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Jeff Bezos' Open Letter On Patents
Several people, including Tim O'Reilly, the progenitor of this Amazon Letter Patent Discussion wrote to point out that Jeff Bezos has written an open letter on patents. It's a pretty cogent and intelligent letter which gives a defense of their patents, but also calls for software patent reform. Tim has written a follow-up letter already.
Contact your senators. Contact their staff - these are the folks who appprove appointments. Make sure that patent office and patent commissioner appointments are not a rubber-stamp process. 'nuff said!
Watching a bus-load of patent lawyers plunge off a cliff.
With five empty seats.
I got a good feeling from reading this letter. Both at how much sway Tim O'Reily has, and at how much possible sway Jeff Bezos could have. The whole patent issue could be made much better because Amazon was called to the carpet on their One-click patent. Despite how upset I've been about this issue, I'm willing to give Jeff the time to get working on this and will back him and Tim up on this.
Bravo, Jeff. Good job.
As a tech savvy developer, I've had numerous ideas for Internet services that could be very profitable and beneficial to companies and individuals, but that weren't practical to implement. Why? Because although the idea was to offer an innovative service, without protection from competition, if there's not a hugely significant technical barrier to entry, there would be nothing to stop the giant "real world" companies whom I would be competing against from stomping me with their brand identity or somebody like AOL or Microsoft stomping me with tying agreements and sweetheart deals in other market segments to attract customers.
Given that I'd be crushed, I won't invest the sweat. But those big companies aren't thinking of the ideas on their own, and the public suffers from not having these services available. I'm sure many of us have had ideas like this. It's very similar to what happened to Netscape. They were lucky, though, and nobody realized what was going on until they had a great brand identity. Nowadays, although the Internet is far from tapped out on great ideas, there's such intense scrutiny that nothing goes unnoticed long enough to get a chance to grow with out some protection.
Although it looks like patents are being mostly used by big companies to bully little guys around, with a "fast patents" process they could actually help encourage diversity and the growth of new small players on the business Internet.
wow, change. Jeff wants to do something. Time say's "great, but can't you do more?"
Jeff is very well spoken. He is one of the best spoken CEO's that I have listened to to date. There was just something that made me uneasy about the article that I can't put my finger on. Maybe it was just the sudden shift with the pat on the back that says "you're right, we didn't do this quite right, so run along now and we'll make sure that it gets taken care of."
Tim OTOH doesn't really seem interested in compromising. He's excited to go to Washington and lobby, but he doesn't quite seem convinced that change is enough.
The whole bit with Business method patents is abso freaking EVIL. I need to run down and file my patent on selling fruit from a cart near the corner of busy intersections...
chris
--grr more workday lost to thinking about stuff on slashdot, must be time for a cigarette.
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
No, Amazon needs to be able to show to investors a list of assets. Normally, companies put "profits" down as one of those assets, but in the internet world profits are as alien as WarEZ d00dz getting a date. So, they have to make do with assets like "public goodwill" "brand image" and, of course, patents. After all, patents "prove" that you have a technological edge over your competition.
Hey, I work for an Internet startup, and I know the pressures that exist there. Our investors want us to patent our software all the time. I'd much rather open-source it. Result: deadlock. But Bezos doesn't have that luxury, so he has to make statements like this.
Just my $.02
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? Priceline?
Can your IM do this?
Tim's letter basically says that he now recognizes that the Amazon patents to represent innovative and unique claims (please read his letter to see why), however he still believes all software patents are bad.
I disagree with Tim. The main problem I have with software patents is a) the obviousness of some of them, and b) the 17 year time span. I think the if they lasted 3 years that would be acceptable. It would also help open-source by encouraging people to open up their truly innovative algorythms.
Jeff Bezos and Amazon are a company big enough to cause change, and since the represent the industry (as opposed to whiners saying "I deserver this."), I think patent reform could be just around the corner. If Amazon starts acting on these ideas, I will no longer participate in the boycott.
--Eric Guenterberg
mavpion@badspammers.usa.net
(I usually post from home where my browser's cookie is set)
Not to be a nitpick, but with all of his ramblings about 3-5 years, business patents & software patents vs regular patents, etc... I would have been quite impressed if he'd said that regardless of the outcome of his talks with congressment, Amazon would unilaterally allow anyone (me, you, barnes & noble) access to their patents 3-5 years after the date they were filed or maybe awarded.
That would have been so honorable... Instead, I'm not sure exactly what he was telling us... Like, if he goes to congress and they say no, they're going to let patents last for 20 years, does that mean he's going to hold onto affiliate programs and one-click ordering for the duration of time, or what?
I see a couple problems with "fast patents".
1) A large company is going to be able to capitalize on a new idea faster than a startup. By the time the average startup gets moving, a 2-5 year patent would be half gone.
2) These days, it usually takes years for the patent to be issued in the first place.
The cake is a pie
Practically speaking, I agree that the argument for having these kinds of patents is valid in the world of commerce that the internet has become. However, the point of having patents is to give an incentive to the public to invent things. The idea behind patents is that 1)we want a great deal of innovation comming from the people of our country so 2)we tell them that if they invent something good, they can rest assured that they'll get some money for it if someone else wants to use it. This works fine in the world up until now, what with markets based purely on diminishing resources. But the internet doesn't work that way (or at least not that I've seen). If you come up with something new, it can't be used up if someone else decides they want to use it too. It's information, the proverbial and legendary bottomless mug o' beer. Bottom line, because of this phenomenon, people seem to come up with numerous innovations for the internet daily and without need for monetary incentives. So, although the corporate world has decided to tread on this ground and make it their own forcing us to abide by their ideals and rules, I feel it is important, still, to recognize that devices of the business world (like patents) are unnecessary and unwanted.
Just some quick comments....
1. Software is different. Yes it is.
2. 3-5 year patents. OK if that's how he feels then when his patents become that old he should drop them. He can seek damages for sstuff B&N did before his patent expired, but he really should give them up when he thinks others should.
3. Retroactive lifespan. I don't think this would work. People applied for a patent expecting it to last 17 years. Now it doesn't? I think that would be kinda unfair. Yes the patents are probably also unfair. This would be akin to selling someone a 36" tv for $50, then giving them a 16" tv.
4. Early Comments. This would be sticky. And I really think the USPTO would have problems. Along with those who would be applying for the patent. If my patent application is rejected, then I can still develop it in secret. However, that secret would be out of the bag in this case. I think a better idea would be for the USPTO to hire more computer minded people. I'm not sure who is reveiwing these patents now, but I somewhat doubt they're using all the tools available to them before they approve a patent.
-cpd
PS: No updates on GNU's Boycott Amazon page yet...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
When I read this, I automatically appended "We will only enforce the patent on our largest competitors." Given the fact that they have already obtained a temporary injunction against bn.com from using a similar system, that seems somewhat justified.
I agree with Jeff that, if they didn't patent it, someone else would. Also, obtaining a patent on a business model is a lot easier than establishing legal prior use, but the point remains the same: Predatory business practices are not the way to go. The best businesses will survive on their own, others will fall by the wayside.
I am impressed by Jeff's response, though. I hope he and Tim succeed in their push for USPTO reform.
Eric
That's not what I came away from the letter with at all. I think he comes off as a very bright, good guy who has more resposibilites than most of us could imagine. I would summarize his stance as "We're playing by the rules that were in place when we got here (which he is). If you want to change the rules, that's fine (and even offers good suggestions)." And then offers to play by the new rules should they be changed.
-B
Weren't these innovative ideas for their time?
To me, these are exact parallels to Amazon's 1-click patent, only Amazon managed to get a patent.
There has been no resolution to this matter. All that has happened is that Jeff Bezos has shown that he understands the issues and is willing to work to correct the problems. But he still holds the patents and is enforcing them.
Before I will go back to shopping at Amazon I need more than this. Here are two suggestions.
Bezos can show that he is truly serious by announcing that Amazon will not now or ever enforce that one click patent. He can keep and enforce any other patents he has.
Alternately, Bezos can announce that he will only enforce Amazon patents for three years. After which anyone can use them.
But until he does something like this it's all just talk.
Cut the crap and toe the line.
A pretty chilling statement. Should we just rollover anytime we disagree with something? In my real world I work to change things for (what I believe is) the better.
Steve M
To put this in a way you may understand better:
What happened to Obi Wan Kenobe when he turned off his lightsaber?
No matter what shenanigans Amazon has pulled thus far, I don't want to see them get their asses handed to them by B&N.
He's not all that snobby, at least according to people I've talked with who know him.
He drives an old car, lives in a modest house, and his office boasts a ratty chair and a desk made from a door.
Granted, he's richer than God -- but that alone doesn't make a person snobby. Consider what the man actually says.
A new acquaintance and I brought up this subject recently, when Tim's first Open Letter came out. Here's his point:
Yeah, we saw something about that, but you have to realize, the examiner of
the application had something like 8-12 hours to research the application,
perhaps write a rejection, answer the attorney's arguments and decide
whether information found in their research suggested that someone do what
the application claims to be novel or inventive (no one had suggested doing
it). As former patent examiners of 10 years (my wife and I), I can safely
say that none of the examiners have enough time than to give a patent the
"presumption of validity" that the law says it has. I doubt there was any
"abuse" of the patent office by Amazon, only abuse of the patent examiners
and the public by the Patent Office.
Perhaps the people in charge of the office, setting the policy, and making the schedule should be blamed, rather than those poor saps doing the work. We bitch about examiner ineptitude, but maybe the problem lies with those appointed bureaucrats that CAN be affected by negative politics. Start writing those letters!
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
That's the impression I got, too. I had some correspondence with Amazon a while back, with their customer service folks and ultimately with their legal staff, regarding this patent problem.
My one simple suggestion was this: drop the suit. Use the patent if you must to cover your ass (so someone else doesn't come and sue you for infringement on something dumb like this), but don't use it to bash a competitor.
Jeff, just drop the suit. That's all I ask. Then, I can start buying books from Amazon again (and there are a bunch I want to buy).
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
I don't see any freely downloadable books at oreilly.com
Did you look? How about Open Sources? Or Using Samba? Don't forget Learning Debian GNU/Linux. Maybe even Docbook: The Definitive Guide? (The latter is an O'Reilly book, but the downloadable version is hosted elsewhere.)
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
Now I get it! He got the recognition for his future accomplishments ;-)
Thanks for the letter. It is refreshing to see that someone understands the issues and is willing to work to fix the system.
That said, I will continue to shop elsewhere until such time that you put your money, or should I say patents, where you mouth is.
In order to show that you are really serious about this I propose that you do one or both of the following.
Suggestion number one, announce that you will not enforce the one click patent. You can keep and enforce any other patents. This is the most high profile patent you have, and will send a strong message to everyone involved that you really mean what you say about reform.
Alternatively, you can announce that you will only enforce your business method and software patents for 3 to 5 years (you choose). You don't even have to do it retroactively. Put up a web page showing the patents you hold and the date you will let them expire. Again this will send a clear message that you are serious about this.
For the second option I suggest that you invite others to follow your lead. In addition to a prior art database there could also be a database of voluntary patent expiration dates.
Thanks again Jeff, and I look forward to your taking action.
Steve M
What happened to Obi Wan Kenobe when he turned off his lightsaber?
He became more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
http://www.userfri endly.org/cartoons/archives/99oct/uf001180.gif
Can't help but get a giggle out of this cartoon...
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
I've received several hundred e-mail messages on the subject of our 1-Click ordering patent. Ninety-nine percent of them were polite and helpful. To the other one percent -- thanks for the passion and color! ...
:-) A month is no time at all in business terms for a bigger company to steal your idea and take it to the market while you're still involved in the patent process. This is a great idea for software patents though.
I also read the first four hundred or so responses to Tim's summary of our conversation -- these too were helpful.
First of all thanks to all the people who either emailed Amazon or posted on Tim's website our voice was heard. Who says mass protests don't work (as long as they are constructive).
Unlike with trademark law, where you must continuously enforce your trademark or risk losing it, patent law allows you to enforce a patent on a case-by-case basis, only when there are important business reasons for doing so.
I stated before in earlier posts here and here the competition between Barnes & Noble and Amazon has lead both companies to do unsavory things (B&N moreso) but this was the first time a fight between both companies threatened an entire industry (actually B&N may have become a book industry monopoly if not for Amazon so maybe that isn't completely true) . I strongly beleive that when Jeff Bezos was acquiring this patent he saw it merely as a way to get back at B&N for all the things they had done (such as copying every Amazon innovation as quickly as possible).
But I do think we can help. As a company with some high-profile software patents, we're in a credible position to call for meaningful (perhaps even radical) patent reform. In fact, we may be uniquely positioned to do this.
This is where he starts sounding like one of us. I wholeheartedly agree with this observation and cannot thank Tim 'O reilly and all those who sent emails and posted on Tim's page enough for clearly elucidating why the patent was so wrong and convincing Jeff Bezos' of this.
Much (much, much, much) remains to be worked out, but here's an outline of what I have in mind: 1. That the patent laws should recognize that business method and software patents are fundamentally different than other kinds of patents.
Even though this seems like a no-brainer it's going to be difficult to push this through. Lots of companies exist solely because of business model patents and would fight tooth and nail (i.e. lobby and throw money around) to make sure this doesn't come to pass. I'm sure the priceline CEO will be pretty nervous and pissed off after reading this.
2. That business method and software patents should have a much shorter lifespan than the current 17 years -- I would propose 3 to 5 years.
Yep, the priceline.com CEO would be really agitated reading this.
This isn't like drug companies, which need long patent windows because of clinical testing, or like complicated physical processes, where you might have to tool up and build factories.
Comments like this are why I believe every CEO and industry leader should read slashdot, if they did the world (at least the software industry) would trult be a better place. I'm glad Jeff Bezos finally realized what we have been saying on Slashdot about how ridiculous the current length of software patents is...imagine there are still valid patents on Atari & Intellivision games and innovations.
3. That when the law changes, this new lifespan should take effect retroactively so that we don't have to wait 17 years for the current patents to enter the public domain.
I hadn't even thought of this but it's a great idea. No more priceline.com monopoly, no more Dell patents on building to order lasting forever, and no more patents on electronic programming guides (a square grid with the names of programs in it) lasting longer than the job expectancy of the board of directors and CEO of the company.
4. That for business method and software patents there be a short (maybe 1 month?) public comment period before the patent number is issued.
Waaay to short, it'd never fly. this is where Jeff starts sounding like an AC on slashdot and proposing extreme measures.
This To this end, I've already contacted the offices of several Members of Congress from the committees with primary responsibility for patents to ask if they would be willing to meet with me on this issue
...
I've also invited Tim O'Reilly to attend any such meetings with me. Thanks Tim you've done us a great service. Nothing like getting Time's man of the year on our side to get congress to sit up and notice that something is wrong with the USPTO.
Dismissing plausible but unpleasant alternatives as merely cynical without addressing their substantive points counts as an ad hominem attack. MattMann points out that Bezos is a sophisticated, intelligent being and that there is a slim chance that Amazon on it's own (even with O'Reilly's help) will have the muscle to effect change in the PTO. So what we're left with is an agreement that life is unfair, but that's business.
I know that what I am about to say has been said before, but I feel compelled as a future patent lawyer to put my two cents in. A fundamental distinction must be made between software and business method patents. This is the one critical concept that Jeff Bezos and others overlook in this discussion. Bezos, at almost every point in his open letter, groups the two patents as if they cover identical subject matter. This is not the case.
Software patents are important because they govern the ownership and usage of actual bits of code, rather than a vague idea of what a computer program should do or how a business should behave. The business method patents, on the other hand, purport to lay ownership to a behavior or idea rather than the actual method itself.
I would not take issue with amazon.com patenting the actual code required to execute their particular implemention of a one-click style program, assuming that there is no prior art. On the other hand, it would seem that the patent in question covers simply the idea of the one-click program. Not a good idea. First, even if the business method patent was valid, there is substantial prior art among the catalog and mail order companies. Second, the idea that a business or a person can own a behavior or vague idea is at best flawed, and at worst morally reprehensible. Imagine if Ford attempted to patent selling cars. Admitedly, this is an extreme example, but not by much.
The patent law does not need to be reformed, necessarily, but some modicum of intelligence needs to be applied in order to determine which patents are good and which are not.
All he's saying is, "it's a bad system, but I didn't make the rules and I'd like to change them".
Actually, he's saying a little bit more than that. He's also saying, "We're not going to shoot ourselves in the foot because we don't believe the law is exactly right. We're going to work at making our IP less valuable, but only if it'll make everybody else's less valuable as well."
This is all about a level playing field, and as much money as Amazon is losing, they need one. Remember, IBM is the biggest software patent holder out there and we celebrate when they submit a patch to Apache. At least Bezos is talking about going in the right direction on this. If it turns out to be empty promises, we'll all know and this will have done him harm. I don't think Jeff would be willing to ruin his reputation with so many geeks for a short term gain in popularity.
Well, I'll hope that you're right about Bezos being unwilling to ruin his reputation with geeks. But how much of Amazon's business comes from geeks? I'm glad that he realizes that the current patent system is a bad way to run things for software, but probably all the CEO's of large corporations would like to speed-up innovation without losing competitive advantage. So we're left with stasis for a long while really. I agree totally that he's "also saying, "We're not going to shoot ourselves in the foot because we don't believe the law is exactly right[...]" after all he's running a business in a cut-throat environment. And I would argue that his decisions will be made on that basis, not on the basis of whether or not /. readers are unhappy because he is unable to do what he and they would like.
--Crush
Why are we so committed to liking these bastards?
FACT: Amazon sued over a trivially stupid patent.
That's all there is to it. They spam, they lie, they get bogus patents, and, despite anything they've said, they have *SUED* people for "infringing" on those patents.
What's with the huge emotional investment in finding a way to pretend Amazon isn't really evil? The fact is, they did exactly what we've all said we hate. They've invented new ways (purchase circles) to reveal personal information. They've filed for patents they knew were bogus, they've sued people, and then they've pretended it was a "purely defensive" patent. Sorry, but suing someone isn't "purely defensive".
People are so happy that this is resolved. What's resolved? You've verified that if, every few months, thousands of you write them letters, they will cut down on abusive practices, give you a blatantly false explanation of why they did them in the first place, and then go right ahead and find another thing to screw up.
Face it, they're playing you. They *KNOW* we're all big on "e-commerce" and we want them to succeed, and that means we'll keep watching them like hawks and feel like somehow we should have to put up with this.
You can't trust someone that needs to be slapped down this often for abuses. Go back a few years and watch the Amazon people staunchly defending their right to send email to people who never asked for it. Watch them slowly cave in to pressure, a lot of it applied by their upstream, who have *DISCONNECTED* companies who sent that many unsolicited messages, even to "customers".
Amazon will continue testing your limits to see what they can get away with. As long as you keep pretending it's all okay if they back down occasionally, they'll keep pushing.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
4. That for business method and software patents there be a short (maybe 1 month?) public comment period before the patent number is issued. This would give the Internet community the opportunity to provide prior art references to the patent examiners at a time when it could really help. (Thanks to my friend Brewster Kahle for this suggestion.)
and
On a related issue, to further try to help with the prior art problem, I've also agreed to help fund a prior art database. This was Tim's idea, and I'm grateful for it. Tim is poking around to find the right people to run with that project.
Now be real, has anyone here not heard these items repeatedly out of many people? I swear to god, as much as I think Tim is a really cool guy if I hear him called "the inventor of the prior art database", I'm going to barf.
And that's the problem. Patents don't go to inventors or innovators. They go to the first rich person with enough lawyers. That's where the patent office went wrong.
In a related humor note, I'm considering getting a trademark just so I can deal with ICANN. It may be worth it at this rate. The new rules indicate to me that if they ever do create .per or .sum TLDs anyone who's hasn't trademarked their name is screwed.
-----
No Zen is good zen
I've never faulted Amazon for obtaining the patents -- many companies have even stupider patents for defensive purposes only...For that situation, I blame the USPTO. But for Amazon to keep suing Barnes and Noble while fighting for patent reform is, well, patently absurd. Pun intended.
This guy gets it, and yet he doesn't get it.
The "fast patents" idea is good to start. I still don't believe software should be patentable at all, but this is good as a stepping-stone to that end. Unfortunately, the idea about making the patents retroactive isn't a good idea, simply because it cannot be done (any retroactive law is by definition unconstitutional).
The one-month review period is a great idea, though I'd extend it to two months at least. The only problem is that we need a forum for this sort of thing. Slashdot won't do for that purpose; the patent office needs to set it up and run it (they're the ones who'll be using it, anyway).
Frankly, barring the fast patent idea, I'd make patents a "use it or lose it" deal. The idea is that if you do not use anything containing a given patent for some period of time (3 years?), and at the end of those three years you have not announced a release date for something using that patent (which must be within one year), then the patent expires immediately. The idea behind this is to keep corporations from sitting on patents (that is, buying up patents for various processes and then never using them; the oil industry especially has done this for years with patents concerning alternative energy sources). This one would apply to patents in general, not simply software. The rationale behind it is that patents were designed so that a person or corporation could make money off of innovations. If they no longer make money from the innovations (or never did at all), they should not be allowed to hold the patent that they are not using.
Ideas? Opinions? Angry rants?
How about these?
a) Disallow patents for user interfaces. The whole point of a patent is to encourage inventors to share ideas that they would otherwise keep secret. Since you can't possibly keep a user interface secret without rendering it useless, there's nothing to be gained by granting a patent for one.
b) Allow a grace period between sudmission and publication of the patent, to give others a chance to independently invent the product. For example, the process might go as follows:
1) Inventor submits patent application. It's not even necessary for the patent office to examine the application at this point, the inventor could just send in a digitally signed hash of the patent.
2) After a length of time of the inventor's choosing, he instructs the patent office to examine and publish the application. If the idea is still original, the inventor gets his patent, for a length of time equal to the time he waited. If not, the patent is null and void. This way, good ideas automatically get longer patents than bad ones.
I believe that the greatest difficult with the patent system is not so much the assertion of valid patents, but the risk of bullying with patents that are invalid. Particularly in the software arts, it has become increasingly common for a patent to issue in the face of substantially invalidating prior art that not considered by the examiner.
The difficulty is that even with invalidating art in hand, the standard of proof by "clear and convincing evidence," is virtually impossible to meet in practice before a jury. Given the complexity of the law alone, and informed that if they waver in any sense as to their convictions, they must find for the plaintiff, your average juror will invariably find the patent valid, regardless of the facts of any particular case.
This makes it practically impossible for a small or mid-sized business to defend a case based upon prior art invalidity, and commercially infeasible for a well-heeled company to do so, unless the subject matter is core or critical to its business.
My suggestion is that when invalidating prior art was not considered by the PTO, and raises a substantial new question of patentability, then the clear and convincing standard be relaxed to the more common "preponderance of the evidence" standard. In all other cases, the present "clear and convincing" standard would apply.
This would continue to protect sound patents. However, when new and invalidating prior art raising issues not considered during examination is found, the art will raise a significant and meaningful deterrent against the bullying practices that have now become so common in the industry.
A Barnes and Nobles or an Amazon can realistically expect to see a case through its appeal. A small or mid-sized business may barely be able to afford to bring a case through trial. This proposal makes it possible to obtain a just result when bad patents are asserted, while continuing to provide proper protections for patentees asserting sound patents.
There is one aspect of this that we have forgotten about (although Bezos indirectly hints at it in his latter) : lobbyist.
No doubt, if this plan for shorter software patents gets off the ground, major players such as IBM will begin to lobby heavily in their behalf. We're going to have to respond at some point with a little lobbying of our own.
This might be one bit of overhead that's worth the investment now. (Better than having to ask a lawyer 24/7, "Can I do this?" "Can I do this?").
This open letter is well worded and contains a number of fine points. However, these nice words do not address the meat of the matter:
Amazon has been granted a patent for using cookie-based authentication. This is not original! Amazon has abused this patent and improperly stifled innovation on the internet by aggressively suing their competition who also use cookies for authentication.
Jeff goes on and on about saying how the patent system should be changed, but he ignores his own company's role in the patent abuse. Jeff says that he is forced to do this because of an obligation to his shareholders.
I will continue to boycott Amazon.com and urge others to do so until Amazon stops their patent abuse. Maybe if enough people know that actions count, not words, the "shareholders" will weigh the bad press against the benefits of suing B&N, and back off.
It's that simple. Don't make a nice speech- drop the suit.
I dislike the implication that Bezos is merely a spokesman for the shareholders and can't effectively lead amazon's patent policies. Does one become a "Man of the Year" for being an executive servant?
Dropping the suit sounds like a great idea. Everyone on Slashdot would feel great that the boycot worked and O'Reilly would get a pat on the back. But how many people around here are going to chip in on lawyer's fees when a shareholder sues Amazon for not suing B&N. The lawsuit would be "By not continuing the suit against B&N, my portfolio dropped for 26 million dollars to 25.8 million dollars." And the shareholder would win. I'm not saying it's right, but I promise you it would happen.
-B
actually, i'm suprised that slashdot didn't do this story
- bridgette
This discussion on IP (not the TCP kind :-) has me wondering. The argument for patents is that limitted protection encourages innovation. Who is going to spend some arbritrary number of years slaving away to invent something that anyone can steal? Now I can see this applying to individual inventor/innovators, but how many current major products come from such people (I can count the ones that I can think of on the fingers of one foot). The simple fact is that most invention and innovation Today comes from corporations. Indeed, even the individual will usually approach a venture capitalist, form a corporation and take off from there.
.com companies and consumer goods. Perhaps we would be best served if patents simply did not exist in these areas.
So what would happen if corporations didn't have the limited protection of the patent system? Would they all, or most, or even many, just stop investing in innovation or invention? I think not. It's a mean, ugly marketplace out there, and these days those who do not offer constant innovation wither and die. I think patents are irrelevant to the rate of corporate innovation, which is just about all commercial innovation. This may not be true for pharmaceutical companies, but it is certainly true for software,
Note that I personally doubt that we could get that to fly, politically, but that may be the actual optimal situation, at least in theory, if we want to encourage innovation.
Any counter opinions or additional thoughts (with reasons, please)?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
That's the most wheels off comment I've ever seen on Slashdot. Are you, perchance, in Dallas, Big Sky Country, or the Town of the Cow?
Stay hard.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Jeff, you got me listening, which I didn't think would happen. Keep talking. PLEASE talk to politicians about this, the public doesn't know the system is broke, or how this harms them. With the internet hype factor, and a couple more voices (Larry? you out there?), this is the best hope I've seen for rational political dialog on these topics. Otherwise, you'll soon find yourself on both sides of these issues so often, you'll be praying to your laywers before you go to sleep at night.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
No, this won't work. The only companies that will be able to afford long-term patents will be the big companies (e.g. the amazon.com's). Since the cost of a patent is unrelated to the size of the company, the little companies will have to pay a greater percentage of their money towards patents than a big company will. The percentage for smaller companies will rise much faster than for big companies if the cost of a patent doubles every consecutive year.
void recursion (void)
{
recursion();
}
while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
whether it is user enabled or not, security hazard or not, my point was that it had been thought of before, I dare say, thousands of times. that's what makes it non-patentable which is the topic of the thread. if you weren't so snotty, I wouldn't close by saying: nitwit.
oh, so you know why I believe what I believe? Look who is talking about throwing unfounded accusations around! Hypocrisy is fine in my book, but one should refrain from illustrating it in the same sentence as an accusation :)
Here's a better explanation just to clarify:
I am pro-patent, pro-trademark, pro-copyright, pro-property rights, pro-free market, pro capitalist... heck, I'm even pro-corporatist, to use that stupid neologism that's been floating around Slashdot. But I'm anti-bullshit. I like my capitalism straight up.
What you detected in my original post was not cynicism, it was disgust. I want the cynics to call Amazon on the bullshit so that I can be the one to defend intellectual property theory. But instead, apparently because we get to call them Tim and Jeff, everybody's turned into a pussycat. O'Reilly offered in his own public statements to help Amazon craft a response that would be publicly palatable. Then, matchy-matchy letters are published on the two websites the same day... they admit to long phone calls. You don't have to be a cynic to call that carefully crafted. I didn't have to make up their collusion.
And are you assuming that Bezos publishes letters like that without having his lawyers and PR people help? Such a course would risk a blunder and a huge shareholder lawsuit. And I know that not because I'm a cynic, but because I've actually studied corporate law at the graduate level. I suppose that makes me more academically successful than you so we should look askance at any objections you might have (your view, not mine).
The process that the patent describes was obvious to a practitioner. So what if they were the first to think of it? So what if Barnes & Noble copied them? Copying good ideas is not against the rules. Why don't Bezos and O'Reilly discuss the obviousness aspect? Because they are stupid? I don't think so. I think I'm being complimentary when I "accuse" them of being smart enough to think of it, and smart enough to leave it out of the discussion. And I'm smart enough not to let them.
Dear Patent Office, Barnes and Noble had a one-click-to-order-system, that fed into a one-click-to-confirm. They dropped the click to confirm. How can stopping doing something be considered patentable?
And furthermore, in a point that's been previously made, what computers do abstractly, and GUIs make more obvious to dumb users (the TB's of the world) is they allow real things to be virtualized. As soon as computers were invented we started getting metaphors for real life. They are all obvious to practitioners of the art. This one-click system is simply the "put it on my tab" system made virtual, just as the shopping cart metaphor before it. They are all obvious if you have a couple of synapses to rub together.
I'm going to continue my boycott of Amazon, after having read Jeff Bezos's comments.
What Jeff Bezos has proposed is a series of very good ideas on the subject of patent law reform, and I personally am going to write every politician I can find and spread the word about Bezos's proposals. I think they are quite sound.
But if you ask me, these proposals aren't enough from Bezos. Before I can take him at his word that he's really pushing for these changes, I need to see some proof of action. For example:
So Jeff, if you're reading this, take note: I'm going to keep telling people to boycott Amazon, and I'm going to tell them my new reasons why. But if you turn your words into actions, then I'll buy my books exclusively from Amazon unless they are simply not available there. (Right now, I'm buying from Barnes and Noble). I'll also explain to my friends why they should do this as a part of my word-of-mouth campaign. Call it a "carrot-stick boycott" :).
Finding God in a Dog
Remember all those people who said that the Amazon boycott is worthless because it won't affect them one bit?
This has shown that they DID have an effect, not as a way to hurt Amazon, but as a way of voicing protest.. enough to really get Amazon's attention.
We expected to make Amazon back down from one issue. We didn't get that, but we got something better: We have, apparently, gotten Amazon to actually COME TO OUR SIDE of the issue. Someone with as much potential clout as Bezos is exactly what we need in this fight.
Now if only we could get someone to reduce copyright lifespans...
No, no, no!!! IANAL, but a software patent isn't on the implementation of it (That is copyright), but on the idea. EG: The UNISYS GIF compression patent - you can implement software that creates Gifs in many languages, some of which weren't even created when the Patent was granted, but you still need to licence the Patent.
It's not the bits you are patenting, it is the alogorithm. It's not exactly "a vague idea of what a computer program should do" - it needs to be more precice than that.
Well.... you're the soon-to-be-lawyer, but wouldn't you use copyright protection for that (as an original work)?
I think that actually supports my claim. You're so eager to have them make it, because they're convenient, that you're willing to overlook a few transgressions now and then. So they spammed. So they filed for patents. So the sued over one of those patents. So what? It's *CONVENIENT* to have them!
Thanks, but no thanks. I'd like the long-term convenience of a network where companies behave like responsible citizens *before* people threaten to boycott them. You can have convenient books now, and doom us all to a lifetime of having to boycott someone every couple of weeks as they try some clever new way to abuse the system, or maybe you should step back a bit, think about your long-term needs, and make the push for *RESPONSIBLE* companies.
Amazon started with spam; they spent years insisting that they had the right to email any customer at any time until he said to quit it, and sometimes beyond that. They have never changed; they still think that way. You're not people to them, you're possible revenue streams, and I think you should remember this.
If it doesn't bother you, if purchase circles didn't bother you, if patent lawsuits didn't bother you, if horrible working conditions didn't bother you, if people who will outright lie to get a complainer off the phone didn't bother you, if Amazon employees posting to Usenet anonymously as "customers" defending Amazon's policies didn't bother you, well, I don't know what would.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
well, we could quibble, but my example was pretty dumb anyway. It doesn't invalidate my point, but confirmation of an order is not the same as authentication.
If the patent examiner only has 8-12 hours to research a patent, why do patents cost so much? Or, to put it another way, if patents run about $10,000 with lawyers fees, why doesn't the patent office just jack up their fee to hire enough examiners to look at a patent thoroughly? If they did it well, it would probably be able to reduce the legal fees associated with it, because the patent examiner would be able to assist the company in delineating exactly what they can claim, and clear up ambiguous language, rather than having ultra-expensive lawyers do this.
--Kevin
Which then raises the obvious question: are the 1201 anti-circumvention protections copyright-like protection of expression, or patent-like protection of ideas, and if the latter, how are they affected by decisions in MAI v. Peak and Sony v. Connectix?
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Do you really think it is fair that Amazon thinks of cool stuff and every single time they have a successful idea B&N steals it? I've had people do similar things to me at work and it makes me furious. B&N has an advantage to the average person (by that I mean the typical non-geek internet user) because they actually have stores so they have name recognition. Couple that with riping of every good idea Amazon has and Amazon doesn't have a chance. The point of patent law is to protect companies who have new ideas from being ripped off by copy cats like B&N and putting the innovators out of business.
That said, I really do think that the time period is too long - even what Bezos suggested. I like 2 years myself. But given the current system I think Bezos would be negligent if he didn't enforce the patent. If I was a stockholder and he dropped the lawsuit I would be pissed. Way to just give away the company.
Maybe you guys like to do work and have it ripped off. I don't. And no matter how obvious you think 1-click is, I don't see any of your guys running Amazon.
What if you worked on something you put time and throught into and I decided that it was cool enough to use in my business and I just took it? You worked on it, you thought of it - your business should benefit, right? But now I copied it and made it status quo. I get as much benefit as you do but you invested more. In my book that is as blatent as stealing money and the law should protect against it. (Granted the law could be better structured.)
Anyone got any innovative business practices from their business they want to give away to everyone else in their industry?
Comments like this are why I believe every CEO and industry leader should read slashdot,
They already do. Where do you think all those trolls come from?
--
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
A denyal of service attack is still an attack, even if there isn't any perment damage, and a security hole that permits DoS attacks is still a security hole.
It's funny how Jeff Bezos tries to make everyone happy by agreeing with everything they say, and then acting in totally opposite ways.
FACT: Amazon got the one-click patent and then SUED Barnes & Noble for violating it, even though Barnes and Noble had the same type of system before Amazon filed for the patent.
This is my belief even though the vast majority of our competitive advantage will continue to come not from patents, but from raising the bar on things like service, price, and selection -- and we will continue to raise that bar.
Then why, Jeff Bezos, is your company trying to hurt competitors via lawsuits over patent infringement, thereby reducing competition and hurting the consumer?
If your actions agreed with your words, I'd support you. As it stands, the boycott is still on, Jeff. I sure as hell don't believe this open letter of yours, because your companies actions speak much, much louder.
Oh, and Tim, about this:
In the case of the Associates patent, what is being patented is not the broad idea of referral marketing, but instead a mechanism that allows individuals on the net to establish a little virtual bookstore on their site, with fulfillment by Amazon, entirely on their own, without having to negotiate a business deal with Amazon. In effect, Amazon created an API that allowed others to use Amazon as a service.
Now I await the lawsuit against vstore.com for violating this patent. What a crock.
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- 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.
This may sound awful--where would the WWW be--but it may not actually so be. For one thing, it might have been a 'short patent,' expiring in three years. For another, it seems to me that HTTP does naught fundamentally different from, say, gopher; it is just more flexible. The great things about this is that since the fundamental basis cannot be patented, than anyone can come up with a competing technology, one which may or may not be open. It would simply have to be a little different.
But look at it this way: Berners-Lee did something that few had done before (I do not know if previous hypertext systems count as prior art); does he not deserve some sort of advantage because of this?
But I think that most of us would agree that this advantage should not be perpetual. Imagine having to pay Og's male-line for the wheel...