Slashdot Mirror
Amazon 1-Click Patent Shenanigans Continue
theodp writes: "SiliconValley.com has a report today on the strange saga of the Amazon.com 1-Click Bounty contest. BountyQuest president Charles Cella is refusing to answer questions on the contest. Tim O'Reilly admits he's not clear how BountyQuest officials researched and judged the entries, but still lashes out against charges of possible shenanigans raised by a contestant who BountyQuest tried to "buy off" with a T-shirt. In the meantime, Jeff Bezos still has no comment on the contest's odd outcome. "
Consider three possible outcomes:
1. Smoking gun prior art is found.
2. Art close to the patent but not exactly is found.
3. Nothing is found.
In case 3 the bounty submitter loses BQ's fee, and gains the ability to say in court "we searched and found nothing both publicly and privately." Well worth the fee!
In case 2, you lose the fee and the bounty, and you gain the ability to say in court "we searched and we found stuff which is relavent but different in the following ways ..." which you have now had a long time to dissect with an army of lawyers. AND you might get ideas of things which you CAN ADD to your patent that you didn't think of before.
In case 1, you lose the fee, the bounty, the patent, but you gain: the knowledge that only the lawyers will get rich if you try to enforce your patent. You just saved possibly YEARS of litigation, and millions of dollars of law fees.
That my friends is the point! #2 is what you WANT to have happen, because that is information that you can USE to show how your idea is DIFFERENT.
For those who don't regularly read "Good Morning Silicon Valley," there is an [interview] with several of the BountyQuest bigwigs.
I'm discouraged by their answers. I asked what I considered a fairly hard-hitting question, basically accusing them of pandering to lazy lawyers for lazy companies that want to saddle their competition with research and development costs, by stealing their patents.
Naturally, the boys blew sunshine and roses up our collective asses, completely ignoring the potential consequences of discouraging companies from doing their own research and development.
In all honesty, I think BountyQuest is just as sleazy as the grubbing patent lawyers. They're using the geek (chem geek, electronic geek, bio geek, etc) communities as dupes for lawyers. Shameless!
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I destroyed Amazon.com's 1-click patent, and all I got was this lousey t-shirt.
And how much would a killer prior art be worth to Barnes and Noble?
Essentially, they offered a prize which is very much peanuts compared to the cost and value of this patent. And not a lot to motivate a professional patent person to take it on (except just for the challenge)
What they did was to wager that an amateur would not find something that their lawyers hadn't already found. And they could make great publicity out of the offer.
That's not a bad bet.
On March 2, 2001 a company called MCAM issues an analysis on the Amazon 1-click patent. The report makes available several instances of prior art -- exactly the stuff Bounty Quest is looking for.
A week later, Bounty Quest makes its announcement. There is prior art, but nobody submitted it. (Right) ;-)
On March 14, 2001 Internetnews.com reports on this whole fiasco and draws into question some of the motives behind Bounty Quest.
What does it matter if BountyQuest decided that this guy didn't deserve a share in the bounty? Sure, he's obviously pissed, fine. But that doesn't equate to a "whitewash"; his submission is still there. It would be a whitewash only if they tried to make it look like he had never submitted at all.
Conway's logic here is like claiming that not winning the race is equivalent to not having raced at all. That's crazy. You may not be in the winner's circle, but people saw you on the track.
I know that it is just another Onion joke, but I got really upset when I read that Onion article. Maybe I read slashdot too much? Maybe I think that Microsoft will eventually do something as bad as that, in real life.
Minivend, an open source e-commerce app had 1-click in 1996. http://developer.akopia.com
Daniel
A conspiracy theory that suggests that the this story was just a smart way to hide any prior art for the one-click patent is too far fetched. Let's see... first I create a forum and a focus for people to come forward with incriminating evidence, then I try to silence them with a t-shirt. Why would anyone so smart be so stupid? Apply Occam's Razor and take the simplest solution: quite a few people stumbled here, but there is no hidden agenda.
My blog
Barbrady: Ok ok, let's calm down. People of Slashdot, do you declare shenanigans on the Amazon people?
Slashdot People: YEAH!!!!!!!!
Barbrady: Ok Amazon people. Do you accept this decree of shenanigans?
Amazon Woman: What the hell are you talkin about? This whole site is screwy.
Barbrady: Well that settles it. Everybody grab a broom! It's Shenanigans!!!
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/08/2058216.shtm l
http://www.bountyquest.com/bounties/displayBounty. php?bountyName=1019
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
Last fall, O'Reilly and Bezos joined forces, investing in a Boston-based company called BountyQuest
So O'Reilly and Bezos both have a monetary interest in BountyQuest, agreed? Now look at this part of the article:
Matthew Powers, managing partner of the Silicon Valley office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, says it's unlikely the site would try to cover for Amazon.
First off, yes they would if Jeff Bezos is one of their primary investors, and head of one of the largest online companies around. Secondly, I find it ironic that O'Reilly is also a partner. Why try and blast Bezos' patent, then join forces on a seperate project? Sounds like a cleverly veiled plan to keep O'Reilly satisfied with money, the eventual stock rise of BountyQuest, while keeping the one click patent in place for Amazon.com. Bezos helps build up BountyQuest, they design a contest to expose 'prior art' for existing patents, then when people find some that resemble the Amazon.com one click patent, they pay them off with just enough cash to shut them up. No wonder the guy with the T-shirt got screwed. His sounds like the most plausible reason to dismiss Amazon's patent, but we can't have that now, can we? So give him a T-shirt, everyone will think the other three entries were 'better' and life will go on. I would really like to see all four entries in their entirety and judge for myself. Links anyone?
After reading the SlashDot teaser, I found the article actually says absolutely nothing to impinge on BountyQuest's credibility.
The company actually decided to give partial prizes on the Amazon challenge, even though they were understand absolutely no obligation to do so.
They have also already given away several $10,000 bounties as promised. The company is legit. That article is lame-o.
they'll finally be able to overturn some of those damn Microsoft Patents
Then maybe I'll be able to get something done...
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BountyQuest here.
We invite the Slashdot community to judge for itself on this one. Here are a few points to consider.
1) There were no winners in the 1-click contest, but we did receive a lot of great art.
2) Tim O'Reilly, out of the goodness of his heart, decided to give away $10,000 of his own money, split among some of the best art we received, as a consolation prize.
3) We posted all of the art for all the world to see on our web site. (Something we were under no obligation to do.)
4) One hunter who didn't win or get a share of the gracious award is upset.
We suggest you look at his submission: #25 and see what you think. Is it better than the TV-Remote control submission (#18)? We'd love to hear what you think about it.
And now, back to reforming the patent system!
The BountyQuest team