Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

One-Click Reprise

Posted by michael on from the click-me-baby-one-more-time dept.

The One-Click Saga has been going on for a while now. BountyQuest has now thrown in the towel on finding a definitive usage of one-click web shopping that predates Amazon's patent. Tim O'Reilly wrote a response to the finding, where he accepts Amazon's patent as valid - with nary a mention of the fact that most of the world doesn't permit software patents at all. Finally, Internetnews.com looks at the future of one-click and notes that despite any smoking gun, this might help Barnes and Noble fight their lawsuit against Amazon.

2 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Let me get this straight... by TechLawyer · · Score: 4

    Bingo. And to quote O'Reilly: On close examination, I also discovered that the One-Click patent is far narrower than people assume it is. The innovation it claims is based on some very specific software-driven steps in the Web shopping process that were designed to make it simpler and more automatic for consumers to complete e-commerce transactions. The specific steps of the claims were what had to be non-obvious and novel, and O'Reilly points out those claims are narrow indeed.

  2. This is exhausting by dkwright · · Score: 5

    When I encounter discussion of things like the one-click patent, it instantly wears me out. It's exhausting trying to think of ways to argue with people who see all ideas as salable "intellectual property". I don't think science would have made any progress if people in former times had been accustomed to thinking this way. Think if the telescope had been enforcibly patented, or the microscope.

    What can you say to someone who thinks this is a good idea? I'm not anti-business. But is there nothing that isn't owned, that isn't property.

    I predict that we will soon start patenting philosophies or religions.


    -- Purchase this .sig. Just click on it once.