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Apple Licences Amazon's 1-click Shopping
An anonymous reader was the first to note that Apple of all people (corps?) has announced that it is the first sane corporation to actually think Amazon's patent on one click shopping was legitimate enough to
license it. I can't fathom why Apple would do this. (Unless Bezos said they can have it for $3.50) but even then, when one company takes something so lame seriously, that's a dangerous precedent.
Indeed. The whole concept of 1-click ordering only works for repeat orders. How many people are going to be making frequent orders from Apple's online store? It's great for Amazon, because they typically sell low value goods, and so people order more often. I just can't see this being the case for Apple.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Though I appreciate your approach I still think your conclusion - that the patent might be valid is not warrented. Then there is the entirely other issue of use of patents, which isn't clear cut at all. But, given that patents are a fact of life, what is wrong with amazons patent?
Really, why were cookies developed in the first place? They were developed to enable sessions to be persistent (to my knowledge). This enables you to do stuff like automatically log on to a service such as slashdot, your web-email provider, whatever. Depending on what you do on the web, you can use this identity thing in different ways.
It's simply a combination in utterly trivial manner of existing ideas, moreover, these idea's were made to be used together.
Hyperlinks came first. Amazon was not involved. Quite a useful idea. dynamic web pages - the CGI idea - came next. CGI was intended for things such as an online store, or a message board, or in general a way to get program output easily to the web. Obviously, programs that need to communicate with a wide population really make use of this most - such as a store. Amazon couldn't get a patent on using CGI to this end, and they were not involved in CGI's developement. They weren't around at the time. Next come cookies. I don't know whether amazon already existed or not, but the ovious purpose by the "inventor" was to make sessions persistent, so that a user doesn't need to identify himself. It also makes intra-session persistence easier, but it is by no means really necessary. Amazon used cookies exactly as intended. Why should they they be rewarded for that.
After all, it was 3M who got the patent on post-its not the first person to use them.
And obviously, if patents didn't exist in the first place, certain things would be very different. For many people, it would not make a difference. For those regions in which huge investments are necessary for one advance (medicine, for instance) things would go a lot slower. But realize also that the increased freedom means you'll have a lot more people developing, so who knows whether this is a good or bad thing... and finally, the government should take an active part in funding and supporting research. It already does, but remove patents and increase support... who knows. I certainly think that the duration of patents bu much more so copyrights should be much shorter - and even shorter depending on the region. Things that take longer to develope should be protected more than those that take shorter.
For God's sake! I can't believe that, despite the number of people who have reacted to this fairly heavy-handed troll, nobody has yet pointed out that neither the silicon chip nor the heart transplant were patented. That was the whole point of the troll! I am utterly disgusted with the standard of kneejerk posters on slashdot today, so in the tradition of mad people everywhere, I am replying to one of my own posts to complain. And abusing the +2 bonus to do so, for God's sake!!
-- the most controversial site on the Web
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
For a long time there he asked that GNU software not be ported to the Apple because of the look and feel lawsuits. Maybe if Apple tries to validate this silly patent, they'll move forward and start patenting aspects of their interface for the next round of look and feel lawsuits...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Apple introduces the one-click crash. Just click once on the Help icon, and your Mac is thrown into a system crash.
Apple introduces the one-click animé plugin for Adobe Photoshop. Just one click with the animé tool, and watch that special Apple magic come to life! (WARNING: Not for use on photographs of Steve Jobs, Steve Case, or Stephen Wozniak, as they morph into Jay from Mallrats, Jay Leno, and Chewbacca the Wookiee, respectively.)
Apple introduces the one-click Electronic Funds Transfer. For each click of the new Apple Pro Mouse, $500 is directly transferred to the accounts and estate of Mr. Steven Jobs. For each millisecond of dragging the mouse, 50 cents is transferred. (DISCLAIMERS: Apple is not responsible for bank statement errors on your part. Due to high latency issues dealing with the USB port structure to which the mouse is connected, as well as the Java which is used to power the EFT logger, funds may be withdrawn at a higher rate. The user is required to wear a stylish electronic tracking necklace which comes in five flavors. If insufficient funds are reported, the necklace will automatically detonate. Apple is an Equal Opportunity Swindler. Java is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, LLC, CRAP, ETC.)
Apple introduces the one-click lobotomy. Just point your browser to any of these company webpages: Microsoft, Dell, HP, Micron, or Intel. You'll instantly have 50% of your brain mass removed by the special lobotomy Javascript plugin installed in Netscape Communicator 4.7 for the Mac. (DISCLAIMERS: Due to Javascript compilation latency, the process will take 5 agonizing days to complete. No anaesthesia is used in the process. Apple is not responsible for the following symptoms of the process: schizophrenia, delerium, homicidal tendencies, incest, and death. Use as directed.)
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
A friend of my worked for store.apple.com over the summer, and he told me that this was coming. He said this came from Jobs himself. Apparently, Jobs was in a meeting with some of the web design team and said "I want one click." Someone pointed out that it was patented by Amazon, so Steve got Bezos on the phone right then and there and said "Jeff, we want to use one click." No one heard what was said on the other end, but Steve said "OK, thanks Jeff" and hung up, and told them to go ahead and do one click. :) Otherwise, I doubt it...
I'm not really sure what the point of that story was, except that this kind of licensing and agreement between two mega-companies doesn't have to have rhyme or reason to it: it can happen because Steve Jobs is nuts and knows Jeff Bezos personally. So, if Steve knows the head of BT, maybe he will license links from them too
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
Perhaps it isn't that Apple thinks this is fair, but that Apple thinks it is cheaper to buy the license than to argue the legalities of it (though they'd be unlikely to admit that in a press release). Think of it as 'protection' money. Give Amazon cash; Amazon won't beat you up for giving your customers ease of use.
"The girl makes Godot look punctual." -- Buffy
While I am not terribly enthused about the seeming explosion of "silly patents," I tend to agree with streetlawyer here. The idea of clicking on an item, item's description, picture of an item, ascii rendition of an item . . . you get the picture. Seems pretty obvious to the relatively savvy folks around /. but there doesn't seem to be any real case for the "prior art" issue when you look at the facts. We may just have to accept that, even though it seems pretty silly, the Amazon patent is valid, and we're just going to have to deal with it (not necessarily like it).
IANAL, but my understanding of patent law is that, if I wanted to, I could patent a zepplin built from 40 mm titanium sheeting and filled with mercury as long as someone else hadn't already come up with the idea. hmmmm that would be a pretty cool project. . . Anybody got a few extra thermometers I could have?
Apple most likely didn't pay anything. From their press release it says they "licensed Amazon.com's 1-Click patent and trademark for use on its Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), as part of an e-commerce patent cross-licensing agreement." Better ask what would Amazon want of comparable value that Apple has?
I worked for a pentent law firm in DC right before I started college in '95 - you shoudl be careful what you say, there are MILLIONS of Joe Normal guys getting fucked up the ass by many a large company b/c they can't afford to defend it in the courts. The patent law firms are told by the government that they should do some percentage of pro bono cases per year, they never reach this quota - but that is relaly the only way a little guy will get it if they will go for that. There is a whole subsection of business built on "submarining" your patent. When I was working there we were right in the midst of a razor company coming up for air on their submarined technology and they were going to get a shitload for it. you file for your new product and you purposely tie it up in the courts, it is a great invention that everyone wants, and for X time it just has "patent applied for" on it and some competitors of yours use it, then after there is enough market saturation to satisfy you, you come up and you allow your companies lawyers to finalize the thing, get it out of the process and patented - you then sue the fuck out of every single company using your idea. there is a whole separate revenue stream coming from just that. if a company wants a patent, they have a full legal staff on full time solely for patent problems and they will just take whatever the hell they want and let their lawyers take so long in court that you can't afford it any longer. the only way you have a chance is if you get a pro bono or if some other companies see a benefit in it and will come and back you up in order to get it. - I can give you a great example of that too with the government and some chips for radar.- --
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Patents do cover what you describe, but only since very recently: not
so long ago they were only granted for designs of physical products.
This is still true in Europe, but legislation is going through to put
the same, loose definition of patentable design through there.
I can't fathom why Apple would do this. (Unless Bezos said they can have it for $3.50)
Jobs: "I said what do you need, Jeff my boy?"
Bezos: "I need about tree fiddy."
Jobs: "Dammit Bezos, get off my lawn, I ain't giving you no tree fiddy!"
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
here...
Apple at least have the guts to admit that the US patent system is fair. Buy licensing innovative technology from Amazon, they are playing by the book. Sure, they could have simply stolen the idea, but as a company, the know full well that Amazon would have every right to excerise their rights under the law.
This is what the patent system is all about: Allowing innovative companies to make money from their inventions. Good for Amazon, and good for Apple.
P. Hill
I personally am opposed to the concept of a patent, period. HOWEVER...
A Post-It is quite a different matter. There's the whole shebang of devising an adhesive that will adhere strongly to the note itself, but will not leave residue (or lift ink or paper fibers) from what it's stuck to. I'm willing to believe that that adhesive, and probably the particular paper, did require creativity and research. I'm sure it was very nonobvious to someone in the field.
Just because someone hasn't done something before doesn't make it such an earthshattering invention. Something might not have been done simply because nobody cared enough to actually bother with the trivial amount of work involved.
Then they really owe British Telecom some serious dough for all the hyperlinks they've been using.
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Maybe only companies who file screwy patents will acknowledge the screwy patents of others. They will create a whole little community and live in their altered reality.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
...that Apple has gotten over their "Not Invented Here" syndrome... :)
Jay (=
If I wanted to licensce 1-click ? My ass would be bleeding I'm sure
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Now, I don't understand why Apple's customers would want one click shopping. *click* I just ordered a two grand machine without even reviewing the price, or maybe my son did, or his friend, or...
Is 1-click really easier? It requires over 400 words of explanation!
The media loves Jeff Bezos saying that he wants to make Amazon.com the most "customer-centric company in the world". But whenever I've tried to order something from Amazon, I've gotten so annoyed at the interface that I've given up, and bought somewhere else (usually Buy.com, which is slightly less annoying).
In practice, 1-click is nice only if you have been willing to pay a price in your time to get started, and you have been willing to accept involvement in the complicated issues raised in the explanation above. Once you have paid a price in your time, you pay again in money for the convenience: I've found that Amazon.com is usually more expensive.
The reality, I've found, is that it is necessary to stay flexible and shop around.
According to an Amazon press release, Amazon tries different prices on different customers to survey how much people will pay. Supposedly they give back money to those who paid more during the survey. Playing complicated adversarial games in which the customer is not a player, but is the ball, is not convenient for the customer, only for Amazon.
Convenience is meaningful only if the total experience is convenient.
I'd imagine that whatever the worthiness of the patent for 1-click may be, the name itself could be better argued as a trademark. By licensing the technology, they get to use the name "1-click" without trouble (or at any rate, that is the name they're using). They might have considered the association with Amazon to be something that could help their own web sales. That doesn't change my disappointment with Apple for lending some credibility to that "patent", but it would be a valid reason for the licensing that wouldn't necessarily require Apple to take the patent seriously themselves.
Naked.
Give them your credit card number, and after pressing the mouse button JUST ONCE, you TOO can have a license for the one-click patent.
However, if you click twice, the license if voided.
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
The real question is whether or not Amazon was running another "pricing test" and Apple actually thought they were going to pay a lot less for the patent than they ended up paying.
(Or maybe they license lots of patents, and can expect to be overcharged in the future...)
Patents are not granted for products - they are granted for innovative techniques, methods or processes for solving a problem.
The one-click method is not so different to being billed for premium information on a phone call, e.g. a weather forecast. The phone company has all your billing info, so it only takes one action (making the call) to get the goods (weather forecast, delivered as audio) and be billed at the same time.
I did essentially this for a client in '94 (as I have mentioned here before). Then we thought better of it and decided NOT to store the credit card number.
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
Patents (at least in the US) are not awarded as a gold star for having come up with an original idea, they are awarded to further the public good.
The framers of the Constitution recognized that nobody has or ought to have ownership of an idea, but in order to encourage people to share ideas instead of keeping them secret they made the patent system where you were granted a limited temporary monopoly on the use of your idea--in exchange for which you had to publish your idea, with all the detail necessary for someone else to implement it. Alternatively, you are perfectly within your rights to try to keep your idea secret, but if someone else comes up with the same idea, or your secret leaks out, you have no legal recourse.
So what about the one-click patent? Regardless of whether someone thought of it before, there's no public good in protecting an idea the very description of which gives anyone "skilled in the art" enough to go on to reproduce the idea. It is impossible for Amazon both to use this idea and to keep it a secret, therefor there's no reason to bargain with them to make it public.
How can there be a wrong button when there's only one of them on the mouse? ;)
You have my condolences. Anyway, the principle might still hold water out of court... along the lines of "look, Apple licensed it, so should you".
One other benefit is that Apple can now pacify jittery shareholders. This means are now the only e-business (except amazon) who are safe from a 'one-click' lawsuit. This might be the reason for them doing this, share analysts can take exposures like this into account.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
They're doing it so that Amazon will begin carrying Apple hardware in its online stores. Apple got the deal for a song in return for "blessing" Amazon as a place to buy apple products.
And if I remember correctly, it is taking with it to the grave all of OUR personal information. And then there will be a big splatter from said grave, out of which thieves, corporations, and politions will gobble up the feeding frenzy.
Perhaps anything which forestalls this kind of a future, where all your personal information is for sale to anyone who is willing to pay for it, is a good thing.
Oh, wait... I guess all personal information IS for sale, I meant buying record at Amazon.com. So people can snicker you bought Joy of Sex online. Yeah. That's bad.
-Ben
"1-Click downloading -- an industry first which combines 1-Click shopping with the downloading of software over the Internet."
I can't believe this ridiculous claim. I've been downloading software with one click since Mosaic...
Its lame dude because there is no other way to do it. 1. you have a project you have to achieve something that work sin real life without computers and what do you get? the same as amazon. Ignore that you are shopping, it could be something else, the concept has been done before.All it does it automate something, big deal! Its not something that is impossible to develop. Its not like an NAND gate logic in silicon which is 100% unique. 2. If a patent is only valid because you are first then its lame, the fact that others have developed it at the same time totaly invalidates it. Its like asking someone , how would you catch a fish with a stick and a knife... you cant patent the result because you are first when 50 others can do it, perhaps slower but they still can. 3. I know from first hand that managers often say, "can we patent this" even if its so fucking lame because the managers heads are sooo damn soft even the most simplest concepts are baffeling. First come first granted doesnt mean its deserving. Rather its best just to invalidate the whole patent and others similar. 4. patents are becoming the new gold, will they IPO the patent office? What perhaps should happen is maybe a new Software Patent office be made, while keeping the old one with only 100% physical stuff.
I can't imagine that this is even the best use of such "technology". I buy stuff from the Apple Store and have to admit that I've never been overly concerned about the speed of the process.
:-)
I would think that "one click ordering" is intended to assist in impulse purchases (like the crap at the supermarket check out) rather than making the buying experience more user friendly. And I would suspect that it becomes less and less viable as the cost of the item goes up.
I mean, it's one thing to say "oops, I just ordered a copy of 'Dirk Gently'" and quite another to say "oops, I just ordered a G4 cube"
But I suppose that, somewhere out there, there's someone waiting for one-click ordering here.
You have NO proof to back up your claims.
The patent is on the process of tying together the cookie, button and database to allow a purchase by clicking on the button. The One-Click I believe is under trademark (if it's protected at all). Phrases describing something can't be patented yet (just waiting for a law allowing that to be introduced though :( )
/.
Here's the whole sorted history of the 1-Click patent on
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Probably not.
Icebox
Please validate your insightful moderation by providing evidence to back up your claim, with appropriate references.
I run a site that works on a pay per search basis. (selling access to information.) Currently we bill clients on a monthly basis, but we are working on credit card access.
Of course, credit card customers will not want to type in all their information each time they do a search. One they check a "stop nagging me" check box, the validation step should be skipped.
This is in a way, one click shopping. I have not done much research into the amazon patent yet, but I know I will need to.
There is nothing "inventive" about this. It's more like people were just too paranoid to use it before, so it was never implemented. I can't believe nobody has come up with something that qualifies as prior art. It is just a cgi skipping a screen because a DB already has the info.
Arrg...anyone else been real pissed off at the US government recently?
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
What's the chances that Apple is doing this now so that later when they patent something even dumber they can show that Amazon's patent is fine....
Ever since Slashdot, I've been getting more into conspericy theorys.....
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
How about have a single field in a form. Press [RETURN] or [ENTER] to purchase? "1-Keypress Shopping"
Or maybe just a JavaScript onMouseOver image. "1-Rollover Shopping"
Or maybe a downloadable application that listens to microphone input? "1-Clap Shopping"
If it's so "obvious" that "anyone" could have invented it, you have to come up with a slick explanation for why there was no undeclared prior art; why nobody did in fact invent it. I've not been impressed by any of the claims made about this patent on Slashdot and indeed, am coming round to the view that it's valid. Think of the example of Post-it notes -- the idea of sticking pieces of paper with messages on them to things is as old as paper, but nobody designed that specific product until 3M. A patent isn't on a general idea, it's on a particular product, and Amazon invented the one-click ordering product. Deal with it. Or at least, come up with some actual, cogent reasons why the product is "lame" instead of just saying it is. Or better still, have the honesty to admit that you hate *all* patents, from the silicon chip to the heart transplant, and that you don't care that we wouldn't have half the "cool stuff" we all crave without 'em.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
and purchased this licence in 1-click.
---
Every secretary using MSWord wastes enough resources
Apple here is probably protecting that parternship, possibly getting the licensing rights for a song, instead of either implement it awaiting a lawsuit, or taking the patent to court, both which could easily destroy the partnership.
I'll wait till some other company that has no Amazon ties steps in and does the same (B&N, thinkgeek), then that might help provide the unwanted validity on the 1-click patent.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
If you look at it from a sane (as opposed to a mouth-frothing) point of view, Apple did not so much license a technology, but rather the **NAME** of "1-click(TM)" shopping.
This is similar to Apple's FireWire license - anyone can build IEEE.1394 stuff, but you need to license the name 'FIREWIRE' from Apple in order to use it (the license is free, BTW).
Since none of the busybodies on here actually know how much, if anything, Apple has paid for this license, the whole issue, except on a philosophical level, is moot.
On a business-level it makes sense, as "1-Click" is a catchy expression, and by licensing an existing 'concept', it renders legitimacy to the experience, and saves Apple from having to come up with a spiffy work-around name.
Licensing isn't all about 'inventions' - you can license the right to the use of a cartoon character, a book, a special term - that's what this is about, not about technology. I'm surprised none of the 'smart' people on here who spout their opposition have understood something as simple.
Harry
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Near the end of that page lies the text:
Eric
... this may be obvious to everyone else, maybe I missed reading /. the day it was first discussed: What's the deal with the one-click patent? Does it just mean you can say 'one click' on your site or does it include the simple act of only clicking once to buy something? If the latter is the case, I'll get up in arms with the rest of you...if the former, then, uh, why all the fuss?
Thanks...
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Besides, what's a few million between companies like that?