two ways:
1) If you believe this patent is not defendable then, then it is at least a weapon that prevents other companies from suing them with it, and it is as it saves them the cash for that it increases their profit.
2) If it is defendable, it is a way to hurt their competitors and it increases the value of what Amazon owns.
Either way the value of their stock increases. And the longer their stock has value without profitability the better.
Nate Custer
-- "The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm; usually because they could not walk"
Nietzsche
This is nothing new. This is simply an age-old business method that has been applied to the web. There is no innovation, and there is countless, well-documented prior art, if that's the right term, since it's not really technology anyway. The second they sue another site that has alread had it is the second they prove how stupid this is, ignoring the fact that this is unpatentable anyway. My god, I thought the patent in my.sig was stupid.
I could see trademark on "affiliate program" in connection with online bookstores, but not trademark. It's too obvious, and it's been used in non-online settings before.
--
-- The shareholder is always right.
I think I patent Accounting
by
CrazyFool
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· Score: 1
Just think. Every business in the US will have to pay ME a fee to keep their books. I'll make billions from the IRS alone! (evil laugh)
After all, its a business process. The people in the patent office probably don't realize that its been around for thousands of years.
Maybe I'll just patent the concept of the EULA...
Seriously Is there anything we can do to fix the problem?
Re:I think I patent Accounting
by
norton_I
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· Score: 1
Better yet, pattent "EULAs that screw over customers and absolve the company from any responsibility"... Then software companies need to either a) license the technology from you, or B) open up their EULAs to be more reasonable...
Why is stuff like this patentable? Why is it that someone can take an idea that is used in the real world, and add the phrase on the internet and get a patent?
One click shopping? I go to the grocery store, when it's time to pay, I swipe my credit card through the credit card swipe machine thing and go on my way. This is the same as one click shopping, with the addition that you not only need to move your wrist (to position your mouse over the button) but also have to move your finger as well.
And now they've essentially patented giving someone a commission on the internet. If I can't take an existing idea and add the phrase in the state of Georgia on the end and patent it, then why should I be able to add the phrase on the internet and patent it? If someone can patent gambling on the internet, shouldn't I be able to patent gambling in Las Vegas?
Re:Why are these things patentable?
by
ccweigle
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· Score: 1
One click shopping? I go to the grocery store, when it's time to pay, I swipe my credit card through the credit card swipe machine thing and go on my way. This is the same as one click shopping, with the addition that you not only need to move your wrist (to position your mouse over the button) but also have to move your finger as well.
Well, nearly. It's more like if they kept your credit card number on file and tied it in a database to one of those "preferred customer" cards, so they could keep tabs on what you use the store for while providing you a "convenience" (namely not having to sign or provide other id, just look over their records on you and say "yep, that's me").
Not that I'm defending the patent. And I expect we'll see something like what I've described in stores before too long -- it might be there already for all I know.
Re:Why are these things patentable?
by
David+Mooney
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· Score: 1
Your analogy is close, but here's one better.
'Put it on my tab.'
For decades small grocery stores and countless other small businesses would let people check out by simply saying this phrase. (Some still operate this way.) The store clerk knew who the customer was without asking because customer had a history of shopping at the store and the clerk had a good memory. A bit later they would be mailed a bill to settle the tab.
This sounds remarkably similar to 'One Click Shopping'.
Re:Why are these things patentable?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I guess this is how it always worked. I recall one slashdot post from a guy that used to work at a pinball machine company. He would take existing patents and just refile them with "in a pinball machine".
Since Amazon's business model is still losing incredible amounts of other people's money, it seems that suing other companies is the only way they'll get themselves back into black ink.
So, if suing for patent violation becomes their new business model, maybe they'll patent *that*, too. Could be a good thing.
I really used to buy all sorts of books from amazon, they always had a very nice web site and an extremely comprehensive supply of books. After these fiascos, I am NOT going to buy from them any more. Richard Stallman's "Boycott Amazon" Essay is a great location to start to find out what to do. I know this was brought up in prior Amazon discussions, but just as a reminder... I don't agree with Mr. Stallman's philosophies totally, but I sure agree with him on the Amazon issue!
-- Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
NB the 'dept' in the story...
by
T.Hobbes
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· Score: 1
The merchant site also implements an electronic shopping cart that allows the customer to select products from multiple different Web sites, and then perform a single "check out" from the merchant's site.
Have they also patented the concept of purchasing from multiple websites through a single website, even w/o a referral program? IANAL, nor do I have the skills to pretend to be one, so could somebody explain this one?
The merchant site also implements an electronic shopping cart that allows the customer to select products from multiple different Web sites, and then perform a single "check out" from the merchant's site.
Have they also patented the concept of purchasing from multiple websites through a single website, even w/o a referral program? IANAL, nor do I have the skills to pretend to be one, so could somebody explain this one?
I am not a patent attorney, blah blah blah.
The part referring to the shopping cart on the merchant site is not patented in and of itself. It is a non-patented piece of the patented system. It's much like patenting a design for an automobile and including "Rotational force is transmitted from the engine to the wheels via a driveshaft". If the statement is not a claim in itself, you're not patenting the driveshaft, but the automobile as a whole, which happens to use a driveshaft. In this case, Amazon's affiliate system happens to use
So no, they haven't patented the concept of purchasing from multiple websites through a single website. But what they have patented is purchasing from one website through multiple websites, and where the multiple referring websites get a cut of the pie. So long as the associate doesn't get any compensation, it would appear that Amazon's patent is not being violated.
-- But then again, I could be wrong.
Re:Patent On Shopping Cart?
by
Joe+Decker
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· Score: 1
IANAL.
However, what is patented, e.g., protected, is what is listed in the claims. The abstract is an overview but is not legally binding, nor does it typically, in my experience, helpful at telling what aspects of a system are actually protected.
letter sent to feedback@amazon.com
by
peterjm
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· Score: 1
Just wondering about this: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-1558650.htm l?tag=st.ne.1002.thed.1007-200-1558650 what's the deal? you guys seem to be going for the lowest common denominator with this sort of thing. first it's the "one-click" technology, now it's affiliate programs? these are not things you people came up w/. you may have brilliant engineers driving the backend functionality of the site, but apparently it's the finance department that's driving the decision making process. Lord knows it's not the marketing department, as this sort of thing can only bring about bad publicity as the particulars of the lawsuits (and I'm sure there will be plenty) are made known. I'm guessing that some one figured out that the "digital computer" and the "moniter" (not to mention the "internet") were already patented, huh? Just a bit of food for thought, get back to me and let me know how this inspired you.
-Peter
Affiliates
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
i am affiliates with leopard-spotted amazonian grits, suitable for pouring into loincloths and down your pants. thank you.
I'll be moderated down for this, as are all views which don't seem to match the general consensus. But a great majority of patents are not filed for enforcement. Generally, patents are filed to prevent a competitor from doing it first. If you believe that companies who patent are evil, you're being naive. It's part of modern business, just like the endless lawsuits, and other related nonsense, but you can live, in disbelief, and post to Slashdot comments about how Amazon is patenting air, or whatever else, but perhaps you need to run a company that competes globally and see that it is probably the only safe way to protect yourself. If you don't patent it first, someone else will, and sue you into oblivion.
-- -----------------
"I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused
-------------------
Re:A Dissenting View
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Amazon has already shown what it does with it's patents... look at any of the other threads about one-click and their lawsuit against barnes & Nobles...
Are you that moronic^H^H^H^H^H^H naive to think that they won't do it again!!!!
I'll be moderated down for this, as are all views which don't seem to match the general consensus.
No you won't, and no they're not.
But a great majority of patents are not filed for enforcement. Generally, patents are filed to prevent a competitor from doing it first. If you believe that companies who patent are evil, you're being naive. It's part of modern business, just like the endless lawsuits, and other related nonsense, but you can live, in disbelief, and post to Slashdot comments about how Amazon is patenting air, or whatever else, but perhaps you need to run a company that competes globally and see that it is probably the only safe way to protect yourself.
If you don't patent it first, someone else will, and sue you into oblivion.
This would be a good point, were it not for the fact that Amazon has by now got a history of using patents offensively. In fact, the Boycott Amazon page goes some way to acknowledge this:
Foolish government policies gave Amazon the opportunity--but an opportunity is not an excuse. Amazon made the choice to obtain this patent, and the choice to use it in court for aggression. The ultimate moral responsibility for Amazon's actions lies with Amazon's executives.
Realistically, would anyone have complained if Amazon had not started trying to enfore their patent? Off course not. This is even is spite of the fact that even the pontential of a lawsuit can and often does have a devastating inhibiting effect to a business.
If you are moderated down then it is because you said that you might be moderated down. OTOH, your point is generally correct. IBM does this all the time. A lot of companies do this. A lot of ppl here do not know the difference between a patent and a trademark or a copyright.
Ultimately, the blame/credit is placed on the courts. I'm always amazed when ppl criticize the USPTO and don't say a peep about the courts. The USPTO is forced to abide by the decisions of the courts. Yes, the USPTO may not ultimately fully understand the limitiation of the court rulings, but I blame this on the judicial branch.
Your point is very good and is one that pragmatically agree with.
Of course, there is the possibility that Amazon is just trying to make more money by enforcing this patent. Additionally, Amazon may be just putting road blocks in front of their main competition.
Nonsense. First, as others have mentioned, Amazon has been quite clear in their intentions regarding the enforcement of their patents WRT B&N. The fact that they refuse to comment on the motives here is enough to make this latest move smell bad.
IANAPL but...
Patents are not intended to quash competitors from implementing a new technology, but instead to ensure monopoly rights on that tech. for a period of time. With "real-world" tech (for example, an engine that runs on water), this makes sense because it takes time and money (lots) to bring it to reality. Such is not the case with purely software inventions.
In the case of software patents, all one needs to defend one's self against a johnny-come-lately patenting the tech. is to be able to show prior art, IIRC. Using patents to serve as a defense is short-sighted, anticompetitive, stupid, and yes, evil (although in a pathetic Dr. Evil kind of way).
BTW, I have a patent pending on a barter system that uses pieces of paper, and bits of plastic and metal as a means of "currency". Oh, wait. Amazon beat me to that one too...
--
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
That may be the case, however I do not feel that it justifies the action. I could understand it if it was an original process that was created entirely by Amazon. But it's not. Customer referrals on the net have been happening since long before Amazon was a rustle in Bezos' pocketbook. Banner ads come to mind, and several years back when I worked at a 'net startup - before this patent was filed for - we were doing something very similar to this, but we called it partnering.
Bottom line, patenting other people's ideas is wrong. That does not mean that it doesn't happen every day - I'm sure it does - but I don't have to support companies that do with my money.
Of course, I could always try to get a patent on the win32 api's equivalent of fork(), sue Microsoft, and use the money to lobby for USPTO reform.
Re:A Dissenting View
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
>>I'll be moderated down for this, as are all views which don't seem to >>match the general consensus.
No you won't, and no they're not.
But he just was moderated down (Troll), so you're wrong.
If you don't patent it first, someone else will, and sue you into oblivion.
Sounds like a good reason to GET RID OF PATENTS. Seriously, anyone with money can get some lame patent, this unfairly helps the monetary interests of those who already have shitloads of money. Now, if I came up with some amazing non-obvious idea, I wouldn't have the money to patent it, or pay the lawyers to enforce my patent.
Re:A Dissenting View
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Aww, who the fuck cares about someone getting moderated down to 1 for a lame post at +2. Post at 1 or 0 like the rest of us, who write better comments anyways.
This is the reasoning of a crook. "I did not want to kick you, but hey - everyone else is doing it". If one does this, then you can stop judging people naive, because one already surrendered one's moral fibre to groupthink.
it is probably the only safe way to protect yourself.
I flat out don't believe that. You would think that a global company would have better resources and ability to hire lawyers to do the legwork to prove prior art, and hence invalidate the patent. Surely in this case, Amazon's patent is of this type. One very easy thing for you do this is to collect documentation, from newspaper reports or other public sources, of a business practice that one is emulating, and is already in wide use. Prior precendent should be sufficient as a defence against the sharks out there. The truth is not good enough for these big companies?
Of course, the US Patent Office is stupid to have granted that patent. This is a different problem. For companies who feel pressured by the need for defensive patents, perhaps they should gather together, and back the consumers. Help defend the public interest (and their own business interest). In this manner, they are spared the expensive and ligitious process. They gain our respect. And everything is more sane as a result. And stupid Amazon-wannabes would think twice about behaving in this bullying manner.
In the first place all that is required to nullify another's patent is demonstrable prior art. So to say that getting patents is a defensive measure is the height of absurdity. It is an offensive measure (in both senses of the term when it comes to software).
So it's part of modern business. Big deal. Shall we cynically suck it up, or shall we protest this idiocy? Whatever you might think, frivoulous patents like this must be fought. Or are you blind to the ultimate effects such things have on both software and the Internet?
Patents are not intended to quash competitors from implementing a new technology, but instead to ensure monopoly rights on that tech. for a period of time.
Apparently not. Pharmaceutical companies often use patents to block competition, and in that case I think that patents are probably in the general social interest.
With "real-world" tech (for example, an engine that runs on water), this makes sense because it takes time and money (lots) to bring it to reality. Such is not the case with purely software inventions.
Free software not withstanding, most companies that want to create a software product do end up paying a great deal of money to get that product created. Where do you think the Ferrari in my driveway came from?
I believe that the most effective patent law would recognize that software innovation is (as you rightly point out) cheaper and in an industry moving faster than in other areas.
I believe that reducing the patent period for new software patents from 17 (is it 20 now?) years to (say) 12 months after issue would probably be a major step inthe right direction, and there is already prior art for patents having different durations (e.g., design patents). That period should be revisited regularly to balance the harm that patents do against the benefits of clear disclosure of new inventions, which is a good, even in software.
Surely you mean software patents. Have you ever looked at the positive effects of patents on the pharmaceutical industry? Patent law does push research and development in the development of new drugs and treatments that wouldn't happen as quickly elsewhere. There are other examples, but I think this one is particularly clear.
Great post! Regardless of your views on patents, if the USPO is going to be handing sham patents like this one out, far better to have it in your own possession than a competitor!
I attended a talk about patents and patent laws while I was a summer intern at HP Labs. One of the things they said there was that they used patents mostly as a suit of things to trade with competitors challenging them. So, if IBM came to them and claimed to have a patent on something they were using, HP would counter with its own set of patents and hopefully be able to bury the whole thing.
They encouraged employees to seek as many patents as possible to make the companys position stronger when it dealt with competitors with patents.
But that doesn't seem to be the case with Amazon, because they ARE suing B&N for the use of one-click shopping.
Great news: obvious even to non-technical people.
by
BigGaute
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· Score: 4
Don't worry. Be happy. While this might seem like just another ridiculous patent to me and you, it is more significant than that.
Anyone with a certain minimum of knowledge about how computers and / or the internet works knows exactly how preposterous the one-click patent is. This patent is no different in that respect. The difference is that this patent is so much more blindingly obvious that anyone should be able to see why, with minimal rethoric required. This ought to make it a lot easier to fight the patent in court, and let's hope that Amazon's competitors do just that.
The state of the US Patent Office has been long lamented, in places such as the GNU website and the League for Programming Freedom. I personally believe that although some of the examples cited there, such as the use of XOR to highlit information on a bitmapped screen in an easily reverisble way, are, believe it or not, not sufficently obvious to the population at large that the average man and woman can be easily convinced.
Off course, being non-obvious to the average person is a subset of the legal requirements to obtain a patent--theoretically, a new patent may not be obvious, even if only to experts in the field. However, it has been obvious for a long time that the US Patent Office is blindingly incompetent in this regard. Maybe this time, we will have our day in court, and win it too.
Until then, I suggest that we all chip in and make a link to the Boycot Amazon page. Have you emailed Amazon to tell them what you think yet? I have.
So, I guess I see two paths here: 1) Someone breaks the stupid patent, takes Amazon to court, and wins. Maybe it contributes to a review of patent law; maybe not.
2) Amazon realizes it's a stupid patent and doesn't ever bother to enforce it. (They may go on to get more patents, until it is discovered that Bezos uses Emacs, and resigns in shame...)
Option (2) seems more likely...in which case, does that herald the coming of stupid patents? Will we see e-whatever companies getting patents for the same reasons that they hoard Nerf (and, appropriately enough, just as effective)?
Well, I could be totally wrong about this, but isn't Amazon losing money almost daily? Aren't they pretty much not making any profits at the moment? If that is the case, then all of these patents make perfect sense. How else are they going to suceed as a business unless they make it almost impossible for anyone else to have a successful e-business?
Also, doesn't anyone else kind of think it is odd that even though other companies also use similar "one click" transaction methods, Amazon only goes after their main competition online?
It's times like these that make me want to dump the MPAA, the RIAA, DoubleClick and Amazon (along with the NSA, CIA and FBI) all on an island somewhere. They can then spend the rest of their days monitoring each other and trying to monopolize all expression and commerce on their island.
-- What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero? - Hobbes
I'm afraid to touch my mouse!
by
effer
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· Score: 1
Can we now Patent hyperlinks?! I really want to read this patent! It's really a problem that the elected government is, by nature, set to a speed of learning that is 1/10th of the Technology development arena! Now we also have to suffer the joined ranks of the sub-structure on which laws are made and argued! Sad, sad day!
Re:I'm afraid to touch my mouse!
by
karmatrip
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· Score: 1
Can we now Patent hyperlinks?!
Well, well, well.... look at this, from the article. Maybe it wouldn't be to hard:
Linder said the patent could even be broad enough to cover single links that would simply go from an affiliate to Amazon's home page, instead of to specific items.
If one type of link, why not another?
-- ----
Sig? What sig? Who needs one, anyway?
Re:I'm afraid to touch my mouse!
by
effer
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· Score: 1
I actually asked permission to link to a site 5 years ago and surprised the company and recieved a 'thanks' ! Man, how life has changed!!
Amazon tried to enforce one-click
by
blogan
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· Score: 1
They filed a lawsuit against B&N, so what makes you think they won't enforce this? Hopefully you do get moderated down, because you're not thinking about the past actions of Amazon.
This just in: Amazon patents the "computer user". In a bold move, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) recently recieved a patent for the computer user. While Amazon refused to return calls for comment, the press release stated "you can be darn sure that if any of our competitors think they can have free access to our users, they are only fooling themselves! har de har har!"
Other patents pending for amazon.com include: software hardware air
oh yeah, just in case any of you were thinking of boycotting amazon, I think they just filed for a patent on boycotts. to protest amazon, just make your check out to:
another rediculous amazon patent, in the ammount of my $.02
-Peter
Amazon has a _lot_ of patents
by
jhedley
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· Score: 5
Re:Amazon has a _lot_ of patents
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I recently acquired the domain OpenAmazon.com. What I'd like to do is build a GPL ecommerce code base. My company would run one implementation of the system, it would be open to all though. I'd like to see it as a distributed editing environment like http://dmoz.org, allowing small businesses (and any other vendors) to register and sell there stuff. The new CommerceNet Eco Framework (http://eco.commerce.net) would be one of the key standards. I think an Apache Foundation style governing body would be a good idea. There would be the codebase which is free: open source and reuseable, and there would be the central site. Kind of like dmoz. In no way would I be infringing Amazon.com's trademark. Cause all (at least a large precentage) of the profits would be funnelled into Rainforest Ecosystem sustainable development (a kind of tree tax) ie. it would directly support the real Amazon, not the dot com abomination
As long as the courts grant temporary injunctions preventing other companies from using similar technologies, Amazon wins. For instance, even if the courts throw out the patent on one-click shopping, Amazon has already succeeded in preventing B&N from using such technology for months. Those months can be critical to both the bottom line and building brand loyalty. Hopefully, the courts will recognize this pattern of abuse, and, in the future, temporary injunctions will not be granted to Amazon.
...there is now way that this will hold up in court. However keeping in mind the recent court rulings on anything that has to do with technology I'm sure some clueless judge would hold this up. I'm just wondering how long it will take for this unbelievably arrogant company to sue somebody. I've stopped shopping at amazon after they sued Barnes&Noble over the one click shopping feature and I'm urging everyone here to do the same. As little as we think we may be able to do about it as individuals, all you have to do is look at the recent etoys incident to see what large public uproar can do and how quickly it can turn their minds. The patent system was set up so that individuals and companies would be able to protect themselves and their investments. It seems that these days it has turned into an offensive tactic, means to an end. The end here being some sort of a basis for a lawsuit. After all if there is no reason to sue somebody you can always invent one.
Next up, Amazon.com patents eCommerce.
by
kwsNI
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· Score: 1
Let's boycott Amazon. Oh wait. Dammit. I already am.
What's up next? Hasn't IBM already patented eCommerce or will Amazon try to patent that also. How about.Com? Oh wait, Sun has that... WWW? Maybe they'll just patent accepting credit card orders.
How about getting the patent on their "Comments" section where other people can post comments about the item? Hmm, maybe they could make Slashdot stop using comments then. Then where would all the trolls go?
How about enforcing their Amazon name and make Brazil rename that damned forest? Would that be asking too much? After all, they've gotten away with patenting the obvious so far...
Amazon.com today has applied for and been granted a US patent on a process that they have named "shopping".
According to the patent application, "shopping" is a method by which a "buyer" examines the wares being offered by a "seller", determines that he would like to obtain such wares, and trades money for them.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has claimed that "our patent for 'shopping', along with those we have for 'buying' and 'selling' can combine to form an entierly new way for human beings to obtain and distribute goods. This represents a tremendous leap over the previous system of bartering".
In a related note, Microsoft has been granted a patent for a process they call "seeing", whereby a person uses their eyes to collect sensory information. Accoring to founder Bill Gates "'seeing' is incredible, it provides people with an entierly new way to experience the environment around them. Of course, to recoupe our RD investment, we will have to impose steep usage fees for everyone who 'sees' during the next decade or so, but I doubt consumers will mind considering all the benefits of 'seeing'."
Amazon or the US Patent office? The way I see it Amazon just pulled a fast one and the idiots at the USPTO were asleep at the wheel. But to let something like this "slip through the cracks" is just inexcusable.
If I were an Amazon employee (from service rep to CEO) I would be utterly embarrased to be reading this article about my company!
I strongly encourage all to visit http://www.noamazon.com (I just did because of someone's previous post on this topic) and write your congressman/senator/granny and raise hell. Let's just hope the "slashdot effect" has some impact on this one.....(and not take down noamazon.com's servers =) )
One last bit to chew on... If website owners who are enrolled in affiliate programs with vendors other than Amazon end up going out of business because of this how big could the class action suit against Amazon get?
-- Ranger X
Re:Who's the fool?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The US Patent office updates Tuesdays!?! Does anybody agree that the fact that a large tech company can file a suit that will be litigated in or moved to a small, dare I say, technologically naive court causes fear? There are many highly intelligent judges out there (I deal with them daily!). Still, this is a developing area in which old ideas do not match "fairness". It's unfortunate, but "open debate" doesn't exist for lawyers and the system and the moves by Amazon are troublesome. suckage!
Amazon to Patent Boycotting
by
Greyfox
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· Score: 4
In a press release today Amazon.com announced that it has received a patent for boycotting. Now anyone planning on boycotting any internet entity will have to pay Amazon.com a royalty fee.
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Re:Amazon to Patent Boycotting
by
HermDog
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· Score: 1
Levying a royalty for boycotting may be the only way Amazon ever makes a profit.
Maybe these fuckers could patent spamming. They seem to have perfected patenting technology that's either obvious or has a laughably large set of prior art (Maybe they could patent how they do it?) so patenting E-Mail spam should be a snap for them.
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How does this affect Banner Ads?
by
David+Mooney
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· Score: 2
"This is pretty broad," said Walter Linder, a patent attorney with Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis. "I think there might be a lot of Web sites that will have to change their affiliate programs to get around this."
Linder said the patent could even be broad enough to cover single links that would simply go from an affiliate to Amazon's home page, instead of to specific items. [The C|Net story.]
Doesn't this patent banner ads? Think about it.
Site A links to Site B's homepage or product page.
User clicks link on Site A which brings them to site B.
Site B pays Site A a fee/commision for same.
IANAL but affiliate programs seem quite similar to banner programs. Looking at the above use case, I can't tell whether that is a banner or an affiliate
Troll Story
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
According to this story the United Coalition of Trolls for the Abolition of Moderation is gaininge power. Talk about it.
exploring the frontiers of idiotic patents....
by
nmarshall
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· Score: 3
let me think about this, so Amazon is patenting air... well, seeing that the USPTO granted a patent for entertaining a cat using a laser pointer. i guess it could happen.
nmarshall #include "standard_disclaimer.h" R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
-- nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.. --Colonel Burr 1783
Re:exploring the frontiers of idiotic patents....
by
Phong
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· Score: 2
That cat-entertainment patent is not as obvious as you may think. If you read the abstract, it says that they are patenting the use of "invisible light" to cause the cat to exercise. I don't think that one person in a million would have thought to use light that the cat can't see for this purpose.
(Hopefully this means that someone using a regular, visible-light laser pointer isn't covered by this patent.)
-- ..wayne..
Re:exploring the frontiers of idiotic patents....
by
sik+puppy
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· Score: 1
can't a patent be overturned by proving its use/discovery prior to the patent application?
i was doing this w/ old surplus grocercy store scanners in the late 80's, using 1.5mW henes and one kitten.
still have the laser and can contact at least one other witness to this experiment
status of kitten is unknown (assume it is now a full grown cat)
-- The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Re:exploring the frontiers of idiotic patents....
by
Rick_T
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· Score: 2
| I don't think that one person in a million would | have thought to use light that the cat can't see | for this purpose.
| (Hopefully this means that someone using a | regular, visible-light laser pointer isn't | covered by this patent.)
Nope, it's a laser pointer. Read the patent again, particularly claim 3: "wherein said beam remains invisible between said laser and said opaque surface until impinging on said opaque surface." Elsewhere in the patent they talk about a "bright pattern of light" which you get when the laser hits the wall, etc.
Presumably, the patent wouldn't cover using your laser pointer to entertain your cat in a smoky room, though.:)
(Reading that particular patent, I think it almost HAS to be a joke. Someone with a little too much money and time on their hands...)
-- --
Rick
Re:exploring the frontiers of idiotic patents....
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
actully I don't think it is I seem to recall a device for entertaining a cat via laser pointer in one of those catalogs you find on airplanes, it was like $50-$60 if I remember correctly
Re:exploring the frontiers of idiotic patents....
by
vovin
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· Score: 1
Hate to be a realist but prior art does require that you were using this process in a productive manner, or otherwise had product in the market place (ie making $$ of your invention) 1 entire year before somebody helpfully applied for your patent, for you, in their name (of course).
I just wan't to go down on record as explaining what prior-art really means and why that isn't IMHO at all a saving grace of the patent system in any way what so ever.
Just buy from their competitors, and tell others.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Have everyone you know who buys online, stop shopping at Amazon.com, or shop at one of the people they sue for any reason.
Amazon.com has not posted a profitable quarter. Let's make sure they never do. If they get too far behind, and stockholders want their dividends, then you can see Amazon.com bought by another company.
This may be good, or it may be bad. It's worth the chance, if it'll put these a$$holes out of their monopolistic business. Fsck them.
I wrote them a letter telling them I'm insulted to think I used to shop there. And I never will again.
Support www.noamazon.com on your site, so that others know.
Jeff Bezos can do whatever he wants.
by
Evro
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· Score: 2
After all, he IS the man of the year! And after seeing all these innovative processes he's invented (which he must have done in order to patent them, right?), how can anyone argue with anything he does? He knows best!
He's probably under tons of pressure from stockholders who are starting to get pissed off that Amazon, for all its millions in sales, can't turn a penny of profit -- so he patents everything in sight in a bizarre plan to charge royalties for them. I guess... who knows at this point. How can they get a patent when there are so many, many similar programs that have been around for so long? I have been an "affiliate" of CDNOW's since at least February 1997.
Doesn't Amazon care about the bad press it gets? If these patents don't stand up in court (which I would hope is the case), what does Amazon gain from the entire ordeal? If this is the future of "ecommerce," it's not anything of which I'd like to be part.
_________________
-- rooooar
Re:Jeff Bezos can do whatever he wants.
by
Phexro
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· Score: 1
Unfortunately, most of the bad press they get is right here...
Selecting rows from a database?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
System and method for selecting rows from dimensional databases
Isn't this, like, "SELECT * FROM BOOKS" in SQL? Isn't this, like, just HOW databases WORK??
Re:Selecting rows from a database?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
This is the one I found to be the funniest. But, one the same token, I am sooo pist off. I am red in the face. This is fucking bullshit!!! What the fuck are they going to patent next fucking email ? The internet ? a web server ? fucking SQL it self ? or how about my fucking toaster ?? ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!! I am thinking we should go a differant route. Start hasaling the patent offices and other goverment agencys. Your local repersentitives, or even fucking bill fucking clinton!!
Re:Selecting rows from a database?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Nah, read the patent -- it's significantly more complex than a simple SQL statement, and has to do with how the data is structured in the 'dimensional' tables. Still, we've done stuff similar to this at work, it can't hardly be new or patentable.
patent referral bonuses!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
That'd be a great idea. Then every web site with affiliate programs as well as -all- tech companies would have to give a percentage of any referral bonus they dish out (often quite hefty for tech companies dishing out options;) to the patent holder.
Oh. And what about patenting the idea of running commercial sites with advertising banners and funding that end in ".org" addresses like a certian annoying one we all know.
Bothered by the patent system?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
Then close your eyes now because you ain't seen nothing yet. Corporations have got this country *by the balls*. All of this stuff has gone on behind closed doors and smoky rooms. Companies are getting a little giddy over their power and are letting things slip here and there. Corruption of the patent system is a just one small thing that they fucked up and corrupted enough for it to be visible. Lots of other things happen. Ever wonder exactly how much impact lobbiests have on the country? Ever wonder why the weren't outlawed a long time ago? After all it's nothing more than bribery. Corporations have corrupted the entire patent system. It's nearly worthless now. They did it for selfish, short term goals without regard to the implications this might have on society. This makes me wonder what will be next. What else is nearing failure because of these immoral people? How much will we be willing to lose before we finally put a stop to it? (Hint:You should be angry right now) I'm both ashamed and disgusted at America. Why havn't our trusty elected officials done anything about this particular issue? Perhaps they fear treading on the toes of their contributers, hmm? There is definitly something broken in this country and it's hurting us all. We need to smack down this plague before it can do any more damage.
Re:Bothered by the patent system?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Then close your eyes now because you ain't seen nothing yet. Corporations have got this country *by the balls*.
What does that mean? I would chalk it up to Marxim, but even that system of thought gives reasosn for its claims
All of this stuff has gone on behind closed doors and smoky rooms. Companies are getting a little giddy over their power and are letting things slip here and there.
Huh? Like what? What's the cause for "giddiness"? When did it start?
Corruption of the patent system is a just one small thing that they fucked up and corrupted enough for it to be visible. Lots of other things happen. Ever wonder exactly how much impact lobbiests have on the country? Ever wonder why the weren't outlawed a long time ago? After all it's nothing more than bribery.
The reason that it wsn't "outlawed a long time ago" is that the system of the government of the United States is designed to maximize the number of special interests (factions) so that power doesn't become concentrated. Read the Federalist Papers for relavent apologia.
Corporations have corrupted the entire patent system. It's nearly worthless now. They did it for selfish,
What's wrong with selfishness? If I remember right, this nation (the US, the most successful democratic repbublic in the history of the world) was founded on individualism
short term goals without regard to the implications this might have on society.
The patent system in the free market has been busy creating wealth for several centuries. Society gains from it.
[snip]
Re:Bothered by the patent system?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
>What does that mean? I would chalk it up to >Marxim, but even that system of thought gives >reasosn for its claims.
Ism-shmism. I'm not creating a new form of society just making a few observations. If you think this merits some sort of manifesto, too bad. I'm pointing out the obvious, not making some sort of radical hypothesis. If you need proof that it's raining *shrug* don't bring your umbrella.
>Huh? Like what? What's the cause for "giddiness"? >When did it start?
Like what? I believe the FCC carried out meetings recently in regards to the distribution of broudband frequencies. Their "panel of experts" in charge of forming new rules and regulations was composed solely of the heads of companies who had a stake in the out come of the regulations. The meetings were held behind closed doors on *Christmas Eve* when everyone else was home with their families. So they made the rules and pretty much did whatever the fuck they wanted. IS this a reason for an executive to be giddy? I dunno..what do you think? Now, we have two examples.
I think your questions about when it started is just a troll for a sophistic comeback, as is the overall theme of your reply.
>The reason that it wsn't "outlawed a long time >ago" is that the system of the government of the >United States is designed to maximize the number >of special interests (factions) so that power >doesn't become concentrated. Read the Federalist >Papers for relavent apologia
You contradict yourself. Money is what gets laws passed. Your a lier if you deny this. This means those with the most money pretty much drive the country. Is this a maximization of interests? Honestly? You can be honest about this.
Corporations have corrupted the entire patent system. It's nearly worthless now. They did it for selfish,
>What's wrong with selfishness? If I remember >right, this nation (the US, the most successful >democratic repbublic in the history of the world) >was founded on individualism
Red Herring. You cannot deny that they've ruined the patent system, so you move on to the defense of selfishness itself. Sorry.
>The patent system in the free market has been >busy creating wealth for several centuries. >Society gains from it.
Wrong. You can't predict how things would be right now if the patent system hadn't been compromised. There could have been a whole hell of a lot more innovation if ideas hadn't been stolen and then locked down. Yes this is theft. Taking something that is obviously prior art and not having been invented by the patent holder in any way shape or form and removing it from free public use is theft.
I'm a marxist, huh? Why don't you go fuck yourself. You think they stopped arresting people for white collar crime in the 80's? You guys have had a fun ride for a few years here but I get the feeling a whole shitload of you scumbags will be riding the prison bus in the next few years. Good riddence.
You've all probably seen this before, but I'm posting it again. It seems rather prophetic, though not regarding Microsoft -- large corporation patents everything obvious. Plus it's funny.
_________________
-- rooooar
One word: boycott
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
What good is there to whine about it?
Instead: - stop buying stuff from Amazon - tell all your friends to do the same and explain the issue if necessary
That's it. Simple as that. You vote with your wallet. The more people you can leverage behind not giving the allmighty buck to Amazon, the more power you have against them.
If they're not stupid, they'll change. On the other hand, they're already losing money all the time so why should they care about a boycott... It's a whole damn pyramid scheme, that's what it is.
In an unexpected event, amazon.com has trademarked the following words:
a
an
the
Film at 11:00.
New form protest in the digital age?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You know, reading about stuff like this makes me mad fsckin' pissed...
but I've made a rather interesting observation. If you go to Amazon.com, you will see that at the bottom of each page, there's a link that says:
"I'm the author, I'd like to comment on my book".
Hrm... and, in this day and age of social engineering, what would stop someone from posing as an author?
Absolutely NOTHING. No passwords, zip, zilch, nada... (I found out when I clicked on the review button by "The Art of War", written by some long dead guy... by accident, of course... 8-) ).
So... if anyone want to put in any links, to say... www.noamazon.com... of course, I'm not advocating anything, but... hey... any good scripters out there that like to do literary reviews? 8-)
-=- SiKnight
Re:New form protest in the digital age?
by
CrayDrygu
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· Score: 2
Notice, though, how it says the comments won't be posted for a good few days? Probably while they check to make sure it's legit.
--
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
Amazon....
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
has patented a means for petrifying young teenage girls, specifically Natalie Portman.
Now only *they* can fulfill your wildest fantasies!
Fight Amazon, or statuesque women; what to choose, what to choose...
Fortunately, Slashdot is setting up a legal fund, since there is obviously "prior art" for this idea, surely archived on Slashdot somewhere...
It seems impossible to understand why amazon.com is patenting such fundamental concepts as one click ordering and referral fees. If the ideas were patented with the intent of keeping someone else from patenting it and abusing it, this might make sense. If there was some validity to the patents, it might make sense.
Neither of these is the case. It does not make amazon.com look good to file these suits, nor is it very profitable. The question remains, then, as to why one would do this.
Re:Why?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
greed, desperation, stupidity and evil could motivate such an action. Those are also the reasons why people end up in jail.
Why Boycotting Amazon Means Nothing.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2
Pro forma operating loss for the fourth quarter of 1999 was $175 million, compared to a pro forma operating loss of $18 million in the fourth quarter of 1998. Fourth-quarter pro forma net loss of $185 million, or $0.55 per share, compared with a pro forma net loss of $22 million, or $0.07 per share, in the fourth quarter of 1998.
They are already not making any money. It doesn't matter whether or not they make money. This is why boycotting them will have no effect. This is not to say we should stop boycotting them, but don't think it will change anything.
Re:Why Boycotting Amazon Means Nothing.
by
deadl0ck
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· Score: 1
I'm still boycotting them because of the spam they sent my several years ago. --
-- --
Re:Why Boycotting Amazon Means Nothing.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I'm boycotting Amazon because of this patent bullshit, but I'm also boycotting B&N because they keep on sending me goddamned spam for free offers that aren't valid outside the US, even when they could check their fucking database and see that I don't live there. Fuck 'em all.
Re:Why Boycotting Amazon Means Nothing.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Investors today do not concern themselves nearly as much with the operating losses of a company. Instead they are focusing more and more on the revenue line and their perceived ability to continue to raise capital well into the future. i.e. As long as Amazon continues to bring in customers and convince investors to throw more money in their direction, then they will continue to thrive.
Re:Why Boycotting Amazon Means Nothing.
by
Phallus
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· Score: 1
Thing is, making a loss is not the same thing as doing badly. Rather than making a profit, Amazon is concentrating on building a customer base, and selling opportunities. I'd imagine that Amazon could make a profit right now if the copmpany changed priorities.
So while Amazon has no profits to hurt, every customer Amazon has makes it more attractive to investors, and gives it more potential income. This is why the boycott is effective. Amazon needs customers, and needs them more than sales.
Skip this if you don't like TROLLs.
by
pb
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· Score: 0
Uh oh, it's that time again. Night time, when the trolls lurk.
So I load up slashdot, and it said it was generated by a "Group of Stealth Ninjas" just for me. Well, that scared the hell out of me, so I reloaded it. Then it was generated by a "Cadre of Psycho Ninjas". Oh man.
So I went to this story, where it's safe, right? No! More ninjas! They're everywhere!
...and now I feel like some pancakes. Mmm.
So what's the moral of the story? Ninja thread here, if you like them. I think they should be tagged "Ninja Troll", and get points for that (bottom out at -1 for normal people, but...).
Then we can "Sort By Lowest Score", and have the scale be from -5..1, with the best trolls at the top! (Ninja Troll, Hot Grits Troll, Portman Troll, Open Source Troll, etc., etc.)
Anything higher would of course be "Above your current threshold".:)
Therefore, moderate the parent down! I suggest a (Score:-3, Ninja Troll, Portman Troll, Patent Troll) --- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
-- pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Re:Skip this if you don't like TROLLs.
by
michaelndn
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· Score: 1
Yeah, i'd have to agree that a good attitude rises above all the name calling. it seems the troll police have got their panties in a wad. seriously, since when does being anal and condesending seem like a better choice then being a troll. at least there is some solidarity in being a troll.
relax. exhale. don't get so mad if you don't agree with someone. you'll live longer.
Yes. 8-( Luckily, it seems to be up at 1 again. 8-) I don't think this is a problem in general, except if you post as 'Anonymous Coward', in which case you will quickly disappear from public view (read: go sub-zero) and thus never really get the chance to be moderated up again. If you're logged on, most people will still see you at 0. Personally, if I see a post which has clearly been unfairly moderated, I will often mark it 'Underrated' or 'Overrated' as appropriate, even if I would not have considered moderating it otherwise.
Incidentally, this is a good reason to set the limit to -1 if you've got moderator points. (I know you're encouraged to do so, but I somehow suspect that not enough people do.)
It's truly sad when an honest opinion - even if it is an opposing one - is adorned with the label of `troll'.
Indeed.
Calling all would-be public servants!
by
IronClad
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· Score: 5
USPTO Employment Application
1. Name ______________ 2. Date _______________ 3. DOB _______________ 4. SSN ________________
5. I.Q. (check one) ( ) Moron ( ) Idiot ( ) Dim-wit ( ) Liberal Arts Flunkee
(Y or N) Have you ever been affiliated with a terrorist organization or received a grade D or or better on an engineering examination?
(Y or N) Can you be trained to operate a rubber stamp within a period of 16 weeks?
(Y or N) Are you able to employ a method and process for inducing condensation upon a reflecting surface?
(Y or N) Do you agree that you deserve a patent for the above?
(Y or N) Were you alive when Al Gore invented the Internet?
(Y or N) Do you agree he deserves a patent for that?
Re:Calling all would-be public servants!
by
DrEldarion
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· Score: 1
(Y or N) Are you able to employ a method and process for inducing condensation upon a reflecting surface?
Hey, these people are too clueless to have any clue what that question means...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Re:Calling all would-be public servants!
by
Tech
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· Score: 1
This is offtopic, but I'm starting to get a bit concerned about the number of comments that mention Al Gore having inventing the Internet, obviously in reference to his idiotic claim to have done so when he obviously did not. You know it's meant to be sarcastic and so do I, but my concern is that there are going to be a lot of people reading these comments, not recognising the sarcasm, and next thing you know history will record that it really was all Al's work. I think we need to be more careful when making comments. Perhaps include something that implies the intended sarcasm.
Re:Calling all would-be public servants!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Perhaps include something that implies the intended sarcasm.
...Like:-) 's? You'll have to pony up the royalties for it though - Compaq nabbed that patent way back in '96.
I'm not sure where these patents are going. It almost seems too risky to call companies on silly patents like "one click shopping" or affiliate programs. (Although I think affiliate programs, if they do, in fact, have a patent on it, is more protectable than one click shopping). When they call on shaky ground because their IP may not be protectable, they are just testing the gov't to finally get softwarre patents done correctly. Which will really screw them.
-- Moondog
Holidays
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Let us all mark on our calanders the glorious day when Amazon DOT COM (bleh) goes belly-up. Then we can celebrate it along with the death of DVX. Did you know that Circuit City is selling TNT-M64 cards disuised as TNT2's? I bought one and when I discovred what it was, they tried to charge me a "restocking fee" for bringing it back. feh.
I'm not one to write letters that would be seen by most companies to be basic editorials, but I couldn't help, this time.
The content of my letter:
Hi there.
I realize that the person who will be reading this will not be a person in any capacity to do anything with this. However, I feel that Amazon is about to lose a customer it has had almost since it began.
Why?
Because your company is taking advantage of an overworked, underpaid patent office using a poorly designed, poorly regulated patent system. Your tactics are unethical -- I don't care if they're legal or not.
You are not "protecting your business from competitors" by disallowing such common practices as affiliates programs or the "one-click" shopping idea. I thought a boycott would be silly because it accomplishes nothing, but your company has proven that they just don't care one way or another about fair competition or even the future of the Internet. What your company has shown by these actions is that they are primarily interested in the bottom line, no matter how dirty they have to become to do it.
I'm highly disappointed in your company at the moment and will cease to support you with my hard-earned money until the point at which you both rescind your rights to the patents you currently have and also announce the intention to never file a spurious business practices legal patent again. I will also do my very best to ensure that other friends of mine do not use your service as well.
I cannot stress to you how angry this makes me. You are taking advantage of American taxpayers' money and you are taking advantage of _me_.
I sent them a very similar letter. They sent me back a form letter. A week later I got a nice cup from them in the mail. So far they have lost about $200 worth of my business. They've also lost a LOT more than that from various friends and family I've convinced to join the boycott.
Is it the patent office's fault for stupid patents? Amazon's? I'd say Amazon is 100% at fault for trolling the patent office with intent of destroying its competitors. They are doing it to harm competition, not to promote business technology. If anyone beleives they have invented some novel process, they are being snowed. Its all about money and greed. They will get away with it until they are no longer allowed to troll the patent office.
I really do not think noamazon would help. Nor would any boycott. I mean didn't Amazon just post the worst quarterly results, and their stock did what?
Amazon is not playing the same game that people think they are playing.
Aquiring frivilous patents is a step up in their game. It's the "$64,000 dollar question".
The only way to beat them is,
beat them at their game or change the rules of the game.
Bryan
An Amazon affiliate's experience...
by
Chagrin
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· Score: 2
"I sent people to the amazon site 2,651 times. Only 4 of those people ignored the 25 extra links and bought books off the very first page. One of them bought a special order book for which the dogs at Angell got nothing. Bottom line: The standard Internet price for a clickthrough is 10 cents; it would have cost amazon.com $265 per week to get these users by purchasing ads on other folks' sites; amazon got them from me for $3.95."
'nuff said.
--
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Re:An Amazon affiliate's experience...
by
Ralph+Bearpark
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· Score: 2
Your quote comes from a 1997 article. Read down and you'll see the following added from a reader in August 1999:
Amazon has updated their program since this was published. If someone goes to amazon.com through your site and purchases the book/cd/video you recommend, you get the full percentage commission. If they purchase a different book/cd/video, you get a lower percentage commission.
Having said that, the affiliate plan is probably still pretty bad (for the affiliate) only not as bad as you're painting it.
Forget my.com (hosted in California), what about my other sites? If they were members of affiliate programmes of non-US sites (ie bol), would a US vistor clicking through violate this patent. Mind you, bol is.com, so could Amazon sue them to get Internic to drop their domain?
It was much simpler with the RSA patents. I got to use apache_ssl, the US had to buy Stronghold.
Silly patents
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I think the Slashdot community should get together and patent things before amazon.com does and sues you for it. Pretty soon, they'll patent the internet. =(
I was thinking the same thing. Patent blatently obvous things like.
Message boards,Karma on message boards, or User moderation.
Anything, just start patenting.
Has any one patented FAQ's? Lets get crazy and come up with some silly but unpatened things. Anymore ideas? --
-- --
fsck
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Fsck is the tool you use on UNIX to repair a filesystem, similar to scandisk in microsoft-land. It stands for FileSystemChecK.
However, someone, somewhere, started using it as a replacement for 'fuck', and it has since gained this use in the vernacular.
The next step!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
What's the next step if you're already boycotting Amazon over the one-click? Start sending e-mail to Amazon's affiliate sites. Let them know you'll boycott their site as well if they don't unaffiliate themselves with Amazon.
And don't lecture me against using nasty notes to fight corporate oppression. I don't want to listen to your wussy crap anyway.
I'm going to patent sex!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
... charging only $0.02...
Hemos' right hand will make you a millionaire
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Wish I had thought of it...
Natalie who? WAS::Re:Amazon....
by
deadl0ck
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· Score: 1
Whats up with this Natalie Portman thing?
No really I'm not a troll, I really don't know who she/it is. --
[From the article: "Linder said the patent could even be broad enough to cover single links that would simply go from an affiliate to Amazon's home page, instead of to specific items."]
I'm hoping and praying to all that is good and right in this world that this guy is just smoking crack or something. If not, the implications are both absurd and frightening: amazon.com is the only ecommerce site that can be linked to. Right? 'Cause if you have a link anywhere on your page that just points to bn.com (for example), that violates amazon's patent (according to Linder).
Any judge who let such an absurd interpretation stand should be removed from office by any means necessary. That would effectively shut down the internet. Only Amazon.com could exist on the internet unless your website was 100% noncompetitive -- personal pages, edu/gov/mil sites, and the like.
Of course, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.
-- "I came here to kick ass and chew
bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum."
MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
Re:Broadness of patent...?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
This is America and all aspects of thr government and legal system are for sale. There is no right/wrong, only money/no money. The legal system might as well be Wal-Mart as far as corporations are concerned.
Re:Broadness of patent...?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Buy two judges and get one free!
Re:Great news: obvious even to non-technical peopl
by
deadl0ck
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· Score: 1
As was stated in another article pertaning to getting a voice by buying stocks in a company. Why don't we "hack the system"?
Instead of boycotting and complaing about the obvious patents, why don't we join the crowd and start issuing our own patents?
We know the system is flawed, lets either break it or put some dollars in the FSF coffers. --
-- --
who owns Slashdot 'eh?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Slashdot sold out to The Man perhaps...
Holy Crap, we're all gonna get sued
by
Sharkey+[BAMF]
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· Score: 1
Man, dont a few thousand websites do that sort of thing? How the Hell can Amazon think of patenting such a broad idea? I remember when Amazon first came about, I was happy because now I could buy books online, and this would usher in more online stores for everyone's convenience. Then big businesses took over the web and are trying to ruin it for everyone. I work for a company as a webmaster, and I constantly get proposals from companies who want to provide a particular service, as long as they get exclusive access to distribute our data. But what these chumps dont understand is that you can't put a hamper on information over the Internet. It's like trying to plug a showerhead with chewing gum. It ain't gonna stick, kids. Same deal with Amazon. Putting retarded patents on broadly generalized ideas is just going to piss everyone else off. Damn lawyers have to screw up everything. Sharkey http://www.badassmofo.com
Man, dont a few thousand websites do that sort of thing?
Yup
How the Hell can Amazon think of patenting such a broad idea?
Maybe because the US Patent system gives inventors the right to patent something they invented. One thing I know for sure is that Amazon was very early on the web as a ecommerce company, and their affiliate program got a lot of press as being innovative when it first came out.
Re:Holy Crap, we're all gonna get sued
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FattMattP
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· Score: 1
So? It's not any different than an affiliate program in the non-wired world. Just because it's suddenly happening on a computer doesn't make it that different. I get a kick back from my apartment complex if I refer someone who becomes a new tennant. Some ISPs used to give kickbacks for refering people to sign up with them. Amazon give kick backs for refering people to their "bookstore." Suddenly they can patent that? I don't think so. Sound like this will be defeated in a second if it's challenged in court.
YAAP == Loss of decency in American companies
by
Y2K+is+bogus
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· Score: 2
To the non-net-centric public Amazon is not neccessarily a bad company, they just have their pocketbook on the brain. Companies will register patents to protect themselves from a semi-original idea being patented by a competitor. However Amazon has demonstrated that they only wish to crush their competitors the only way they can: infringement. Any really good company is going to win out with quality and not legal wrangling.
Unfortunately the legal wrangling will win more times than not. Decency has been lost in American companies. A lot of American companies see customers as dollar signs and will cut corners and compete at the worst level, all in search of the next nickel.
Microsoft is a prime example of companies that win not through a superior service or product, but trying to crush the competition using any number of underhanded means at their disposal.
Look at your favorite ISP that you love to hate, they provide crappy service, but because the barrage the customer with ads, the customer has no clue that it's relative shit.
Now those same crappy ISPs are trying to lock people into 3 year contracts. You get locked into a 3 year contract when you buy or lease a car too, draw your own analogy.
Amazon is just another company that is using their perceived upper hand to crush their competitor, it has nothing to do with providing better service to their customers. Besides, you don't use patent law for that, you use tradmark law for protecting the customer by preventing bastardization of the interface.
Amazon has just hit the mud-slinging stage of their timeline. I hope they have a good garden hose, because the shit's gonna get deep.
Re:YAAP == Loss of decency in American companies
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
And their downfall will also illuminate what corps are all about today. We may not miss you Amazon but your loss will be the net's gain. (Pun intended) They couldn't be discretely corrupt like everyone else, they had to go for the brass ring. What a bunch of morons.I wonder how much of the multimillion dollar losses went directly into the salaries of the execs.
One day, they will have so many frivolous patents that they could start a museum for them. Perhaps when they successfully patent using images of products on web pages to help them sell, some other rich corp will take notice and take action to get all those patents invalidated.
we are here to serve you
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
if i trademark the word Fascist can I piss on all of them?
Its an internet referal system that lets people link to amazon as an associate Asociate sets up a web site about a part of amazon's catalogue (possibly with reviews or something). Amazon's website receives the referal link and the product ID from the link. If the customer purchases something then tha associate is payed commission. Amazon also has a shooping basket system.
When you look at it like this, it seems very obvious and trivial. Surely there's always been sites that offer reviews and link to a site that sells the things being reviewed.
IANAL, but I was under the impression that if you could demonstrate 'Prior Art' i.e. that what was being patented was in common use before the patent application, then the patent was invalid. Can somebody clarify this point ? I am pretty sure that Amazon weren't the first to do this.
Let's patent selling books and CD's on the net
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Salsaman
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· Score: 1
I am sure between us all on Slashdot we could manage to do it. Then we can sue Amazon for breach of patent.
some thoughts on this and other patents
by
jetson123
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· Score: 3
I think people generally misunderstand the meaning of these kinds of patents. The patents are not intended to make lots of money from licensing fees. Rather, they are needed for trading with other companies with big patent portfolios. If priceline.com gets silly patents, amazon.com needs to as well, so that they can trade their patent portfolios. No money changes hands.
The net effect of this is, of course, not innovation. Rather, it increases barriers of entry to new companies who don't have patent portfolios to trade (this is seen as an advantage by established companies). Furthermore, it increases the cost of doing business, because all that patent activity costs lots of money and time. I estimate that in a corporate environment, each patent that is filed probably costs around $50k (there are a lot of highly paid lawyers and engineers involved in each patent).
Ultimately, the US patent office needs to stop this kind of abuse by reviewing patent applications more dilligently and not expanding notions of patentability as they go along. Individual companies are ultimately powerless: if they try to be high-minded about it, they'll simply go out of business.
And it's pretty clear that the US patent office is at fault. Apologists for them say that there is really no basis on which to criticize them. But there is actually a pretty straightforward metric: you can simply look at the kind of technical and legal comments you get from the US patent office vs. the European patent offices on the same patent application. The European patent office generally make competent evaluations, understand prior art quite well, and impose clear limitations on claims. The European patent offices are also much more reluctant to expand notions of patentability, usually only being pushed along by the US. From those, direct comparisons, it's pretty clear that there is a lot of room for improvement at the US patent office.
Nevertheless, I find that even by the currently low standards of patentability used by US businesses, priceline.com and amazon.com are pushing the limits. They can be justly criticized for that. It's one thing to go along with the crowd because you have to, it's quite another thing to try to deliberately push the boundaries. For that reason, I boycott Amazon, Priceline, and similar sites (I spend several thousand dollars in books and airfare each year, so this isn't an empty threat).
Re:some thoughts on this and other patents
by
mavenguy
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· Score: 2
Unfortunately, this will not improve soon. I keep in touch with a former colleague at the PTO and he tells me how truly sad thigs have become (He doesn't work on software patents). Over the last 30 years, PTO management has emphasised production and meeting timeliness deadlines over quality; after all, the former can be quantified, but quality can be subjective (you have to go to the heart of the matter to really evaluate quality vs. any dumb beanco^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H manager probably has the mental ability to look at % of expectency, Number of amended applications over two months not acted on, etc. Years ago, the top managers claimed that their push to get more work out more quickly would be accompanied by an INCREASE in quality, yet, years later, a former high official was forced to retreat from this claim, stating that quality had not increased. Nevertheless, management pushed on, ratcheting up the requirement to increase production to even higher levels. The operative word" TAKE LESS TIME ON CASES. The managers then used another approach to "encourage" an allowance over a rejection. It was tracitional for examiners to use a shorthand in making rejections; the presuption was that everyone incvolved in the application process was technically skilled and could understand how The multiple references were being applied in an obviousness rejection (35 USC 103). This, of course, could be abused by the examiner in some cases, but generally had been satisfactorily used for decades. The Patent Bar, however raised a big stink over it, saying the quality of actions were not enough to legally establish a Prima Face case of Obviousness, which is required since the PTO has the burden to prove it ("A person shall be entitled to a patent unless..."). The net result was more, verbose office actions. With no real improvements in helping to meet this added burden (Well, after years of hand writing office actions on yellow legal pads to be submitted to a typing pool, Examiners FINALLY got NT PC's to work on; this did not exist in 1991 when I left the PTO) and with less and less time to allocate to searching and analyzing prior art there was a disincentive to really goint the level of detail required to meet this new requirement. The net of all these factors: Fewer rejections on substantive grounds, more allowances, an increasing number of them on the first action, fewer appeals, happy managers pointing out how much "work" had been accomplished, happier applicants geting broader claims then they used to, and happy examiner, at lest the ones who got awards and ouststanding ratings for high production, now renamed "Quality". My friend told me of a recent briefing by a high lever manager who had just returned from a conference at an industry group, who transmitted the message "We want our patents fast, so don't waste time with searching and beeing a bulldog on broad claims let the courts take care of the dirty details of patentablity" This mindset will only changed by appointment of a reformist Commissioner willing to clean house and lay down the law; the probability of this, give the current political climate, is unfortunately zero.
Re:some thoughts on this and other patents
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Joe+Decker
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· Score: 2
I think people generally misunderstand the meaning of these kinds of patents. The patents are not intended to make lots of money from licensing fees. Rather, they are needed for trading with other companies with big patent portfolios.
The trading card view of patents is often correct, but Amazon.com's lawsuit against B&N suggests that it doesn't view its patents as strictly defensive.
Having said that, I think that companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to use the patent system to their best legal advantage. If you want to get rid of software patents (and I do agree that they are a bigger barrier than help to innovation right now in the software industry), change the laws. Pressure on Amazon is likely to just go ignored.
Re:some thoughts on this and other patents
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Salsaman
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· Score: 1
And eventually the point will come where American companies can no longer do business for fear of breaking some patent or other.
That business will simply happen outside the US.
Amazon's Tombstone Should Read
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
"Add this to my shopping cart"
I feel sorry for the electrons that have to work for those assheads. I'd rather be orbiting a nitrogen atom in a pile of dogshit than flipping evil-bits on a tainted Amazonian server.
Will it hold up in court?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's proven that this 'patent' was in use before Amazon started doing it, doesn't that disolve Amazon's patent? If that's the case, someone (or some company) just needs to prove the technology existed before Amazon started using it, and voila!
I really hope Amazon goes bankrupt soon. They've never posted a profit. They're also almost singlehandedly trying to destroy e-commerce. I'd boycott them but I've never used their services (being Canadian, the lower prices get cancelled out by the exchange rate. I take my business to chapters.ca which ships anything worldwide. And since their based in Canada, the patent doesn't apply here).
Man, things like this make me more and more proud of not living in the United States of Corporations...
Who'd have believed, six months ago, that you'd be reading "Are they going to patent air next?", not on Slashdot as usual, but ON CNET as a quote from a stock analyst?
Tells you something about how the mainstream perspective is being affected by this rotten Amazon behavior. Now we need a _judge_ going "Don't tell me, next you're going to patent the 'click'?" Then we'll be getting somewhere.
Re:This NINJA says...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Just had a strange coincidence, right before coming to Slashdot. I was reading this page from a pissed off customer
http://cyberreviews.skwc.com/amazon.html
Aside, from that corporations have been ripping of the public for along time using the inept patent office is just one of the ways. Some excellent observations on how corporations play games with the law are given by R.Buckminster Fuller
http://www.bfi.org/grunch_of_giants.htm
This is an online book that he wrote in 1982 (old but relevant) his observations and suggestions may be very helpful to us in combating the fleecing of the American public by the inhuman and unfeeling legal entities called corporations. Like all good things we the people finance the endeavor (the internet/arpanet)(nuclear research) then corporations like Amazon.com come in and rob us of our freedom and our money by litigating and intimidating all but the most wealthy of us through our archaic and inept government.
Amazon.com needs to be punished
by
browser_war_pow
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· Score: 1
I seriously hope that they are hit by DDOS attacks every week until they stop this. Even better I would like to see a trojan horse wipe out all of the data for their website and force them to start over again.
Re:Amazon.com needs to be punished
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Sri+Lumpa
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· Score: 1
Even better I would like to see a trojan horse wipe out all of the data for their website and force them to start over again.
Do you think that they are stupid enough not to have any backup copy of their site???
-- "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy
way to factor large prime numbers."
Bill Gates,
Re:Amazon.com needs to be punished
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cpt+kangarooski
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· Score: 1
what i've heard from sources within amazon was that they have only one gang of servers, all at the same physical location, with little if any provision for transferring the load to offsite servers, backing stuff up, etc.
and that it was giving them hell in trying to overhaul it into something sensible.
dunno how much of this is true, but i expect that they could be wiped out by a good trojan, or a local network outage.
i don't think they're as professional/paranoid as, say, MAE (which if the building had wheels, could be driven around with all the diesel they've got;)
-- --
This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
FYI: what I got back from feedback@amazon.com
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guerby
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· Score: 5
After I told them I was happy with their flawless (from my experience) customer service, but that this patent stuff was not acceptable. This was a while after RMS call for boycott. Well, it looks like they don't get it. May be they're loosing hope of making money the regular way, so they turned to they lawyers, pffff.
Dear Laurent,
Thank you for taking the time to share your views with us. Not surprisingly, we have received a variety of reactions from customers about the preliminary injunction awarded to Amazon.com in its patent infringement lawsuit against barnesandnoble.com.
Because the case is still pending, we are unable to discuss the specifics of this litigation. As a general matter, however, we agree with United States District Judge Marsha J. Pechman's ruling that "granting Amazon.com's preliminary injunction will serve the public interest" in part because "protection of intellectual property rights in innovations will foster greater competition and innovation." To that end, Amazon.com will certainly continue innovating on behalf of its customers.
Judging from some customers' e-mails, there appears to be significant confusion about the scope and nature of Amazon.com's patent. For more comprehensive information about the patent and the circumstances of the lawsuit, the full text of the federal court decisions in the case may be viewed at: http://www.mccutchen.com/are/ip/ip_001.htm
We appreciate feedback from customers about this lawsuit and other important issues concerning Amazon.com, and we carefully consider all viewpoints expressed. We hope you will continue to let us know how we can improve our service to customers.
Re:FYI: what I got back from feedback@amazon.com
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Legion303
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· Score: 1
That is precisely the same letter I got from them. I wonder if they'll patent autoresponders that look for keywords in email now.
-Legion
Re:FYI: what I got back from feedback@amazon.com
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Of course it's a canned response!
If you were the head lawyer for a large corp's legal department, would you let the people who answer feedback emails comment on legal matters, especially a case still in court?
Re:FYI: what I got back from feedback@amazon.com
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c+o+r+e
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· Score: 1
I would answer you on that, but the Amazonoresponder technology is "patent pending"
-core
Re:FYI: what I got back from feedback@amazon.com
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Salsaman
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· Score: 1
They obviously used the Micro$oft dictionary to look up the word 'innovation'.
Re:FYI: what I got back from feedback@amazon.com
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adamsc
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· Score: 2
Curious - I got back a similar version except that the second paragraph contained some idiocy about how they hadn't patented cookies but merely their usage in 1-click ordering. Of course, my original message had no mention whatsoever of cookies and was about their [ab]use of software patents. I wonder when one of these large companies will realize that sending back an off-topic boiler-plate response doesn't exactly improve matters from a customer relations standpoint.
Re:FYI: what I got back from feedback@amazon.com
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theancient1
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· Score: 1
I especially enjoy this claim:
"protection of intellectual property rights in innovations will foster greater competition and innovation." To that end, Amazon.com will certainly continue innovating on behalf of its customers.
It's hard to say they're trying to increase competition. They want competition? If they were really trying to encourage competition, why are they suing their competitors? Or preventing them from adding useful features? (I personally do not find this "1-click" thing to be a big deal, but obviously the number of clicks is not what we are really concerned about.)
What do they mean by "innovating on behalf of [our] customers"? Does the fact that they are suing anyone who uses 1-click purchasing benefit me, the customer? No; it means that every other shopping site will have a more complex ordering processes. If Amazon licences these "technologies" to other companies, it means that prices will go up on every other shopping site.
I suppose the next cheques from AllAdvantage will include a deduction for the "Amazon.com affiliate program licencing tax"
Re:JON KATZ SHOULD PATENT BEING AN IGNORANT BASTAR
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
What are you talking about? Amazon can't have the patent on air-- it's taken. Microsoft got the patent. About five years ago, about the time they bought the Roman Catholic Church.
How were you not aware of this? Apparently you were not a USENET reader, or you definately would have heard about it.
one word: cheapbooks!
by
Pfhreakaz0id
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· Score: 2
Go to Cheapbooks search engine and you find that Amazon seldom has the cheapest books anyway. Just use things like amazon and borders and B&N to use their excellent search facitilies/reviews, get the ISBN number and enter it above. I recently saved $9.50 on a plumbing how-to book I bought. ---
I don't understand....
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
How they can patent something that already is in wide usage?
Re:Why do americans suck so much?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
>While the cream of the crop remained here in Europe and built a good society. Ya, thats why you have started 2 world wars, and an on-going situation, where people are still being slaughtered. You call THAT a good society? Ya right
This is where all those portals come from
by
Felinoid
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· Score: 1
I (with half a million other people... ohh how inovative I am.. yep I admit to being an eLemming.com guy) started to set up yet annother on-line mall. I had my own twist on the idea (you have to or you die.. copy cats don't work to well.. need to understand what your doing and just copying people is a bad thing) no patents or anything (inovate or die.. patents or not). So I.. like many... expected hell to freaze over before something like one click shopping got a patent...
Well shortly after I started setting things up.. Hell got a little colder... I could go toe to toe with a Microsoft WebMall if I had to.. Anyway I didn't need a strong market share to make a proffit (my proffit moddle allowed for a huge amount of problems and still show a proffit... I spell like crud but where math is conserned I'm quite good)... But I didn't take into acount strange patents like THIS... Come on people give us time to develup some "prior art" before you start granting patents... gezz... At this rate Amazon with patent MY SPELLING... Oh wait.. I have years of prior art.. no worrys:)
Anyway... the eLemming.com guys (like myself) quickly realised.. wait a second... Amazon is being issued patents on generic ideas.. I can not afford to fight a patent lawsute and I can not afford to dramaticly change my busness modle in mid swing just to accomidate a stupid patent.... What do I do?
Well Amazons patents are in the eCommerce area.. Yes Amazon is becomming more and more a portal but still an eCommerce portal... Selling everything under the sun(sparc)... So the safeist move is to do whats allready been done for a LONG TIME... Like let Yahoo fight a prior art battle for you...
So basicly people are just copying existing sucesses becouse a. Lest risky.. b. Prior art. c. Well eBay has the whole online auction thing tied up anyway...
Oh me???? Blah... I'm going to experement for a while.. see what I like and see if I can not come up with something new and unqiue over time... For the time being I'm making "yet annother weblog" for rants.. as a friend says "Whos goina read that" "Nobody..." Just something for code practace.. nothing more... get up to speed so when I'm ready to do something real I'm ready to do it full speed...
-- I don't actually exist.
Affiliate program == commission sales
by
Battra
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· Score: 1
Isn't an affiliate program really just a commission sales model? The idea is that if the affiliates deliver customers who buy merchandise, they get paid.
Seems to me you wouldn't need to turn over too many rocks to come up with prior art on that one.
Re:Why do americans suck so much?
by
DavidTC
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· Score: 1
The Dark Ages? I think you need to brush up on dates just a little.:)
-David T. C.
-- If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Okay, here's the plan... we'll file for a patent on the concept of being a patent office, and then sue to put the Patent Office out of business.
Re:Why do americans suck so much?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
(It's pretty rare we see true-and-true Eurotrash around here)
TOPIC: Why do americans suck so much? Could it be due to the fact that they all hail from misfits that were deported from Europe during the dark ages?.
Dark Ages: AD 400-AD 900 (a/k/a Early Middle Ages)
Discovery of America by Vikings: AD 1000
Discovery of America by Spanish: AD 1492
While the cream of the crop remained here in Europe and built a good society.
Famous Perfect Societies:
National Socialist Germany (death toll: 10 mil.)
Communist Russia (death toll: 20 mil)
could this be a good thing?
by
aozilla
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· Score: 1
I have to believe that there are enough people out there with enough power to do something about it who can see the absurdity of this patent. I have to hope that this is going to result in a broad investigation of the effectiveness of the patent laws and the patent office. I hope Amazon decides to try to enforce this patent. I hope they win. Only then will it get recognition by congress or the supreme court and give us a chance of getting the laws changed.
-- ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I don't understand it, even the article states, that These "affiliate programs" are commonly used by many sites so it's obviously nothing amazon has innovated. I thought that patents can't be granted for things/processes already in wide use or already published. I even wonder if it isn't possible to sue Amazon for hurting (american) economy with such patents. If they get this patent in court, next i'll try and patent bricklaying, baking bread, brewing beer and some more things which come to my mind (i mean as of now nobody has a patent on that) perhaps someone shuold really go and try to push through such a ridicoulous patent just to draw some public attention to the subject.
-- "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Re:Why can they patent this?
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Joe+Decker
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· Score: 2
I don't understand it, even the article states, that These "affiliate programs" are commonly used by many sites so it's obviously nothing amazon has innovated. I thought that patents can't be granted for things/processes already in wide use or already published.
Patents can't be granted for things that are in wide use when the patent is applied for. This patent was applied for years ago. I believe that Amazon was the first associates program I ever came across. Your mileage may vary.
it would give a whole new meaning to the/. effect ;)
better yet
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The state of the US Patent Office has been long lamented, in places such as the GNU website and the League for Programming Freedom. I personally believe that although some of the examples cited there, such as the use of XOR to highlit information on a bitmapped screen in an easily reverisble way, are, believe it or not, not sufficently obvious to the population at large that the average man and woman can be easily convinced.
Screw the League for Programming Freedom. Let's get the Justice League of America on their asses. Watch the motherfuckers shit their pants then!
You ALL are too quick to jump the gun... README
by
8Complex
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· Score: 2
Take a look at the article... Check out this qoute from it - "We never speculate about what we may or may not do in the future," company spokesman Bill Curry said. The company applied for the patent on June 27, 1997 and received it Tuesday."
They applied for the patent 2.5 YEARS ago. This was well before anyone even started doing this kind of thing so they weren't thinking about shutting other sites down for violation at that time, they wanted to protect what they invented. Seems rational to me but I just wonder why it took so long to go through.
- 8Complex
Re:You ALL are too quick to jump the gun... README
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Except they didn't invent it. Affiliate programs is just a fancy new term for paying commission to people who advertize for you based on their performance.
here's a link to the patent
by
mdillon
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· Score: 1
you can check out the patent text for patent 6,029,141 here. boycott amazon.
Amazon's one-click patent and its associated processes are already outdated.
I've already given up on the better, though also lame half-click order process -- just the mouse-down event is sufficient to invoke the order. Amazon obviously missed this one.
But the latest craze is my patent for mouseover ordering. No deliberate and quaint "clicks" of the mouse; just a breezy fly-by of the mouse pointer over a rectangular area making up 50% of the web page's area is enough to start the ordering process. What could be easier?
Amazon's marketing and legal staff are sure to be sporting major wood thinking of these new possibilites.
Why the shareholders should riot
by
Greyfox
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· Score: 2
Taking out a patent costs money. Given the fact that Amazon has yet to actually make any, I'd be pretty pissed if I held any of their stock and saw all these patents which are basically useless. If Amazon ever takes one to court, they'll lose. Then they're out the cost of taking out the patent and the cost of the legal fees for taking the patent to court (Which is a hell of a lot more.)
Right now Amazon is playing the patent lotto. All they have to do is pick up one winning ticket and they get a much needed infusion of cash. It looks to me like they're betting that if they send a bunch of letters out, enough people will just cave and pay them rather than going to court. Too bad you can't pro-actively sue someone over a patent they took out (Maybe we should sue the patent office for malpractice.)
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
OK, I have a very limited understanding of how US patent law works, but I was under the impression that if other people have done / are doing what you're trying to patent, your patent is rejected. Am I right? If so, it seems the patent office is being run by 3 preschool kids and a trained mouse. The fact that we can all think of at least *one* "affiliate program" not run by Amazon should make it obvious that this patent is bogus.
OTOH, if "other people are doing it" isn't a valid reason to reject a patent then: 1. heaven help us 2. yet another reason for me to oppose ALL patents
MoNsTeR
Re:how is this possible?
by
Joe+Decker
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· Score: 1
OK, I have a very limited understanding of how US patent law works, but I was under the impression that if other people have done / are doing what you're trying to patent, your patent is rejected. Am I right?
Partially. If other people have done what you are doing before you file the patent, your patent is (or should be) rejected. Patent law does allow you to file a patent, start using the invention you patent, let other people copy the idea you've patented, and then still have the patent issue without regard to the fact that other people have picked up on your idea. This allows companies to start benefiting from their invention quickly and lets them still benefit from their invention if the patent isn't granted.
I am unaware of affiliate or associate programs on the web before Amazon. Moreover, Amazon.com's claims in the patent are more specific than the concept of an associate program, you should probably read them yourself here before deciding whether you think there's prior art for what Amazon is claiming to have invented.
Re:how is this possible?
by
geekbooks
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· Score: 1
There are a good number of affiliate programs that predate Amazon's application, and a handful of programs that predate Amazon's program, entirely. When I researched "The Complete Guide to Associate and Affiliate Programs on the Net" (McGraw-Hill, 1999), I found that (among others): PC Flowers & Gifts' program was launched in 1994, Autoweb's program was launched in 1995, and CDNow's program was launched in early 1997 (months before the patent application).
Re:how is this possible?
by
Joe+Decker
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· Score: 1
Excellent! I stand corrected and better informed. Thanks! --j
Hmmm. Let's see if I have this straight. I promote one of their products on my time. Then if someone buys something of theirs through me, then I get a commision. Isn't that the job description of a salesman? Or at least of a sales rep?
Now I could be wrong, but haven't salesmen and sales reps (or at least the process of selling which is relevant to the patent) been around a while? Maybe even since before Amazon?
What about in the UK?
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Anonymous Coward
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OK, I agree wholeheartedly with boycotting - but the companies listed here are UK ones. What about in the UK? I know about CompMan UK - good for computer manuals, but who else is there in the UK for books, music, etc? Tom
Indignation! What's going to happen?
by
Uksi
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· Score: 1
When reading/., my jaw normally doesn't drop to the floor (althogh sometimes it's close), but this time I'm really angry!
Mandatory: What the hell are they thinking?
In March 1999, I implemented a whole damn CGI application in C++ to do the whole damn affiliate registration, tracking, crediting and administration process! And now, what do I see? Amazon.com patenting this process, which I don't know how many, perhaps hundreds and hundreds of merchant sites online have implemented!
Every large shopping site that I know has a similar--to Amazon.com's--sort of affiliate tracking set up. Is Amazon.com now going to sue all those merchants? Are they going to sue the developers of these systems for violating the patent, even though they completed the projects even before Amazon.com got a patent on that?
The 1-click patent didn't really bother me, since I never really used it, so I didn't bother boycotting or ignoring Amazon. But this is over the limit. What were the people in the US Patent & Trademark office thinking?
Is that patent really valid, given so much "prior art" or did Amazon.com really pioneer this affiliate tracking program?
Sorry for the language and fury, but I thought I was going to have a good day today.
Re:Indignation! What's going to happen?
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jaed
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In March 1999, I implemented a whole damn CGI application in C++ to do the whole damn affiliate registration, tracking, crediting and administration process! And now, what do I see? Amazon.com patenting this process, which I don't know how many, perhaps hundreds and hundreds of merchant sites online have implemented!
You did that two years after Amazon filed for the patent. (Remember that patents normally take several years to grant.)
The whole idea of business process patents is very dubious as far as I'm concerned (and I think this one fails on obviousness), but as far as I remember, Amazon was the only online business with an affiliate program at the time they filed this patent. There was a lot of talk at the time about what an innovative idea it was. Subsequent uses do not count as prior art.
As for the rest of it, if you all think Amazon's the only company that files defensive patents in order to prevent their inventions from being patented out from under them by someone else, think again. It's common business practice. If Amazon hadn't gotten this patent, it is entirely possible that one of their competitors would have filed, been granted the patent, and then threatened to sue Amazon for infringement. All the bitching in the world about the Evil Amazon will not fix the problems that make that possible, nor do anything about the thousands of companies that do this sort of thing or worse.
(Remember Geoworks' submarine patent on HDML? Remember how they threatened to hold any company using HDML over a barrel until they paid up? Amazon has done nothing even remotely close to that. Do I see a similar level of indignation around here over Geoworks? Hardly.)
Amazon.com was awarded a patent recently for "affiliate programs." The text of the patent is here: http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US06029141__ . This patent is, to say the least, a very bad thing. This seems to be exactly what CDNOW does with its Cosmic Credit system. So my question is, what are you going to do about this? I am a member of Cosmic Credit, am I somehow violating a patent? Or is it just CDNOW? Are you guys going to sue them, or bring them to court to show how stupid and *wrong* this patent is? Patents like this should be illegal, but that apparently doesn't mean anything to the USPTO. Affiliate Programs, just like One-Click Shopping, are obvious uses of internet technology, and should not be patentable. Please tell me you guys are doing something about this.
_________________
-- rooooar
cancelling your amazon account
by
byoon
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Here's what you need to do if you have an account at amazon and wish to cancel. I searched their site for 30 minutes before I finally gave up and e-mailed them. Thanks for writing to us at Amazon.com. If you would like us to close your Amazon.com account, please write back with some information about your last order (a title or two would suffice) so we can verify that it's your account. Once your account is closed, it is no longer accessible by you or anyone else. Please note that if you have an Auctions account, Member Page, Wish List, or you are an associate you will no longer have access to your account for these purposes either. You would need to start a new account if you wish to order more titles from us, participate in auctions, or to take advantage of any other features on our web site which require a password. If you simply want a credit card removed from the list of payment options on the order form, you may write back to us with the last five digits of the card. This way, you will not have to open a new account to continue ordering from us. Please don't hesitate to contact us should you have any further questions, and thanks for shopping at Amazon.com.
Errr, it's called OLAP...
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Anonymous Coward
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Something that Oracle, SQL Server, and DB2 have been doing for years. I wonder how Amazon's been able to dodge any suits from Oracle, Microsoft and IBM on this one!
not enforcable patent!
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Anonymous Coward
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Don't see how they could be issued this patent.. After all they sure as hell didn't invent this process.. This patent is bogus! whoever did the patent research at the patent office must be a fucking retard!!! Oh btw everyone on the planet owns me money, after all I ahve a patent on air and everyone owes me a licenseing fee!!!
This only works for books, but I do it all the time. Makes me feel better anyway. I use Amazon's search engine,(good), read the reviews, then go to bestbookbuys.com. Type in the ISBN, Title or Keyword, and it lists the stores that carry your desired book, by price, lowest to highest. BTW, Amazon is never even near being competitive with the others, in price. I order my book(s). Then I e-mail Amazon, tell them where I got it, how much I paid, and thank them for the use of their search engine and great data base. I always tell them that they should patent something (usally stupid), but they get the point. They used to answer my e-mail, but not anymore. I can't figure that one out. Oh, No. Mr. Billllllll....
-- Does a jock itch?
Re:Alternative to Amazon
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Please Try This, then moderate to 100
Didn't someone else *already* get this patent...?
by
Samurai+Cat!
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· Score: 1
Seems a few months ago, I saw a story (I *think* it was on/.) about some obscure company getting awarded a patent on affiliate programs...?
In a suprise announcement today, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos announced that his company has acquired patents to two of their innovative business models: Selling books and using credit cards.
During a press conference, Bezos declared, "We here at Amazon pride ourselves on being an intelligent, innovative group of people. We don't think it's fair that companies like Barnes & Noble and Visa can profit from the hard work we put into developing our business model."
Concurrent with the patent announcement, Amazon.com has opened lawsuits against the aforementioned companies, as well as Borders, Media Play, the locally owned bookstore down your street, MasterCard, and every retailer that uses "stolen credit-card technology" developed by amazon. Amazon is also seeking legal action against all public libraries in the US, citing that "those media pirates (librarians) have been illegally giving out copies of books for years. They have no respect for the rights Amazon has to printing-press technology developed by our own engineer, Gutenberg."
In an effort to further prevent privacy, evilretailempire.com, I mean, Amazon.com, has applied for a patent on the Latin language. An Amazon.com press release stated "We recognized that linguistic technologies derived from our Latin product like English, Spanish, French, and German are very widely used today. We don't wish to make these languages illegal, we simply ask that people pay a very reasonable royalty fee to Amazon.com whenever they speak one of these languages." Exact pricing details were not announced, but it has been leaked that Amazon will charge on a per-word basis.
-- Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?" Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Re:Amazon has a _lot_ of patents -WTF??!!
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c+o+r+e
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I can't _believe_ something as generic as showing a user a portion of their credit card number and telling them which portion can be patented (Secure method and system for communicating a list of credit card numbers over a non-secure network). This is *patently* ludicrous!
How is this novel? Microsoft is sounding like a *real* innovator once you read Amazon's patents...
I've only looked at this one other patent and I can't look at anymore less I become sick...
-core
My Farewell Letter to Amazon
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Volatile_Memory
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I have not been using Amazon since the One-Click debacle, but this situation made me mad enough to write this morning... "The patenting of your Affiliate Program is an outrageous misuse of patent law. Your One-Click suit against Barnes and Nobel angered me greatly, but this is the last straw. I will never again order from a company so insecure in its ability to compete in a free market that it feels the need to stifle competition via preemptive legal action. I almost wish someone had patented online transactions a few years back and sued YOU when you tried to reach consumers via the Internet, you lousy hypocrites."
What's to stop a Bill Gates from just getting every single patent avialble for the net? Bill could OWN the internet? Does Amazon understand that many websites live by 'Affiliate Programs'. By cutting this off they possibly could cut down on the number of websites out there. With the trend of patenting coding, could this be the beginning of the end of the internet?
A patent depends on no prior art existing. Whoever granted that patent should be fired from their position at the patent office. There are plenty examples of prior art in the business world that define an "affiliate program", whoever granted that patent was NOT doing their job when they failed to consider those.
MODERATE THIS UP
by
Anonymous Coward
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EVERYBODY NEEDS TO SEE THIS
Re:Why do americans suck so much?
by
JbytheLake
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· Score: 1
I guess it's because we're just so burnt out on saving European's asses, every time the fuck up. Or because our ancestors passed on gene's from delayed stress syndrom impacted psyhe's from all the combat they endured keeping your dumbasses free from dictators, etc. Now, why do you suck?
patent the phrase 'I did not have sex with that woman.....' and spend the rest of my life suing politicans who use in public. sheesh, Somebody better make sure the internal combustion engine is already patented, Amazon may go after that next, because thier cars have'em and thats how they get to work.... Maybe all this nonsense will finally prompt the gov't to get it's act together with regards to patents and copyrights.
41 times.... jeez I would think once or twice was enough....
--
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Re:but....
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Anonymous Coward
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Do the math, a standard police handgun holds 13 rounds.
Cop 1 = 10 Cop 2 = 11 Cop 3 = 10 Cop 4 - 10
I agree, they fired quite a few shots. But honestly, put yourself in their positions. It's late, you want to go home, you miss your wife and kids and you have to chase down this guy for questiong in a rape. He runs, you give chase, you get him cornered, tell him to freeze and he starts reaching for something. You tell him again "Get the fsck on the ground". He thrusts his hand into his pocket...
Are you going to stand around and see if it's a wallet (especialy in NYC)? No, you shoot the idiot and go home.
Don't blame Amazon
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Anonymous Coward
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I really can't bring myself to blame Amazon overmuch for these patents. I mean, can we really attack them for exploiting a flawed system? They are simply taking advantage of the patent office for their own benefit. People take advantages of flawed systems in order to help themselves all the time; tell me you haven't played a game, found a bug in the AI, and then proceded to sometimes exploit it. It's really the patent office's fault for making patents entirely worthless, not the companies that take advantage of the problems.
Don't be an AmaZOMBIE....
by
Threemoons
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· Score: 1
Okay...for a site that has a lot more original content than Amazon.com...go to:
http://www.brains4zombies.com/
This site manages to stretch one joke farther than Amazon has stretched US Patent laws...
A quick online prior art search
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geekotourist
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· Score: 1
A quick Altavista search for 95-96 all-online affiliate programs didn't turn up too much, although many pages were 404'd. (Alexa might have archived them, but Alexa is now owned by you know who...hmmm, good idea buying up the major source of archived web page prior art) Here are a couple of them, one for an electronics manufacturer, the other a directory and ads service page:
"...Keystone Electronics is pleased to announce that we have expanded our distributor referral program to include opportunities generated by our website (www.keyelco.com). Internet sales referrals will now be forwarded via e-mail to distributors who have established website hyperlinks with Keystone's website."
"...We also have a referral program so you can make easy 15% commissions on any YellowNET purchase made by someone referred from your site. You can purchase any of our services individually or as a package. "
This was already patented (by Linkshare)
by
erpbridge
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Does anyone else here think the guy who made these patents is a bit like Dr. Evil of Austin Powers fame? You can just imagine him now, putting his finger to his mouth and saying...
I'm going to bring the internet to it's knees with my new marketing plan I'm going to call an "affiliate scheme"
Maybe he was frozen in time too like the most evil of doctors...:o)
"Why steal a trillion dollars... ...when you can steal a billion?"
-- Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
I have requested that Amazon delete my account
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FlyerFanNC
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I had previously used Amazon for a couple small orders. This was last summer and before I was aware of their frivilous patents. In doing my part for the boycott, I went to their site to delete my account information but found no way to do this. As an interim measure, I created a second shipping name and address and entered a credit card number for an old card I canceled over a year ago. This allowed me to delete (as far as I can tell) my actual information.
In addition, I sent an email requesting the complete removal of my account information and stating the reason for this request. I wonder if they will even bother responding.
It's inevitable, isn't it...
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seebs
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Companies that spam invariably turn out to be scum in general. It wasn't surprising the first time, and it isn't surprising this time either.
-- My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Well, it seems as though everybody is patenting things that clearly have prior art to disprove the patent. I have applied for a patent on patents. You must give me your money for all patents filed (royalty)!
ARE THEY FUCKING NUTS?!?!?
by
perfecto
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· Score: 1
or are they just trying to shut down business on the internet? affliate programs are win/win systems for both the webmaster and the company. i think it's pretty obvious that people should be rewarded for sending people a company's way. i make about $50 a quarter from various affiliate programs on my site. it's not much but i say every little bit helps. can't clickthroughs be consider prior use?? how about the fact that other people accepted payment for directing traffic to others' sites. this seems like a bogus patent to me. sorry for rambling on but i'm PISSED!
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
Uh, what are you smoking?....Really?
by
Anonymous Coward
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OK Tech, let's all communicate using ideas understandable by the lowest human common denominator.
just imagine if...
by
Anonymous Coward
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... the first early hominid to discover fire had promptly patented it and prohibited anyone else from using it. smart move eh? seriously folks, imitation + incremental improvement is how we talking primates have been leapfrogging our way up the food chain in record time. these attempts to take something as essential as an Idea, just a plain old clever or common-sensical Idea, and patent it and punish others for imitating it... well, they are counter-evolutionary. information doesn't work that way and the primate brain doesn't work that way. one monkey figures out how to wash food, now we all know. no matter how many lawyers Monkey One hires, we still all know. got DeCSS? de (not really an anonymous coward, but I forgot my nickname -- a situation which/. form designers apparently didn't foresee:-))
Image if Jeff Bezo was Joe Albertson
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
If Jeff Bezo was Joe Albertson, he probably would try to patent the process of putting milk at the back of the store.
I checked each patent. Amazon only owns: -Internet-based customer referral system -Secure method for communicating credit card data when placing an order on a non-secure network -Refining search queries by the suggestion of correlated terms from prior searches -System and method for selecting rows from dimensional databases -Method and apparatus for producing sequenced queries -Method for data gathering around forms and search barriers -Secure method and system for communicating a list of credit card numbers over a non-secure network -Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network
Note that last one. It's the 1-click ordering patent.
---
-- - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Slashdot Mirror
I want a patent for first posts....
i like em personally. good service
...have been used for years by retail stores of all kinds.....
i remeber sam the record man specials for stereo stores... that kind of thing.
You can't patent something everybody is using, dammit.
--
Talon Karrde
...and start typing www.noamazon.com instead.
:-)
This seems like a worthwhile time to call attention to the efforts of one of my office pals. Visit http://www.noamazon.com for some excellent links to alternative sites for the merchandise purveyed by Amazon.
We've tried to get Slashdot to mention this site as a "quickie" news item, but apparently they are an (ahem) Amazon affiliate themselves.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
...
Nice try Amazon. These guys don't seem to realize that whatever they do, sex on the net has been there, done that already.
But I still got my coffee cup for the second year in a row.
In a move that could dramatically change the biological systems on Earth, Amazon.com has applied for a patent on air, at least in the United States. Air is a technology used by Amazon.com employees to import oxygen into their and their customers' blood supplies, where it can be carried to the vital organs for the exchange of som carbon dioxide.
This "air" is commonly used by many organisms, including Amazon competitors, to sustain life. Amazon's possession of a patent on the technology could allow the company to prohibit others from using it, or Amazon could charge them a fee if they want to use it.
"If they choose to enforce this, it may radically impact aspects of emerging lifeforms, natural and artificial," Rob Labatt, an analyst at the research firm Gertner Group, said Friday. "The vital question is whether they'll enforce it."
"Are the going to patent affiliate programs next?" said John Segrich, an analyst CIBC World Markets, and frequent air-user, who follows Amazon.com. "I would certainly think this will be quickly challenged."
Amazon wouldn't say today what plans it has for the new patent.
-Joe
I hear they are working on patenting the word "book". Any day now, we should hear the outcome...
Does Amazon know that they are using my patented technique for patenting.......everything?
Anyway, I've been researching new ways to transfer information. I've since come up with a revolutionary new way to transfer data between users, and I am applying for a patent on each step of it.
First, data is transferred to a new material which is essentially just processed wood pulp. The data is then transfered to this material via a "printer." This new product is something which I will not call a book. Rather, I will call it an "organic data transfer device."(tm) Consequently, I can now sue Amazon for selling illegal goods which violate my patent. I can also sue for making it so darn worthwhile because of their "Affiliate" program, as well as suing for making it so easy, with "one click shopping."
Some analyst this guy is! Everyone knows that patents only apply to processes, not physical quantities. Patenting the process of breathing, perhaps, but patenting the air itself? Why, that's absurd!
On a more serious note, it seems Amazon.com has finally found its economic niche -- bringing down the entire global internet economy through frivolous patents and lawsuits. It's too bad it won't actually ever make them profitable. The sooner this company dies, the better.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
As my patent on spamming was recently approved, I am sending a cease and desist order to all spammers out there to....well...cease and desist in spamming!
This proves 2 things:
* The USPTO's corrupt, and
* The government and people of the country are now controlled by corporate interests
No one in the general population even cares now (they all think this is Standard Operating Procedure).
Let's hope the USPTO doesn't let it go through, and if you're really pissed, go boycott Amazon.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
I contend that a really evil company would be more stealthy in trying to take over the world. For instance, if Microsoft had been not -quite- so pushy in forcing hardware OEMs to bundle their OS, they might have been able to amass power longer without drawing negative attention, and thus be better prepared for the negative attention when it happened.
Conclusion: Amazon is not a truly evil company?
And the winner of the rotten apple award for most undefendable patents is: AMAZON
What does this do to Microsoft's ClickTrade Affiliate Program? How about BeFree?
Amazon may not get away with this one...
Visit uMoo - http://www.uMoo.com/ 'cause if you don't, who will?
I'd like to take a moment to thank Amazon.com for forcing the issue of patent reform. If they maintain their current rate of ridiculous patenting, the patent office will soon be forced out of their complacent attitudes towards patents on the unpatentable. Without Amazon exploring the frontiers of idiotic patents, this process might takes years longer, making the damage much worse in the long run.
Now back to your regularly scheduled "i've patented xyz" posts.
- The unpublished preface to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Mycroft-X
Unconfirmed rumors state that in early march of 2001, Amazon.com will merge with AOL and Microsoft Corporation to consumate the largest merger in corporate history. While details are sketchy, a source inside Amazon told us, "...this will finally help us bring about a master race of albino "E-children" to take over the world..."
-FluX
flux is a renowned jackass columnist for such publications as slashdot.org and...um...did we already say slashdot?
-FluX
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Your Ad Here!
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Gosh, I'm already boycotting 'em as a result of their last patent.
What's the next step? TPing Bezos' front lawn and putting a flaming bag of dog crap on his front porch?
Amazon.com -- Helping You Explore Your Violent Tendencies(tm).
The patent.
The way I see it... amazon is in need of some serious cash, since they've already lost many many millions. All this patent BS is an easy way for them to sue people, or maybe even raise their stock if investors feel like they own the copyright to some cool technology.
I think this whole thing is sad... amazon is such a great place to get books, but they keep doing things like this that I don't think is good business practice.
Joseph?
This is nothing new. This is simply an age-old business method that has been applied to the web. There is no innovation, and there is countless, well-documented prior art, if that's the right term, since it's not really technology anyway. The second they sue another site that has alread had it is the second they prove how stupid this is, ignoring the fact that this is unpatentable anyway. My god, I thought the patent in my .sig was stupid.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
--
The shareholder is always right.
After all, its a business process. The people in the patent office probably don't realize that its been around for thousands of years.
Maybe I'll just patent the concept of the EULA...
Seriously Is there anything we can do to fix the problem?
Wow...patenting buddies. Amazing concept.
Why is stuff like this patentable? Why is it that someone can take an idea that is used in the real world, and add the phrase on the internet and get a patent?
One click shopping? I go to the grocery store, when it's time to pay, I swipe my credit card through the credit card swipe machine thing and go on my way. This is the same as one click shopping, with the addition that you not only need to move your wrist (to position your mouse over the button) but also have to move your finger as well.
And now they've essentially patented giving someone a commission on the internet. If I can't take an existing idea and add the phrase in the state of Georgia on the end and patent it, then why should I be able to add the phrase on the internet and patent it? If someone can patent gambling on the internet, shouldn't I be able to patent gambling in Las Vegas?
Since Amazon's business model is still losing incredible amounts of other people's money, it seems that suing other companies is the only way they'll get themselves back into black ink.
So, if suing for patent violation becomes their new business model, maybe they'll patent *that*, too. Could be a good thing.
I really used to buy all sorts of books from amazon, they always had a very nice web site and an extremely comprehensive supply of books. After these fiascos, I am NOT going to buy from them any more. Richard Stallman's "Boycott Amazon" Essay is a great location to start to find out what to do. I know this was brought up in prior Amazon discussions, but just as a reminder... I don't agree with Mr. Stallman's philosophies totally, but I sure agree with him on the Amazon issue!
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
... you'll see that it is 'noamazon.com'.
The abstract reads, in part:
The merchant site also implements an electronic shopping cart that allows the customer to select products from multiple different Web sites, and then perform a single "check out" from the merchant's site.
Have they also patented the concept of purchasing from multiple websites through a single website, even w/o a referral program? IANAL, nor do I have the skills to pretend to be one, so could somebody explain this one?
Just wondering about this:m l?tag=st.ne.1002.thed.1007-200-1558650
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-1558650.ht
what's the deal? you guys seem to be going for the lowest common
denominator with this sort of thing.
first it's the "one-click" technology, now it's affiliate programs?
these are not things you people came up w/. you may have brilliant
engineers driving the backend functionality of the site, but apparently
it's the finance department that's driving the decision making process.
Lord knows it's not the marketing department, as this sort of thing can
only bring about bad publicity as the particulars of the lawsuits (and
I'm sure there will be plenty) are made known.
I'm guessing that some one figured out that the "digital computer" and
the "moniter" (not to mention the "internet") were already patented,
huh?
Just a bit of food for thought, get back to me and let me know how this
inspired you.
-Peter
i am affiliates with leopard-spotted amazonian grits, suitable for pouring into loincloths and down your pants. thank you.
I'll be moderated down for this, as are all views which don't seem to match the general consensus. But a great majority of patents are not filed for enforcement. Generally, patents are filed to prevent a competitor from doing it first. If you believe that companies who patent are evil, you're being naive. It's part of modern business, just like the endless lawsuits, and other related nonsense, but you can live, in disbelief, and post to Slashdot comments about how Amazon is patenting air, or whatever else, but perhaps you need to run a company that competes globally and see that it is probably the only safe way to protect yourself.
If you don't patent it first, someone else will, and sue you into oblivion.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Anyone with a certain minimum of knowledge about how computers and / or the internet works knows exactly how preposterous the one-click patent is. This patent is no different in that respect. The difference is that this patent is so much more blindingly obvious that anyone should be able to see why, with minimal rethoric required. This ought to make it a lot easier to fight the patent in court, and let's hope that Amazon's competitors do just that.
The state of the US Patent Office has been long lamented, in places such as the GNU website and the League for Programming Freedom. I personally believe that although some of the examples cited there, such as the use of XOR to highlit information on a bitmapped screen in an easily reverisble way, are, believe it or not, not sufficently obvious to the population at large that the average man and woman can be easily convinced.
Off course, being non-obvious to the average person is a subset of the legal requirements to obtain a patent--theoretically, a new patent may not be obvious, even if only to experts in the field. However, it has been obvious for a long time that the US Patent Office is blindingly incompetent in this regard. Maybe this time, we will have our day in court, and win it too.
Until then, I suggest that we all chip in and make a link to the Boycot Amazon page. Have you emailed Amazon to tell them what you think yet? I have.
So, I guess I see two paths here:
1) Someone breaks the stupid patent, takes Amazon to court, and wins. Maybe it contributes to a review of patent law; maybe not.
2) Amazon realizes it's a stupid patent and doesn't ever bother to enforce it. (They may go on to get more patents, until it is discovered that Bezos uses Emacs, and resigns in shame...)
Option (2) seems more likely...in which case, does that herald the coming of stupid patents? Will we see e-whatever companies getting patents for the same reasons that they hoard Nerf (and, appropriately enough, just as effective)?
Here's the text of the patent: http://www.patents.ibm.com/detai ls?pn=US06029141__ .
Well, I could be totally wrong about this, but isn't Amazon losing money almost daily? Aren't they pretty much not making any profits at the moment? If that is the case, then all of these patents make perfect sense. How else are they going to suceed as a business unless they make it almost impossible for anyone else to have a successful e-business?
Also, doesn't anyone else kind of think it is odd that even though other companies also use similar "one click" transaction methods, Amazon only goes after their main competition online?
It's times like these that make me want to dump the MPAA, the RIAA, DoubleClick and Amazon (along with the NSA, CIA and FBI) all on an island somewhere. They can then spend the rest of their days monitoring each other and trying to monopolize all expression and commerce on their island.
What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero? - Hobbes
Can we now Patent hyperlinks?! I really want to read this patent! It's really a problem that the elected government is, by nature, set to a speed of learning that is 1/10th of the Technology development arena! Now we also have to suffer the joined ranks of the sub-structure on which laws are made and argued! Sad, sad day!
They filed a lawsuit against B&N, so what makes you think they won't enforce this? Hopefully you do get moderated down, because you're not thinking about the past actions of Amazon.
Amazon patents the "computer user". In a bold move, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) recently recieved a patent for the computer user. While Amazon refused to return calls for comment, the press release stated "you can be darn sure that if any of our competitors think they can have free access to our users, they are only fooling themselves! har de har har!"
Other patents pending for amazon.com include:
software
hardware
air
associated press
Here's a list I pulled from IBM's Patent site:
Amazon doesn't call their affiliates "affiliates", they call them associates?
Is this a different program, or are they just attacking everyone?
Visit uMoo - http://www.uMoo.com/ now Amazon banner-free
...there is now way that this will hold up in court. However keeping in mind the recent court rulings on anything that has to do with technology I'm sure some clueless judge would hold this up. I'm just wondering how long it will take for this unbelievably arrogant company to sue somebody. I've stopped shopping at amazon after they sued Barnes&Noble over the one click shopping feature and I'm urging everyone here to do the same. As little as we think we may be able to do about it as individuals, all you have to do is look at the recent etoys incident to see what large public uproar can do and how quickly it can turn their minds. The patent system was set up so that individuals and companies would be able to protect themselves and their investments. It seems that these days it has turned into an offensive tactic, means to an end. The end here being some sort of a basis for a lawsuit. After all if there is no reason to sue somebody you can always invent one.
What's up next? Hasn't IBM already patented eCommerce or will Amazon try to patent that also. How about .Com? Oh wait, Sun has that... WWW? Maybe they'll just patent accepting credit card orders.
How about getting the patent on their "Comments" section where other people can post comments about the item? Hmm, maybe they could make Slashdot stop using comments then. Then where would all the trolls go?
How about enforcing their Amazon name and make Brazil rename that damned forest? Would that be asking too much? After all, they've gotten away with patenting the obvious so far...
www.noamazon.com
Sorry, I'm really cynical and bitter tonight :)
kwsNI
Amazon.com today has applied for and been granted a US patent on a process that they have named "shopping".
According to the patent application, "shopping" is a method by which a "buyer" examines the wares being offered by a "seller", determines that he would like to obtain such wares, and trades money for them.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has claimed that "our patent for 'shopping', along with those we have for 'buying' and 'selling' can combine to form an entierly new way for human beings to obtain and distribute goods. This represents a tremendous leap over the previous system of bartering".
In a related note, Microsoft has been granted a patent for a process they call "seeing", whereby a person uses their eyes to collect sensory information. Accoring to founder Bill Gates "'seeing' is incredible, it provides people with an entierly new way to experience the environment around them. Of course, to recoupe our RD investment, we will have to impose steep usage fees for everyone who 'sees' during the next decade or so, but I doubt consumers will mind considering all the benefits of 'seeing'."
Amazon or the US Patent office? The way I see it Amazon just pulled a fast one and the idiots at the USPTO were asleep at the wheel. But to let something like this "slip through the cracks" is just inexcusable.
If I were an Amazon employee (from service rep to CEO) I would be utterly embarrased to be reading this article about my company!
I strongly encourage all to visit http://www.noamazon.com (I just did because of someone's previous post on this topic) and write your congressman/senator/granny and raise hell. Let's just hope the "slashdot effect" has some impact on this one.....(and not take down noamazon.com's servers =) )
One last bit to chew on... If website owners who are enrolled in affiliate programs with vendors other than Amazon end up going out of business because of this how big could the class action suit against Amazon get?
Ranger X
heh, reminds me of this Onion article
no comment
The US Patent office updates Tuesdays!?! Does anybody agree that the fact that a large tech company can file a suit that will be litigated in or moved to a small, dare I say, technologically naive court causes fear? There are many highly intelligent judges out there (I deal with them daily!). Still, this is a developing area in which old ideas do not match "fairness". It's unfortunate, but "open debate" doesn't exist for lawyers and the system and the moves by Amazon are troublesome. suckage!
In a press release today Amazon.com announced that it has received a patent for boycotting. Now anyone planning on boycotting any internet entity will have to pay Amazon.com a royalty fee.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I just patented Internet patent lawsuits.
one better than mcleodeight
Im rather hungry ...
This Unix stuff is like, really neat n stuff!
Maybe these fuckers could patent spamming. They seem to have perfected patenting technology that's either obvious or has a laughably large set of prior art (Maybe they could patent how they do it?) so patenting E-Mail spam should be a snap for them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"This is pretty broad," said Walter Linder, a patent attorney with Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis. "I think there might be a lot of Web sites that will have to change their affiliate programs to get around this."
Linder said the patent could even be broad enough to cover single links that would simply go from an affiliate to Amazon's home page, instead of to specific items. [The C|Net story.]
Doesn't this patent banner ads? Think about it.
Site A links to Site B's homepage or product page.
User clicks link on Site A which brings them to site B.
Site B pays Site A a fee/commision for same.
IANAL but affiliate programs seem quite similar to banner programs. Looking at the above use case, I can't tell whether that is a banner or an affiliate
According to this story the United Coalition of Trolls for the Abolition of Moderation is gaininge power. Talk about it.
let me think about this, so Amazon is patenting air...
well, seeing that the USPTO granted a patent for entertaining a cat using a laser pointer. i guess it could happen.
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Have everyone you know who buys online, stop shopping at Amazon.com, or shop at one of the people they sue for any reason.
Amazon.com has not posted a profitable quarter. Let's make sure they never do. If they get too far behind, and stockholders want their dividends, then you can see Amazon.com bought by another company.
This may be good, or it may be bad. It's worth the chance, if it'll put these a$$holes out of their monopolistic business. Fsck them.
I wrote them a letter telling them I'm insulted to think I used to shop there. And I never will again.
Support www.noamazon.com on your site, so that others know.
He's probably under tons of pressure from stockholders who are starting to get pissed off that Amazon, for all its millions in sales, can't turn a penny of profit -- so he patents everything in sight in a bizarre plan to charge royalties for them. I guess... who knows at this point. How can they get a patent when there are so many, many similar programs that have been around for so long? I have been an "affiliate" of CDNOW's since at least February 1997.
Doesn't Amazon care about the bad press it gets? If these patents don't stand up in court (which I would hope is the case), what does Amazon gain from the entire ordeal? If this is the future of "ecommerce," it's not anything of which I'd like to be part.
_________________
rooooar
System and method for selecting rows from dimensional databases
Isn't this, like, "SELECT * FROM BOOKS" in SQL? Isn't this, like, just HOW databases WORK??
That'd be a great idea. Then every web site with affiliate programs as well as -all- tech companies would have to give a percentage of any referral bonus they dish out (often quite hefty for tech companies dishing out options ;) to the patent holder.
Oh. And what about patenting the idea of running commercial sites with advertising banners and funding that end in ".org" addresses like a certian annoying one we all know.
Then close your eyes now because you ain't seen nothing yet. Corporations have got this country *by the balls*. All of this stuff has gone on behind closed doors and smoky rooms. Companies are getting a little giddy over their power and are letting things slip here and there. Corruption of the patent system is a just one small thing that they fucked up and corrupted enough for it to be visible. Lots of other things happen. Ever wonder exactly how much impact lobbiests have on the country? Ever wonder why the weren't outlawed a long time ago? After all it's nothing more than bribery. Corporations have corrupted the entire patent system. It's nearly worthless now. They did it for selfish, short term goals without regard to the implications this might have on society. This makes me wonder what will be next. What else is nearing failure because of these immoral people? How much will we be willing to lose before we finally put a stop to it? (Hint:You should be angry right now) I'm both ashamed and disgusted at America. Why havn't our trusty elected officials done anything about this particular issue? Perhaps they fear treading on the toes of their contributers, hmm? There is definitly something broken in this country and it's hurting us all. We need to smack down this plague before it can do any more damage.
You've all probably seen this before, but I'm posting it again. It seems rather prophetic, though not regarding Microsoft -- large corporation patents everything obvious. Plus it's funny.
_________________
rooooar
What good is there to whine about it?
Instead:
- stop buying stuff from Amazon
- tell all your friends to do the same and explain the issue if necessary
That's it. Simple as that. You vote with your wallet. The more people you can leverage behind not giving the allmighty buck to Amazon, the more power you have against them.
If they're not stupid, they'll change. On the other hand, they're already losing money all the time so why should they care about a boycott... It's a whole damn pyramid scheme, that's what it is.
a
an
the
Film at 11:00.
You know, reading about stuff like this makes me mad fsckin' pissed...
... by accident, of course... 8-) ).
... of course, I'm not advocating anything, but... hey... any good scripters out there that like to do literary reviews? 8-)
but I've made a rather interesting observation. If you go to Amazon.com, you will see that at the bottom of each page, there's a link that says:
"I'm the author, I'd like to comment on my book".
Hrm... and, in this day and age of social engineering, what would stop someone from posing as an author?
Absolutely NOTHING. No passwords, zip, zilch, nada... (I found out when I clicked on the review button by "The Art of War", written by some long dead guy
So... if anyone want to put in any links, to say... www.noamazon.com
-=- SiKnight
has patented a means for petrifying young teenage girls, specifically Natalie Portman.
Now only *they* can fulfill your wildest fantasies!
Fight Amazon, or statuesque women; what to choose, what to choose...
Fortunately, Slashdot is setting up a legal fund, since there is obviously "prior art" for this idea, surely archived on Slashdot somewhere...
It seems impossible to understand why amazon.com is patenting such fundamental concepts as one click ordering and referral fees. If the ideas were patented with the intent of keeping someone else from patenting it and abusing it, this might make sense. If there was some validity to the patents, it might make sense.
Neither of these is the case. It does not make amazon.com look good to file these suits, nor is it very profitable. The question remains, then, as to why one would do this.
They are already not making any money. It doesn't matter whether or not they make money. This is why boycotting them will have no effect. This is not to say we should stop boycotting them, but don't think it will change anything.
Uh oh, it's that time again. Night time, when the trolls lurk.
:)
So I load up slashdot, and it said it was generated by a "Group of Stealth Ninjas" just for me. Well, that scared the hell out of me, so I reloaded it. Then it was generated by a "Cadre of Psycho Ninjas". Oh man.
So I went to this story, where it's safe, right? No! More ninjas! They're everywhere!
...and now I feel like some pancakes. Mmm.
So what's the moral of the story? Ninja thread here, if you like them. I think they should be tagged "Ninja Troll", and get points for that (bottom out at -1 for normal people, but...).
Then we can "Sort By Lowest Score", and have the scale be from -5..1, with the best trolls at the top! (Ninja Troll, Hot Grits Troll, Portman Troll, Open Source Troll, etc., etc.)
Anything higher would of course be "Above your current threshold".
Therefore, moderate the parent down! I suggest a (Score:-3, Ninja Troll, Portman Troll, Patent Troll)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yes. 8-( Luckily, it seems to be up at 1 again. 8-) I don't think this is a problem in general, except if you post as 'Anonymous Coward', in which case you will quickly disappear from public view (read: go sub-zero) and thus never really get the chance to be moderated up again. If you're logged on, most people will still see you at 0. Personally, if I see a post which has clearly been unfairly moderated, I will often mark it 'Underrated' or 'Overrated' as appropriate, even if I would not have considered moderating it otherwise.
Incidentally, this is a good reason to set the limit to -1 if you've got moderator points. (I know you're encouraged to do so, but I somehow suspect that not enough people do.)
Indeed.
USPTO Employment Application
1. Name ______________ 2. Date _______________
3. DOB _______________ 4. SSN ________________
5. I.Q. (check one)
( ) Moron
( ) Idiot
( ) Dim-wit
( ) Liberal Arts Flunkee
(Y or N) Have you ever been affiliated with a terrorist organization or
received a grade D or or better on an engineering examination?
(Y or N) Can you be trained to operate a rubber stamp within a period
of 16 weeks?
(Y or N) Are you able to employ a method and process for inducing
condensation upon a reflecting surface?
(Y or N) Do you agree that you deserve a patent for the above?
(Y or N) Were you alive when Al Gore invented the Internet?
(Y or N) Do you agree he deserves a patent for that?
I'm not sure where these patents are going. It almost seems too risky to call companies on silly patents like "one click shopping" or affiliate programs. (Although I think affiliate programs, if they do, in fact, have a patent on it, is more protectable than one click shopping). When they call on shaky ground because their IP may not be protectable, they are just testing the gov't to finally get softwarre patents done correctly. Which will really screw them.
-- Moondog
Let us all mark on our calanders the glorious day when Amazon DOT COM (bleh) goes belly-up. Then we can celebrate it along with the death of DVX. Did you know that Circuit City is selling TNT-M64 cards disuised as TNT2's? I bought one and when I discovred what it was, they tried to charge me a "restocking fee" for bringing it back. feh.
The content of my letter:
Hi there.
I realize that the person who will be reading this will not be a person in any capacity to do anything with this. However, I feel that Amazon is about to lose a customer it has had almost since it began.
Why?
Because your company is taking advantage of an overworked, underpaid patent office using a poorly designed, poorly regulated patent system. Your tactics are unethical -- I don't care if they're legal or not.
You are not "protecting your business from competitors" by disallowing such common practices as affiliates programs or the "one-click" shopping idea. I thought a boycott would be silly because it accomplishes nothing, but your company has proven that they just don't care one way or another about fair competition or even the future of the Internet. What your company has shown by these actions is that they are primarily interested in the bottom line, no matter how dirty they have to become to do it.
I'm highly disappointed in your company at the moment and will cease to support you with my hard-earned money until the point at which you both rescind your rights to the patents you currently have and also announce the intention to never file a spurious business practices legal patent again. I will also do my very best to ensure that other friends of mine do not use your service as well.
I cannot stress to you how angry this makes me. You are taking advantage of American taxpayers' money and you are taking advantage of _me_.
Regards,
--
Kenneth G. Cavness
Not that it makes a difference. *sigh*
"We must cultivate our garden." -- Voltaire
Is it the patent office's fault for stupid patents? Amazon's? I'd say Amazon is 100% at fault for trolling the patent office with intent of destroying its competitors. They are doing it to harm competition, not to promote business technology. If anyone beleives they have invented some novel process, they are being snowed. Its all about money and greed. They will get away with it until they are no longer allowed to troll the patent office.
Howdy,
I really do not think noamazon would help.
Nor would any boycott. I mean didn't Amazon just
post the worst quarterly results, and their stock
did what?
Amazon is not playing the same game that people
think they are playing.
Aquiring frivilous patents is a step up in
their game. It's the "$64,000 dollar question".
The only way to beat them is,
beat them at their game or
change the rules of the game.
Bryan
From that page:
- "I sent people to the amazon site 2,651 times. Only 4 of those people ignored the 25 extra links and bought books off the very first page. One of them bought a special order book for which the dogs at Angell got nothing. Bottom line: The standard Internet price for a clickthrough is 10 cents; it would have cost amazon.com $265 per week to get these users by purchasing ads on other folks' sites; amazon got them from me for $3.95."
'nuff said.I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Forget my .com (hosted in California), what about my other sites? If they were members of affiliate programmes of non-US sites (ie bol), would a US vistor clicking through violate this patent. Mind you, bol is .com, so could Amazon sue them to get Internic to drop their domain?
It was much simpler with the RSA patents. I got to use apache_ssl, the US had to buy Stronghold.
I think the Slashdot community should get together and patent things before amazon.com does and sues you for it. Pretty soon, they'll patent the internet. =(
Fsck is the tool you use on UNIX to repair a filesystem, similar to scandisk in microsoft-land. It stands for FileSystemChecK.
However, someone, somewhere, started using it as a replacement for 'fuck', and it has since gained this use in the vernacular.
What's the next step if you're already boycotting Amazon over the one-click? Start sending e-mail to Amazon's affiliate sites. Let them know you'll boycott their site as well if they don't unaffiliate themselves with Amazon.
And don't lecture me against using nasty notes to fight corporate oppression. I don't want to listen to your wussy crap anyway.
... charging only $0.02 ...
Wish I had thought of it...
Whats up with this Natalie Portman thing?
No really I'm not a troll, I really don't know who she/it is.
--
--
Is that quote from killing Zoe?
[From the article: "Linder said the patent could even be broad enough to cover single links that would simply go from an affiliate to Amazon's home page, instead of to specific items."]
I'm hoping and praying to all that is good and right in this world that this guy is just smoking crack or something. If not, the implications are both absurd and frightening: amazon.com is the only ecommerce site that can be linked to. Right? 'Cause if you have a link anywhere on your page that just points to bn.com (for example), that violates amazon's patent (according to Linder).
Any judge who let such an absurd interpretation stand should be removed from office by any means necessary. That would effectively shut down the internet. Only Amazon.com could exist on the internet unless your website was 100% noncompetitive -- personal pages, edu/gov/mil sites, and the like.
Of course, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.
"I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum." MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
As was stated in another article pertaning to getting a voice by buying stocks in a company. Why don't we "hack the system"?
Instead of boycotting and complaing about the obvious patents, why don't we join the crowd and start issuing our own patents?
We know the system is flawed, lets either break it or put some dollars in the FSF coffers.
--
--
Slashdot sold out to The Man perhaps...
Man, dont a few thousand websites do that sort of thing? How the Hell can Amazon think of patenting such a broad idea? I remember when Amazon first came about, I was happy because now I could buy books online, and this would usher in more online stores for everyone's convenience. Then big businesses took over the web and are trying to ruin it for everyone. I work for a company as a webmaster, and I constantly get proposals from companies who want to provide a particular service, as long as they get exclusive access to distribute our data. But what these chumps dont understand is that you can't put a hamper on information over the Internet. It's like trying to plug a showerhead with chewing gum. It ain't gonna stick, kids. Same deal with Amazon. Putting retarded patents on broadly generalized ideas is just going to piss everyone else off. Damn lawyers have to screw up everything. Sharkey
http://www.badassmofo.com
To the non-net-centric public Amazon is not neccessarily a bad company, they just have their pocketbook on the brain. Companies will register patents to protect themselves from a semi-original idea being patented by a competitor. However Amazon has demonstrated that they only wish to crush their competitors the only way they can: infringement. Any really good company is going to win out with quality and not legal wrangling.
Unfortunately the legal wrangling will win more times than not. Decency has been lost in American companies. A lot of American companies see customers as dollar signs and will cut corners and compete at the worst level, all in search of the next nickel.
Microsoft is a prime example of companies that win not through a superior service or product, but trying to crush the competition using any number of underhanded means at their disposal.
Look at your favorite ISP that you love to hate, they provide crappy service, but because the barrage the customer with ads, the customer has no clue that it's relative shit.
Now those same crappy ISPs are trying to lock people into 3 year contracts. You get locked into a 3 year contract when you buy or lease a car too, draw your own analogy.
Amazon is just another company that is using their perceived upper hand to crush their competitor, it has nothing to do with providing better service to their customers. Besides, you don't use patent law for that, you use tradmark law for protecting the customer by preventing bastardization of the interface.
Amazon has just hit the mud-slinging stage of their timeline. I hope they have a good garden hose, because the shit's gonna get deep.
One day, they will have so many frivolous patents that they could start a museum for them. Perhaps when they successfully patent using images of products on web pages to help them sell, some other rich corp will take notice and take action to get all those patents invalidated.
if i trademark the word Fascist can I piss on all of them?
The long wordy abstract can be summarised thus
Its an internet referal system that lets people link to amazon as an associate Asociate sets up a web site about a part of amazon's catalogue (possibly with reviews or something). Amazon's website receives the referal link and the product ID from the link. If the customer purchases something then tha associate is payed commission. Amazon also has a shooping basket system.
When you look at it like this, it seems very obvious and trivial. Surely there's always been sites that offer reviews and link to a site that sells the things being reviewed.
IANAL, but I was under the impression that if you could demonstrate 'Prior Art' i.e. that what was being patented was in common use before the patent application, then the patent was invalid. Can somebody clarify this point ? I am pretty sure that Amazon weren't the first to do this.
I am sure between us all on Slashdot we could manage to do it. Then we can sue Amazon for breach of patent.
The net effect of this is, of course, not innovation. Rather, it increases barriers of entry to new companies who don't have patent portfolios to trade (this is seen as an advantage by established companies). Furthermore, it increases the cost of doing business, because all that patent activity costs lots of money and time. I estimate that in a corporate environment, each patent that is filed probably costs around $50k (there are a lot of highly paid lawyers and engineers involved in each patent).
Ultimately, the US patent office needs to stop this kind of abuse by reviewing patent applications more dilligently and not expanding notions of patentability as they go along. Individual companies are ultimately powerless: if they try to be high-minded about it, they'll simply go out of business.
And it's pretty clear that the US patent office is at fault. Apologists for them say that there is really no basis on which to criticize them. But there is actually a pretty straightforward metric: you can simply look at the kind of technical and legal comments you get from the US patent office vs. the European patent offices on the same patent application. The European patent office generally make competent evaluations, understand prior art quite well, and impose clear limitations on claims. The European patent offices are also much more reluctant to expand notions of patentability, usually only being pushed along by the US. From those, direct comparisons, it's pretty clear that there is a lot of room for improvement at the US patent office.
Nevertheless, I find that even by the currently low standards of patentability used by US businesses, priceline.com and amazon.com are pushing the limits. They can be justly criticized for that. It's one thing to go along with the crowd because you have to, it's quite another thing to try to deliberately push the boundaries. For that reason, I boycott Amazon, Priceline, and similar sites (I spend several thousand dollars in books and airfare each year, so this isn't an empty threat).
"Add this to my shopping cart"
I feel sorry for the electrons that have to work for those assheads. I'd rather be orbiting a nitrogen atom in a pile of dogshit than flipping evil-bits on a tainted Amazonian server.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's proven that this 'patent' was in use before Amazon started doing it, doesn't that disolve Amazon's patent? If that's the case, someone (or some company) just needs to prove the technology existed before Amazon started using it, and voila!
I really hope Amazon goes bankrupt soon. They've never posted a profit. They're also almost singlehandedly trying to destroy e-commerce. I'd boycott them but I've never used their services (being Canadian, the lower prices get cancelled out by the exchange rate. I take my business to chapters.ca which ships anything worldwide. And since their based in Canada, the patent doesn't apply here).
Man, things like this make me more and more proud of not living in the United States of Corporations...
Tells you something about how the mainstream perspective is being affected by this rotten Amazon behavior. Now we need a _judge_ going "Don't tell me, next you're going to patent the 'click'?" Then we'll be getting somewhere.
You forgot the palachintas
Just had a strange coincidence, right before coming to Slashdot. I was reading this page
from a pissed off customer
http://cyberreviews.skwc.com/amazon.html
Aside, from that corporations have been ripping of the public for along time using the inept patent
office is just one of the ways. Some excellent observations on how corporations play games with
the law are given by R.Buckminster Fuller
http://www.bfi.org/grunch_of_giants.htm
This is an online book that he wrote in 1982 (old but relevant) his observations and suggestions may be very helpful to us in combating the fleecing of the American public by the inhuman and unfeeling legal
entities called corporations. Like all good things we the people finance the endeavor (the internet/arpanet)(nuclear research) then corporations like Amazon.com come in and rob us of our freedom
and our money by litigating and intimidating all but the most wealthy of us through our archaic and inept government.
I seriously hope that they are hit by DDOS attacks every week until they stop this. Even better I would like to see a trojan horse wipe out all of the data for their website and force them to start over again.
hehehehehehhee
What are you talking about? Amazon can't have the patent on air-- it's taken.
Microsoft got the patent. About five years ago, about the time they bought the Roman Catholic Church.
How were you not aware of this? Apparently you were not a USENET reader, or you definately would have heard about it.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Go to Cheapbooks search engine and you find that Amazon seldom has the cheapest books anyway. Just use things like amazon and borders and B&N to use their excellent search facitilies/reviews, get the ISBN number and enter it above. I recently saved $9.50 on a plumbing how-to book I bought.
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
How they can patent something that already is in wide usage?
>While the cream of the crop remained here in Europe and built a good society.
Ya, thats why you have started 2 world wars, and an on-going situation, where people are still being slaughtered. You call THAT a good society? Ya right
I (with half a million other people... ohh how inovative I am.. yep I admit to being an eLemming.com guy) started to set up yet annother on-line mall. I had my own twist on the idea (you have to or you die.. copy cats don't work to well.. need to understand what your doing and just copying people is a bad thing) no patents or anything (inovate or die.. patents or not).
:)
So I.. like many... expected hell to freaze over before something like one click shopping got a patent...
Well shortly after I started setting things up.. Hell got a little colder...
I could go toe to toe with a Microsoft WebMall if I had to.. Anyway I didn't need a strong market share to make a proffit (my proffit moddle allowed for a huge amount of problems and still show a proffit... I spell like crud but where math is conserned I'm quite good)...
But I didn't take into acount strange patents like THIS... Come on people give us time to develup some "prior art" before you start granting patents... gezz...
At this rate Amazon with patent MY SPELLING...
Oh wait.. I have years of prior art.. no worrys
Anyway... the eLemming.com guys (like myself) quickly realised.. wait a second... Amazon is being issued patents on generic ideas.. I can not afford to fight a patent lawsute and I can not afford to dramaticly change my busness modle in mid swing just to accomidate a stupid patent.... What do I do?
Well Amazons patents are in the eCommerce area.. Yes Amazon is becomming more and more a portal but still an eCommerce portal... Selling everything under the sun(sparc)...
So the safeist move is to do whats allready been done for a LONG TIME... Like let Yahoo fight a prior art battle for you...
So basicly people are just copying existing sucesses becouse a. Lest risky.. b. Prior art. c. Well eBay has the whole online auction thing tied up anyway...
Oh me????
Blah... I'm going to experement for a while.. see what I like and see if I can not come up with something new and unqiue over time... For the time being I'm making "yet annother weblog" for rants.. as a friend says "Whos goina read that" "Nobody..." Just something for code practace.. nothing more... get up to speed so when I'm ready to do something real I'm ready to do it full speed...
I don't actually exist.
Isn't an affiliate program really just a commission sales model? The idea is that if the affiliates deliver customers who buy merchandise, they get paid.
Seems to me you wouldn't need to turn over too many rocks to come up with prior art on that one.
The Dark Ages? I think you need to brush up on dates just a little. :)
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Okay, here's the plan... we'll file for a patent on the concept of being a patent office, and then sue to put the Patent Office out of business.
TOPIC: Why do americans suck so much? Could it be due to the fact that they all hail from misfits that were deported from Europe during the dark ages?.
Dark Ages: AD 400-AD 900 (a/k/a Early Middle Ages)
Discovery of America by Vikings: AD 1000
Discovery of America by Spanish: AD 1492
While the cream of the crop remained here in Europe and built a good society.
Famous Perfect Societies:
National Socialist Germany (death toll: 10 mil.)
Communist Russia (death toll: 20 mil)
I have to believe that there are enough people out there with enough power to do something about it who can see the absurdity of this patent. I have to hope that this is going to result in a broad investigation of the effectiveness of the patent laws and the patent office. I hope Amazon decides to try to enforce this patent. I hope they win. Only then will it get recognition by congress or the supreme court and give us a chance of getting the laws changed.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I don't understand it, even the article states, that These "affiliate programs" are commonly used by many sites so it's obviously nothing amazon has innovated. I thought that patents can't be granted for things/processes already in wide use or already published. I even wonder if it isn't possible to sue Amazon for hurting (american) economy with such patents. If they get this patent in court, next i'll try and patent bricklaying, baking bread, brewing beer and some more things which come to my mind (i mean as of now nobody has a patent on that) perhaps someone shuold really go and try to push through such a ridicoulous patent just to draw some public attention to the subject.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
it would give a whole new meaning to the /. effect
;)
The state of the US Patent Office has been long lamented, in places such as the GNU website and the League for Programming Freedom. I personally believe that although some of the examples cited there, such as the use of XOR to highlit information on a bitmapped screen in an easily reverisble way, are, believe it or not, not sufficently obvious to the population at large that the average man and woman can be easily convinced.
Screw the League for Programming Freedom. Let's get the
Justice League of America on their asses. Watch the motherfuckers
shit their pants then!
Take a look at the article... Check out this qoute from it - "We never speculate about what we may or may not do in the future," company spokesman Bill Curry said. The company applied for the patent on June 27, 1997 and received it Tuesday."
They applied for the patent 2.5 YEARS ago. This was well before anyone even started doing this kind of thing so they weren't thinking about shutting other sites down for violation at that time, they wanted to protect what they invented. Seems rational to me but I just wonder why it took so long to go through.
- 8Complex
you can check out the patent text for patent 6,029,141 here. boycott amazon.
I've already given up on the better, though also lame half-click order process -- just the mouse-down event is sufficient to invoke the order. Amazon obviously missed this one.
But the latest craze is my patent for mouseover ordering. No deliberate and quaint "clicks" of the mouse; just a breezy fly-by of the mouse pointer over a rectangular area making up 50% of the web page's area is enough to start the ordering process. What could be easier?
Amazon's marketing and legal staff are sure to be sporting major wood thinking of these new possibilites.
Right now Amazon is playing the patent lotto. All they have to do is pick up one winning ticket and they get a much needed infusion of cash. It looks to me like they're betting that if they send a bunch of letters out, enough people will just cave and pay them rather than going to court. Too bad you can't pro-actively sue someone over a patent they took out (Maybe we should sue the patent office for malpractice.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
OK, I have a very limited understanding of how US patent law works, but I was under the impression that if other people have done / are doing what you're trying to patent, your patent is rejected. Am I right? If so, it seems the patent office is being run by 3 preschool kids and a trained mouse. The fact that we can all think of at least *one* "affiliate program" not run by Amazon should make it obvious that this patent is bogus.
OTOH, if "other people are doing it" isn't a valid reason to reject a patent then:
1. heaven help us
2. yet another reason for me to oppose ALL patents
MoNsTeR
Hmmm. Let's see if I have this straight. I promote one of their products on my time. Then if someone buys something of theirs through me, then I get a commision. Isn't that the job description of a salesman? Or at least of a sales rep?
Now I could be wrong, but haven't salesmen and sales reps (or at least the process of selling which is relevant to the patent) been around a while? Maybe even since before Amazon?
OK, I agree wholeheartedly with boycotting - but the companies listed here are UK ones. What about in the UK? I know about CompMan UK - good for computer manuals, but who else is there in the UK for books, music, etc? Tom
When reading /., my jaw normally doesn't drop to the floor (althogh sometimes it's close), but this time I'm really angry!
Mandatory: What the hell are they thinking?
In March 1999, I implemented a whole damn CGI application in C++ to do the whole damn affiliate registration, tracking, crediting and administration process! And now, what do I see? Amazon.com patenting this process, which I don't know how many, perhaps hundreds and hundreds of merchant sites online have implemented!
Every large shopping site that I know has a similar--to Amazon.com's--sort of affiliate tracking set up. Is Amazon.com now going to sue all those merchants? Are they going to sue the developers of these systems for violating the patent, even though they completed the projects even before Amazon.com got a patent on that?
The 1-click patent didn't really bother me, since I never really used it, so I didn't bother boycotting or ignoring Amazon. But this is over the limit. What were the people in the US Patent & Trademark office thinking?
Is that patent really valid, given so much "prior art" or did Amazon.com really pioneer this affiliate tracking program?
Sorry for the language and fury, but I thought I was going to have a good day today.
_________________
rooooar
Here's what you need to do if you have an account at amazon and wish to cancel. I searched their site for 30 minutes before I finally gave up and e-mailed them. Thanks for writing to us at Amazon.com. If you would like us to close your Amazon.com account, please write back with some information about your last order (a title or two would suffice) so we can verify that it's your account. Once your account is closed, it is no longer accessible by you or anyone else. Please note that if you have an Auctions account, Member Page, Wish List, or you are an associate you will no longer have access to your account for these purposes either. You would need to start a new account if you wish to order more titles from us, participate in auctions, or to take advantage of any other features on our web site which require a password. If you simply want a credit card removed from the list of payment options on the order form, you may write back to us with the last five digits of the card. This way, you will not have to open a new account to continue ordering from us. Please don't hesitate to contact us should you have any further questions, and thanks for shopping at Amazon.com.
Something that Oracle, SQL Server, and DB2 have been doing for years. I wonder how Amazon's been able to dodge any suits from Oracle, Microsoft and IBM on this one!
Don't see how they could be issued this patent.. After all they sure as hell didn't invent this process.. This patent is bogus! whoever did the patent research at the patent office must be a fucking retard!!! Oh btw everyone on the planet owns me money, after all I ahve a patent on air and everyone owes me a licenseing fee!!!
This only works for books, but I do it all the time. Makes me feel better anyway. I use Amazon's search engine,(good), read the reviews,
then go to bestbookbuys.com. Type in the ISBN, Title or Keyword, and it lists the stores that carry your desired book, by price, lowest to highest. BTW, Amazon is never even near being competitive with the others, in price. I order my book(s). Then I e-mail Amazon, tell them where I got it, how much I paid, and thank them for the use of their search engine and great data base. I always tell them that they should patent
something (usally stupid), but they get the point.
They used to answer my e-mail, but not anymore. I can't figure that one out. Oh, No. Mr. Billllllll....
Does a jock itch?
Seems a few months ago, I saw a story (I *think* it was on /.) about some obscure company getting awarded a patent on affiliate programs...?
Ah yes, here's the Slashdot story.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
Ah yes, how could I forget the glorious Palachinta I enjoyed as a child in Hungary. Will those be with Jam or Chocolate?
..somebody had a good idea for this the other day. It would take a bit more configuring, but if geeks don't like to configure...
anyway...here's the goods..and a couple more periods...
--
+&x
If Amazon can patent 1 click purchases, does that mean i can patent 2 click purchases? 3 click? 4 click etc etc
In a suprise announcement today, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos announced that his company has acquired patents to two of their innovative business models: Selling books and using credit cards.
During a press conference, Bezos declared, "We here at Amazon pride ourselves on being an intelligent, innovative group of people. We don't think it's fair that companies like Barnes & Noble and Visa can profit from the hard work we put into developing our business model."
Concurrent with the patent announcement, Amazon.com has opened lawsuits against the aforementioned companies, as well as Borders, Media Play, the locally owned bookstore down your street, MasterCard, and every retailer that uses "stolen credit-card technology" developed by amazon. Amazon is also seeking legal action against all public libraries in the US, citing that "those media pirates (librarians) have been illegally giving out copies of books for years. They have no respect for the rights Amazon has to printing-press technology developed by our own engineer, Gutenberg."
In an effort to further prevent privacy, evilretailempire.com, I mean, Amazon.com, has applied for a patent on the Latin language. An Amazon.com press release stated "We recognized that linguistic technologies derived from our Latin product like English, Spanish, French, and German are very widely used today. We don't wish to make these languages illegal, we simply ask that people pay a very reasonable royalty fee to Amazon.com whenever they speak one of these languages." Exact pricing details were not announced, but it has been leaked that Amazon will charge on a per-word basis.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
I can't _believe_ something as generic as showing a user a portion of their credit card number and telling them which portion can be patented (Secure method and system for communicating a list of credit card numbers over a non-secure network). This is *patently* ludicrous!
How is this novel? Microsoft is sounding like a *real* innovator once you read Amazon's patents...
I've only looked at this one other patent and I can't look at anymore less I become sick...
-core
I have not been using Amazon since the One-Click debacle, but this situation made me mad enough to write this morning... "The patenting of your Affiliate Program is an outrageous misuse of patent law. Your One-Click suit against Barnes and Nobel angered me greatly, but this is the last straw. I will never again order from a company so insecure in its ability to compete in a free market that it feels the need to stifle competition via preemptive legal action. I almost wish someone had patented online transactions a few years back and sued YOU when you tried to reach consumers via the Internet, you lousy hypocrites."
I have a "Zero Policy" tolerance.
*/
What's to stop a Bill Gates from just getting every single patent avialble for the net? Bill could OWN the internet? Does Amazon understand that many websites live by 'Affiliate Programs'. By cutting this off they possibly could cut down on the number of websites out there. With the trend of patenting coding, could this be the beginning of the end of the internet?
A patent depends on no prior art existing. Whoever granted that patent should be fired from their position at the patent office. There are plenty examples of prior art in the business world that define an "affiliate program", whoever granted that patent was NOT doing their job when they failed to consider those.
EVERYBODY NEEDS TO SEE THIS
I guess it's because we're just so burnt out on saving European's asses, every time the fuck up.
Or because our ancestors passed on gene's from delayed stress syndrom impacted psyhe's from all the combat they endured keeping your dumbasses free from dictators, etc. Now, why do you suck?
Does a jock itch?
patent the phrase 'I did not have sex with that woman.....' and spend the rest of my life suing politicans who use in public. sheesh, Somebody better make sure the internal combustion engine is already patented, Amazon may go after that next, because thier cars have'em and thats how they get to work.... Maybe all this nonsense will finally prompt the gov't to get it's act together with regards to patents and copyrights.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
41 times .... jeez I would think once or twice was enough....
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
I really can't bring myself to blame Amazon overmuch for these patents. I mean, can we really attack them for exploiting a flawed system? They are simply taking advantage of the patent office for their own benefit. People take advantages of flawed systems in order to help themselves all the time; tell me you haven't played a game, found a bug in the AI, and then proceded to sometimes exploit it. It's really the patent office's fault for making patents entirely worthless, not the companies that take advantage of the problems.
Okay...for a site that has a lot more original content than Amazon.com...go to:
http://www.brains4zombies.com/
This site manages to stretch one joke farther than Amazon has stretched US Patent laws...
"...Keystone Electronics is pleased to announce that we have expanded our distributor referral program to include opportunities generated by our website (www.keyelco.com). Internet sales referrals will now be forwarded via e-mail to distributors who have established website hyperlinks with Keystone's website."
"...We also have a referral program so you can make easy 15% commissions on any YellowNET purchase made by someone referred from your site. You can purchase any of our services individually or as a package. "
Linkshare patented this already. Click here.
This was announced on Slashdot on December 6th. Wonder how Amazon patented something that was already patented?
Does anyone else here think the guy who made these patents is a bit like Dr. Evil of Austin Powers fame? You can just imagine him now, putting his finger to his mouth and saying ...
:o)
...
I'm going to bring the internet to it's knees with my new marketing plan I'm going to call an "affiliate scheme"
Maybe he was frozen in time too like the most evil of doctors...
"Why steal a trillion dollars
...when you can steal a billion?"
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
I had previously used Amazon for a couple small orders. This was last summer and before I was aware of their frivilous patents. In doing my part for the boycott, I went to their site to delete my account information but found no way to do this. As an interim measure, I created a second shipping name and address and entered a credit card number for an old card I canceled over a year ago. This allowed me to delete (as far as I can tell) my actual information.
In addition, I sent an email requesting the complete removal of my account information and stating the reason for this request. I wonder if they will even bother responding.
Companies that spam invariably turn out to be scum in general. It wasn't surprising the first time, and it isn't surprising this time either.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Well, it seems as though everybody is patenting things that clearly have prior art to disprove the patent. I have applied for a patent on patents. You must give me your money for all patents filed (royalty)!
or are they just trying to shut down business on the internet? affliate programs are win/win systems for both the webmaster and the company. i think it's pretty obvious that people should be rewarded for sending people a company's way. i make about $50 a quarter from various affiliate programs on my site. it's not much but i say every little bit helps. can't clickthroughs be consider prior use?? how about the fact that other people accepted payment for directing traffic to others' sites. this seems like a bogus patent to me. sorry for rambling on but i'm PISSED!
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
--
And Justice for None
OK Tech, let's all communicate using ideas understandable by the lowest human common denominator.
... the first early hominid to discover fire had promptly patented it and prohibited anyone else from using it. smart move eh? seriously folks, imitation + incremental improvement is how we talking primates have been leapfrogging our way up the food chain in record time. these attempts to take something as essential as an Idea, just a plain old clever or common-sensical Idea, and patent it and punish others for imitating it... well, they are counter-evolutionary. information doesn't work that way and the primate brain doesn't work that way. one monkey figures out how to wash food, now we all know. no matter how many lawyers Monkey One hires, we still all know. got DeCSS? de (not really an anonymous coward, but I forgot my nickname -- a situation which /. form designers apparently didn't foresee :-))
If Jeff Bezo was Joe Albertson, he probably would try to patent the process of putting milk at the back of the store.
I checked each patent. Amazon only owns:
-Internet-based customer referral system
-Secure method for communicating credit card data when placing an order on a non-secure network
-Refining search queries by the suggestion of correlated terms from prior searches
-System and method for selecting rows from dimensional databases
-Method and apparatus for producing sequenced queries
-Method for data gathering around forms and search barriers
-Secure method and system for communicating a list of credit card numbers over a non-secure network
-Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network
Note that last one. It's the 1-click ordering patent.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.