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Amazon 1-Click Patent Shenanigans Continue

Posted by Hemos on from the the-story-never-ends dept.

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. "

2 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. T-Shirt. by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 5

    I destroyed Amazon.com's 1-click patent, and all I got was this lousey t-shirt.

  2. A $10,000 prize is chump-change in cost by Seth+Finkelstein · · Score: 5
    Consider this: $10,000, at $250/hour, is one work week for a skilled patent lawyer. Compare this to the amount of money and time Amazon must have spent litigating the patent.

    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.