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Barnes & Noble Challenges Amazon 1-Click Patent (UPDATED)
Smitty825 writes: "Barnes & Noble is challenging the Amazon 1-click patent. Hopefully this will invalidate that lame patent, and hopefully this will clarify what is a valid patent. Full story here." There may be certain business methods worth patenting (or at least keeping secret, if you're so inclined), but "one-click" anything seems too silly for consideration, doesn't it? Update: 10/03 4:26 PM by michael : See also this easy one-click exploit of Amazon's one-click system.
They are not only patenting "technology" but basic business processes. Amazon hold a patent or is trying get it patented on affilation. (Correct me if I am wrong) Basicly if you link my site and someone orders from that link then you get some money. This was used for years in the real business world it is called referals. Is this really novel no but since they have some good techinical writers they can get things like this patented. This harms small businesses who could not afford to pay the fees.
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Thats where most /. readers and I disagree with you. It is an obvious invention. You run a commercial website, you have customers, you use cookies. The whole purpose of cookies is to prevent your customer from entering the same information every time they use your site. All Amazon has done was to put their cute little name on the process.
Amazon did not invent cookies, and thankfully they are something any website can use. Therefore, I argue that any use of cookies to save your customers from repeating tasks when they visit your site is fair and should be legal.
I watch the sea.
I saw it on TV.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Look at the draft for cookies from netscape:c .html
http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spe
"This simple mechanism provides a powerful new tool which enables a host of new types of applications to be written for web-based environments. Shopping applications can now store information about the currently selected items, for fee services can send back registration information and free the client from retyping a user-id on next connection, sites can store per-user preferences on the client, and have the client supply those preferences every time that site is connected to."
Which part of that doesnt make storing user information like credit cards __**BLINDINGLY**__ obvious? This if from the original _draft_ of the cookie spec. Im sure if you ask netscape they can dig up the original date they submitted it on or something.
- Multiple people may use the same computer.
Frankly, this patent isn't just for an obvious idea, but for an idea that is obviously stupid to anyone who gives more than a passing thought to security. This patent is no different from MSFT patenting automatically executing email attachments (another obvious and stupid idea) .Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
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As I was rummaging around the patent database, I couldn't help but repeatedly soil my pants as I beheld the depths of Amazon's patent depravity.
As I continued rummaging, I realized that software patents are taking around 1.4 years to clear during which time only the applicant and the PTO have awareness of the claim. Is it just me or would disclosing the details of patents before they're granted revoluti*nize the discovery process for prior art?
By disclosing pending patents, they could immediately offload the tedium to those organizations most desperate (and knowledgable) to stop ill-bred patents... those same organizations would be beaten into licensing submission by legal henchmen weilding ill-gotten patents on loan from the PTO.
Yeah, it would be much harder to get a patent when your competition is digging up examples of why your idea is non-obvious. But isn't that the whole point?
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That's an old-new-economy model. In order to succeed in the new-new-economy model companies will need to proactively seek out and deliver goods to consumers, collecting money later. Only yesterday the Fedex man delivered a Christmas tree, a waffle iron, 100 unopened wax packs of baseball cards (may contain valuable rookie cards!) and a nordic skiing machine. The week before I got a Honda Civic, a Tivo and two different steak knife sets.
I hope all this stuff won't cost too much.
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Let's assume that Patents are handed out like AOL CDs. I can't imagine that smaller business could risk going after patent infringers if they're afraid it was a lame patent. Companies shouldn't have to fight over patents after they're granted; the fight should be before they're granted!
Face it: My idea of a lame patent can be someone else's life-long dream. I guess I think of 1-Click Shopping as a useless gimmick, as I'd never want to Click-and-automagically-buy something anyway, but Amazon puts it around their core sales strategy. So, they try to patent it.
My point is this: Companies try to patent everything they can due to the fact that they've had to pay for their employees to think up such things. Not everyone has the ideals of the FSF and all of the OSS developers. Businesses need to differentiate themselves, whether it be through functionality, appearance, etc.
That's why businesses need patent protection - ensure that their good idea makes themselves money, not their competitors. I don't see how we can blame Amazon. They're trying to discover their boundaries. Who here hasn't pushed the rules to check how far they could go, with sports, work, overclocking, etc?
<opinion>
Don't blame Amazon. Blame the Patent Office for giving Amazon an overly large protected space in which to operate.
</opinion>
mouseover shopping. All you have to do is hold your mouse over the buy button for 2 seconds...
change me
This way of arguing really slants things. The general form is devious: "Some have criticized [insert reasonable criticism here]. Some of this criticism comes from [insert more radical elements of the larger critiquing community here]. Similar kinds of criticisms were raised in [some other situation in which we ignored the criticisms]". The basic idea is to invalidate the criticisms by saying "yeah, but some of them come from really out-there people, and see, we've ignored this stuff before!" It's kinda like guilt by association. "If you agree with these criticisms, then you must be in this group over here which is at one extreme."
No sir, I don't like it.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Does Ook the Caveman pointing at what he wants and grunting count as prior art?
The web has gotten to be rather large. I'll bet that there are at least 5,000 pages on category "X" that even the world's most well-rounded category "X" expert has never read, or heard of.
How do we _really_ know that Amazon was the first to come up with 1-click checkout? How do we know that it wasn't first conceived or implemented on some obscure site selling hubcaps for '55 Buicks?
_If_ Amazon (or some other company) was the first one to the patent office with an idea, you can't really blame the patent office for granting an "obvious" patent. Would reactions be different if this patent was held by some 15 year old kid that wanted to license it out? The world is about making money, and patents have value. Personally, I think this is mostly a PR thing for Amazon to continue to grab headlines. This is the sort of thing that they can milk continual mention out of.
It's become evident that the Internet has changed the way that we do almost EVERYTHING. The problem is that the bulk of our lawmakers and governmental bodies are folks who have been for the most part "passed by" by most of this new technology. Do you think that these people _really_ give a shit? I doubt it, they grant the patent, and let the courts sort it out, while the rest of us sit on the edge of our seats, taking bets in office pools on the day that society at large meltsdown on itself from not understanding the technology it created.
-This sig intentionally left blank
"In the fiscal year that ended Saturday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said Friday it will have granted about 1,000 patents out of 5,000 applications for computer-related business methods."
Man, if 4,000 applications failed while something like 1-click made it, makes you wonder how stupid those 4,000 were!
'Application for patent: Method -- Slamming forehead on keyboard'...
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Private Essayist
It may not be a particularly "insightful" patent, but that doesn't by itself disqualify it from being invalid. The patent office does have guidelines about these sorts of things, and I think it's clear that Amazon were the first people to actually use this kind of system in a real-world situation.
To me this means it is a valid patent.
If you don't like this patent then attack the rules that made it possible, not Amazon. Amazon are a company persuing their fudiciary responsibilities to their shareholders, and of course they're going to take every avenue possible to increase their revenue streams.
Nothing is too silly for a legal system. Legal system works by the law, not by "common sense", and this is probably good because some 90% of earth population is lacking that sense completely and the remaining 10% have very different view on what it is.
You won't blame your computer when it does something stupid - you don't blame legal system for it. You blame the law (or lack of it) which made it to work this way. Your americans should call (or write) your government representative and make the law change, not blame some poor guy at the patent office because he doesn't know is the "one click" obvious or not - most probably for him it's just half of "two click", whatever that be.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
From the headline and story, you'd have almost no idea what is actually going on. In fact, this is a continuation of the Amazon v. Barnes & Noble case filed last year, where Amazon sued B&N for patent infringement, sought a preliminary injunction, and Amazon prevailed.
Now, when a preliminary injunction is granted, the losing party is entitled to seek appeal directly to the Federal Circuit, rather than waiting until a final judgment is rendered in the case. This article is just that appeal. There is no new evidence or prior art that has been or can be raised, just a review of the decision below in view of the record that was then before the Court.
Maybe B&N will prevail, maybe not. If Amazon does prevail, however, do you suppose that we can expect to see a headline stating that the Amazon 1-click patent has been cleared as valid? Of course not. It would not be true, nor would it be appropriate -- that's not what will have happened -- this is just a case resolving an appeal of a temporary injunction. For the same reason, the present headline and story is likewise inappropriate.
I would, however, be interested in the specific issues being appealed -- does anyone know if a copy of the briefs may be found on-line?