Amazon Seeks '2-Click' Shopping Cart Patent

theodp writes "Looks like Amazon's really getting back in the patent game. Today, the USPTO published Amazon's patent application for conducting electronic commerce using multiple shopping carts. Using the invention, a shopper purchasing items for five relatives can set up one shopping cart for each relative, a shopper purchasing books for Johnny can name one of his shopping carts "Johnny's books", and a shopper can add items to multiple shopping carts with only two mouse clicks." This might also be a good time to point out to those who didn't see it the first time AOL's patent claims regarding "Instant Message" technology; you may be able to think of some prior art.

Comments

AOL Prior Art

[sdamberger]

On the old PLATO system there was an instant messaging called term-talk. I was using that way back in 1979 and I'm sure it's from even earlier than that.

Re:AOL Prior Art

[operagost]

PHONE has been in VMS since DECNET appeared. That would have to be the mid-1970's. It has a split screen with the caller on the top and the recipient on the bottom. Even cooler was the ability to call a third person (maybe more, never tried it). It was a lot easier than trying to set up a chat room on AIM!

I do also remember using "write" on Xenix. That was annoying, we pretty much all had "write n" in out .login.

Re:AOL Prior Art

[geekee]

talk has been on unix for some time as well. The AOL patent talks about a system where you can see who is online, however, and IM them. talk didn't support this.

Re:AOL Prior Art

[gorilla]

No, but finger did.

Does this preclude the...

[polv0]

Click, ponder, drag, click again?
Click, click... pirouette, double-click, sashay?
Triple-click, behind the back, no-look double-pump click?

Re:Does this preclude the...

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Click, ponder, drag, click again?
Click, click... pirouette, double-click, sashay?
Triple-click, behind the back, no-look double-pump click?"

Nothin but Net!

Re:Does this preclude the...

[FireballFreddy]

I'm going to patent click-bang-thud technology.

Just so you know, the click is releasing the safety on a pistol aimed at the patent officer who approves these idiotic Amazon patents. You can probably figure out the rest. ;)

-FF

Instant Message Patent--Zephyr

[tmhsiao]

I'm not sure how AOL's patent application is worded, but if they specifically mention a windowed environment, MIT's Zephyr system operates under X.

Re:Instant Message Patent--Zephyr

[MosesJones]

talk, wall etc were all in non-windowed. xtalk and lots of others were windows. The "unique" element is being able to see who is online before you talk to them.

We used to achieve this by use of the advanced commands

"who" which gave you a list of who was on the server. This refreshed every few minutes (sys admins didn't like the number being too low) then you could just use write. Everyone specified a write terminal and you just used that.

Now when we got TWO servers we had to modify the script to use rwho and unfortunately there wasn't an rwrite (is there now?) which was okay because we got X displays anyway.

So in X you start ONE instance of the application, and when people log-on you send a request to the main server (i.e. you send a special email) which fires up a window on your display. The email contained the name of the person, you could then do lots of things including writing to each other.

Oh and the application was called Emacs and we were trying to do a group project.

Pity we didn't realise that we could patent "Open on New Display".

So if its single server using thin clients then there is lots of prior art, if its multiple applications being aware when new people join there is, for me, and even better one.

Jini is all about joining federations, annoucing you are there, requesting services, starting conversations et al. This is surely proof that it fails the "not obvious" test as someone has written a whole environment that can do, in effect, IM between people, computers, printers, machines, PDAs etc etc etc.

I've now just decided to patent syntax highlighting.

Next week on Slashdot:

[Randolpho]

AOL Patents "0-click" spam reception technique.

We at AOL want you to not have to do *anything* to receive spam.

Re:Next week on Slashdot:

[The_Shadows]

Oddly, you may have stumbled on an amazing idea.

If AOL would patent pop-up advertising, it would make all other pop-up ads in violation of patent, and AOL could demand all the money from any spammers who use pop-ups.

Could that work? I mean, IANAL, but that would rock if only AOL could do pop-ups, or at least we'd know that AOL charged an arm and a leg to let anyone else do it.

Next on the list: Flash ads, and e-mail spam!

Re:Next week on Slashdot:

[XorNand]

Assuming that AOL invented popups (which is a stretch in of itself), they could not patent it because it's been disclosed to the public for >1 year.

Brief primer on patents.

Re:Next week on Slashdot:

[Randolpho]

So has Instant Messaging, and yet they've managed a patent on that. :)

well of course

[tps12]

2-Click shopping is just two 1-Click shoppings daisy chained together. The patent office gave them the 1-Click patent, so that's who the 2-Click one should go to two. Uh, too.

Re:well of course

[mOdQuArK!]

Therefore, by inductive proof, you can show that Amazon now owns any type of online shopping which requires any kind of clicking.

Grandma

[Trusty Penfold]

When I go shopping for my dear old grandma I use 2 carts, one for me and one for granny.

However, my grandma isn't called Johnny, so this probably doesn't count.

Re:Grandma

[Alain Williams]

This is the stupidity of the whole thing. People have been shopping with more than one cart for years, why the f**k can someone patent something that every one already does - just because there is a computer in the loop ?

It is this fundemental idea that just adding a bit of technicality to something that is commonly done somehow makes it completely new/novel & so patentable. This is what needs to be attacked, rather than the stream of pitiful patents by money grabbing sharks.

The law makers need to be reminded that the purpose of a patent was for the common good, not to line the pockets of those that make political donations -- darn, I have just destroyed my own argument!

Why don't they just patent the mouse?

[waveguide]

That would make about as much sense as this.

Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[Doodhwala]

Here is a slightly modified text of an email I sent to the author of the news.com article on AOL's patent on IM.

FYI, with regards to this article, I don't know how strong this patent is because of existing prior art. If you look at this article in MIT's Technology Review, you will see that a form of IM called zephyr with buddy lists as well as chat-room style broadcasts existed since 1988. It would be great if you could also post this information in a future update to let everyone know.

Zephyr exists till today (and we here at Carnegie Mellon as well as students at MIT) use it on a daily basis. Even emacs supports zephyr :)

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[elmegil]

AOL was founded in 1986. They have a reasonable possibility of being able to claim that they came up with the idea before 1988. Likely true? I doubt it. But Zephyr is not obviously prior art as you seem to think.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[tmhsiao]

From the previous article, the patent was filed by Mirabilis (later purchased by AOL), which came out with ICQ in 1996 or so.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[farnsworth]

Even emacs supports zephyr

Couldn't the USPTO application process be simplified by consulting the emacs docs for every single patent application? If emacs can't do whatever the patent is for, it's practically a certainty that the idea is new.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[dh003i]

Simply "coming up with an idea" does not count. Zephyr was actually existed in 1988. AOL's instant messenger came out quite some time later.

What matters is the actual creation of the thing. Anyone can have an "idea".

AOL's patent claims are, of course, absurd. Any patent claims on such an obvious functionality as the basic IM features is absurd. What they want is the right to retroactively stop all other IM services to fill their coffers with $$$.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[scm]

How about RFC 821, published in Aug 1982, section 3.4 on the SEND command:

SEND <SP> FROM:<reverse-path> <CRLF>

The SEND command requires that the mail data be delivered to the user's terminal. If the user is not active (or not accepting terminal messages) on the host a 450 reply may returned to a RCPT command. The mail transaction is successful if the message is delivered the terminal.

As far as I can tell, no one impliments these commands... but they are in the RFC and they sound a lot like instant messages to me.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[Doodhwala]

On that note, Project Athena, the umbrella project for zephyr, was kicked off in 1983. I have actually read some of the zephyr code (oh yes, GAIM also supports zephyr) and my guess is that the project was definitely started way before 1988. There is a very reasonable chance that if someone went through the code in detail, there would be information dating it prior to AOL being founded.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[elmegil]

There was a time when no one had heard of Instant Messaging at which point they were not "obvious functionality". And I don't just mean idea in someone's head, I mean, as someone else pointed out, a documented spec for what it is and how to do it. Implementation is not necessary for a patent, though it helps. And since AOL was founded in 1986, they could have HAD an implementation in 1986! Not being an expert in the history of AOL, I can't say for certain.

I agree that the claims are probably as groundless the 1-click stuff, but simply asserting that something existed in 1988 that implemented the same functionality does not disprove that AOL may have had it prior to that.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[Raul Acevedo]

I entered MIT in 1987, and Zephyr was already a fully developed program at that point, so I'm certain that it is true prior art.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[elmegil]

Didn't MIT teach you to prove, not assume? That's my point. People ranting about how they believe that there MUST be prior art aren't a priori WRONG, they just aren't saying anything informative or useful. I'm trying to find someone who has the knowledge or the time to do the research and prove the prior art, not just another slashdork who can rave all he likes about what he thinks is likely but nevr proves anything.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[dh003i]

Actually, as someone else here has noted out, Zephyr was in development since 1983, and fully developed by 1987. That proves there was prior art.

Re:Prior Art for Instant Messaging!

[elmegil]

If AOL had instant messaging in 1986, do you really expect me to believe it sprung full formed from their heads? You ain't proved jack until you show when AOL implemented IM, and when they started.

Of course, this is all pretty academic. In slashback someone showed a PLATO system that was essentially IM in 1973 or so. That is pretty incontravertable prior art.

patent prior art?

[Quasar1999]

will someone hurry up and patent spamming? And then sue the bastards for royalty? that should put an end to it... If these stupid people at amazon get away with their patent, we have a strong case for the spamming patent, sure it's been done before, sure it's done by most everyone, sure they didn't enforce their IP... I still want the patent dang it!

New patent

[GMontag]

Okay, I have had enough, I am going to patent the "one finger response" to the ignorance lawyers can invent, only to be eclipsed by the ignorance government can dispense.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I will own all of you

[teamhasnoi]

I have patented the "Random Number of Increasing Intensity Clicks" that occurs when a program locks up.

You know, just a couple at first, then as realization dawns, a flurry of hammers upon the mouse!

No! You infernal machine!*click* *Click*

You *CLICK* WILL *CLICK CLICK* PAAAAAAAYYYY!

*CLICK CLICK* CLICK *CLICK CLICK CLICK* AHHHHHHHH!

I'd like to thank Microsoft for giving me the idea...grr

In European Onion

[Anne Thwacks]

In Europe, I am pretty sure that this is not patentable. (No software patents, no patents on business methods)

If your server is located in Europe can AOL ask Bush to bomb you for failing to comply with American patents? Even if you are not a muslim?

Re:In European Onion

[Galvatron]

If you do business in America, you can be sued in American courts. If you want to do business entirely outside of the USA (which, by the way, accounts for approximately 1/3rd of the world economy), you are not bound by US commercial law. However, if you do ship products to American customers, you can be sued for failing to comply with American patents. If you don't pay, the US government will likely seize any assets within American borders, and could take the additional steps of impounding any further products sent to US customers (somewhat less likely) or even arrest any employees of the company in question who visit the States (least likely of all, and even if this step were taken, it would probably be reserved for high ranking officers like the CEO).

IANAL, merely an economics student. However, I do think it would be nice if people toned down their anti-US "they think their laws apply to everyone" rhetoric. Even the ElcomSoft case is based mainly around the fact that they knowingly exported their product to American customers. Every country in the world does the exact same thing. The only difference is that it's harder to avoid doing business with the US, because as I mentioned above, this country has such an enormous economy.

Re:1-Click and 2-Click are taken...

[Anonymous Coward]

No one better come after by 47 click shopping cart. It's much easier than my 974 click cart.

What is the difference between...

[RebelTycoon]

Allowing the Customer to name their shopping basket AND having a basket named for them. ie. Wedding, Baby Shower, Wishlist, Gift basket, even Shopping Cart.

The fact that the user can have multiple baskets is not new. What seems to be new is for the customer to be able to name their own basket.

What's next, being able to patent dividers into a single shopping cart where products can be grouped? (sort of like an ICQ contact list).

This is getting stupid... Sure its creative, but I think less then 5% of customers will use this.

And I shall file...

[wowbagger]

And I shall file a patent on:

"A method, given an N-click shopping method, to convert it into an N+1 click shopping method."

Thus, I shall be able to stymie Amazon's 3, 4, 5 ... click patents!

MWHAHAHAHAH!

Re:And I shall file...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately they own the N=1 patent. In order to show your mathematical induction for the N->N+1, you'll need that. :(

Alright I'm getting ahead of the game.

[unformed]

I'm 3-click shopping where the first click selects the shopping cart, the second click selects the credit card you want to pay with (for all the poor-ass people like me who need to spread out their bills over multiple cards) and the third click will order the item!

Woohoo! No more multiple credit cards for me, time to sue people and make money!

Already Been Thought of, Still Patentable?

[DrMaurer]

I had this idea when the whole "fiasco" of "Amazon Thinks I'm Gay," and I even posted it on Ars Technica's open forum and (I think) here.

Does anyone actually know when an idea like this is patentable? Is it the prototype stage or just when the idea comes and the papers are filed? Could I have actually filed the papers a month ago? Or does the fact that the papers were published today mean that they filed it much longer before I thought of it (1-2 months ago)?

Just wondering, even if justified, I lack the resources to fight such a thing.

I just think having a patent would be kind of cool. Of course, I also spend half my day figuring out how to eliminate my own job at work, so . . .

And the IM patent: I wonder of the /msg in IRC could be considered prior art, or the "net send" command.

I don't have the whole answer

[ACNeal]

But there needs to be some sort of punitive damages assesed against ridiculous patents. Make it a civil tort to file unenforcable patents: overly broad, prior art, or obvious.

The burden of searching for prior art should be on the applicant. We wouldn't simply take their word for it, but hold them accountable. If the prior art was easy enough to find, make it a punitive civil matter. And this is a perfect place for a jury, since John Q. Basementinventor has a little less resources to investigate prior art than someone like Amazon.

Obviously this is fraught with more problems than the actual USPTO, but the idea is there. Somthing (like money, or the fear of losing it) to keep people from filing all these frivilous patents.

Re:I don't have the whole answer

[Alain Williams]

More to the point if a patent holder is presented with potential prior art after the patent is granted, they should be obliged to evaluate the putative prior art and, if it is indeed prior art, withdraw the patent.

There should be penalties if they do not do this in a timely/honest/... manner.

This will never happen: if it did, lawyers would make less money - so this will never get voted in.

Obfuscation

[jdludlow]

Claim #29 is patently rediculous. (har har)

29. A computer system for conducting electronic commerce, comprising: a data component for storing information relating to a plurality of electronic commerce contexts for a user, the information relating to electronic commerce conducted while in that electronic commerce context; a component that receives from the user a selection of one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts; and a component that, after receiving the selection of the one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts, conducts electronic commerce with the user and stores information relating to the conducted electronic commerce in association with the selected electronic commerce context.

They are obviously trying to confuse a non-technical reader (like, say, someone in the patent office). All these words to say that you get to click on one of your shopping carts to check-out.

They can't even say "shopping cart". It's the all important, and brand new, "electronic commerce context." Ooooo.

Re:Obfuscation

[glwtta]

quick way to create new patent applications from old ones:

s/((\w+\s){3})/$1plurality /g;

Re:Obfuscation

[Tim Browse]

And then apply the PHB algorithm:

s/\./,/g;
s/use/utilize/g;

Tim

Re:Obfuscation

[slackergod]

E-Commerce is just another word for sales over TCP.
Instead of just getting an n-th click patent, they should
next try for the internet itself...

Given a little reworking of the above quoted piece...

A computer system for conducting electronic commerce, comprising:
A computer system for managing connections to a specific service, comprising:

a data component for storing information relating to a plurality of electronic commerce contexts for a user,
a program for storing the information about all of a given user's connections to the service, for all users.

the information relating to electronic commerce conducted while in that electronic commerce context;
and for logging the contents of all past sessions for a given user;

a component that receives from the user a selection of one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts;
and a program which, given the selection of one of a user's connections, and passes it to
and a component that, after receiving the selection of the one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts,
a program which, after being given the connection,

conducts electronic commerce with the user
proceeds to provide the service to the user

and stores information relating to the conducted electronic commerce
and logs information related to the session

in association with the selected electronic commerce context.
along with information on the connection itself.

... Performing a similar change to the rest of their patent,
I could file a patent and cover phone systems, security/authenication systems, PAM, HTTP, TCP,
oh, and e-commerce.

they should file my version, much more general, and more profitable!


[the preceding was brought to you by the campaign to mock corporate america]

Re:Obfuscation

[schwap]

From that description I could easily claim prior art. If my code is still around from one of my jobs where I did this it would be easy. I created a shopping cart system that allows the saving of carts and the ability to change the active cart, combining carts, and the ability to checkout more than one cart at a time. Add to that the capabilities of a quote system for related items, I should have been able to apply for a patent. You know, I may even have a back up of all that somewhere on one of my computers... At the time, I was creating something completely new. I had never seen or used anything like it before, but I never thought it worthy enough of a patent. It is plainly obvious to anyone with some database, perl and apache experience.

The page you made..

[borkus]

...for your spouse, your kids and your dog.

Multiple carts lets Amazon refine its recommendations engine. Before, if you bought something as a gift, it drove your recommendations, even if it wasn't something you personally would want. Now, Amazon can generate recommendations for other people based on what you buy them or even add to their cart.

Electronic world imitating real world

[dagg]

I just got back home from Walmart. Don't go there until around mid-January (after everyone brings back all their gifts) if you can avoid it.

Anyways, I saw several people with more than one shopping cart. They were hauling two shopping carts around the store, barely fitting through the aisles. The two shopping carts were necessary because they were purchasing gifts for several people in their households. The gifts were large. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that one shopping cart was for girls (everything was pink, such as Barbie dolls), and the other one was for an adult (a BBQ grill).

There ya go, Walmart customer #98981663711 is what inspired this lunacy. Or maybe that customer got the idea from those genious Amazon'ians ?

Why not just take it all the way?

[Hayzeus]

.. and just patent the act of clicking itself? On anything. I mean, what are they waiting for?

No, finger also worked as a user online indicator

[Myrv]

Finger on most of the systems I've used not only gave user information but also told me whether the user was logged in and how long they'd been idle for. This covers the to see when other users are present part of the AOL IM patent. Talk could then be used to initiate a conversation.

claimed from when?

[bilbobuggins]

ok, when exactly are they claiming to have invented this?

i don't know the first thing about proving prior art, but i happen to know i came up with the idea of saving multiple shopping carts w/ names roughly around 1998

proving it is going to require showing some spaghetti that i'm really not that proud of though ;)

Using the Get Smart model?

[dr_dank]

Amazon: At this very moment, we have teams of lawyers working on patenting our one click buying technology.

*silence*

Would you believe two click buying?

*silence*

Would you believe five clicks and and clack?

Two shopping baskets...

[MosesJones]

And someone tell me how this is different from "save for later" but with "save for later" detailed as "Johnny" ?

Hell doesn't everyone already do that ?

Perhaps I should patent the way I sit on the couch

[Slashdot Junky]

Dear world,

Perhaps I should apply for the way I sit on the couch. You know leaning to one side with one leg up on the ottoman. I could then sue anyone who sits in anyway similar.

Patents shouldn't be granted for such general and vague concepts, period. Greed. Greed. Greed. Can we all say greed?

-Slashdot Junky

Covering their butts

[GeckoFood]

Amazon is playing smart, I think.

Not too terribly long ago I read about some guy that is a patent lawyer that is going around patenting processes that the actual inventors have not bothered to file patents on, and then demanding license and royalty fees. eBay is one of his targets, and he patented their process of concluding auctions in the manner that eBay was doing. (Anybody got a link for that?) Now he's trying to extort from eBay, based on this after-the-fact patent.

If Amazon does not patent this idea, they're likely to have the same kind of crap done to them. No, I don't think they should have to patent their process like that, but if it keeps them from getting sued, they're being smart, not greedy.

Will they sue others using one-click purchasing? Dunno. That's a different issue.

Re:Covering their butts

[LostCluster]

The patent belongs to whomever invented the thing first, not whomever was the first to pay the fee to the USPTO.The problem is, proving you were first is hard.

If Amazon were to patent everything it does, and then publish the fact that they won't enforce the patents, the would would be a better place.

Re:Covering their butts

[thorrbjorn]

No, I don't think they should have to patent their process like that, but if it keeps them from getting sued, they're being smart, not greedy.

You almost have a point there. If they were to license their patents for, say, $1 USD, I'd tend to agree with you. However, they not only patent their ideas, they turn around and sue those who are infringing on their IP. They're not just "covering their butts." They're either trying to maintain a "competitive advantage" or exploit a new "revenue stream."

Re:Covering their butts

[dnoyeb]

Your whole arguement falls apart when you consider prior art. Just by making and using a system, Amazon effectively can not be sued. All they really need to do is like Google, publish a document that says how it works, then no one can claim they invented it. unless they can Prove they did long ago.

Re:Covering their butts

[Galvatron]

Just by making and using a system, Amazon effectively can not be sued.

Actually, they most certainly CAN be sued. They would probably win, but when you get into a court of law, anything can happen. Any sane CEO in the world would want as much legal protection on his side as possible. The argument that "we're pretty sure we'd win a lawsuit anyway, so we don't need a patent," isn't going to fly with investors.

Much as I would like to be filled with righteous anger at Amazon, it's really not their fault. They're just taking the rational course of action, given the insane patent process.

Jeez, I wanted this feature 2 years ago...

[wdavies]

Annoying as heck. Every time I buy Mr Men books for my nieces and nephews, my Cyber-punk/Sci-Fi recommendations get replaced with children toys...

Grrr...

Winton

p.s. I wonder if they added the collaborative filtering using multiple shopping carts

Real life prior art

[Petronius]

My wife and I go to the supermarket. We each get a cart. We call mine 'groceries', we call hers 'this weekend's picnic'.
At checkout, we charge both carts to my credit card.

Amazon, get real!

Re:WHY

[frotty]

Failed businessman? How exactly did he fail?

My assumption is that the space and the tech required to pull off amazon.com would be way greater than any other book chain.

With "bulk purchasing discounts" you still need to store the goods, you only save on the real estate of having an actual point of purchase land-space.

To really save on shipping you have to spread the storage facilities out, reducing both the distances pallets travel & the distance a shipment has to go to the customer.

Does the website & crew cost more than renting out a huge shop for each city & crew? I figure the crew does, but does the tech outweigh the POP real-estate?

Anti-competitive?

[SupahVee]

I'm just running on a different logic today, but wouldn't this fall into anti-competitive behavior? I mean seriously, what other point would amazon have to patenting the way something like this works? To prevent any sort of competition in their field. "Wanna sell things online? Oh, We're Amazon (of Borg), we MUST have invented that, pay us or we'll sue you." It is clearly a tactic to prevent any entry into their realm of business since it's pretty obvious that Amazon is the only online retailer that can't seem to figure out how to make money. Hell, they just bought CDNow, which did make money, but I'm sure they'll fsck that up, too.

Perhaps that investors in Amazon are getting a bit weary of the fact that they still cannot turn a profit, after, how many years has amazon been around? Five? Amazon has gotten NONE of my business since their first little charade with the 1-click crap. This pretty much puts it to the point of going over to Jeff Bezos' house and flogging his Mother with a clue-by-four for not teaching him the difference between right and wrong.

Greedy Fscker, I hope you get hit by a bus.

Re:Perhaps I should patent the way I sit on the co

[YrWrstNtmr]

You know leaning to one side with one leg up on the ottoman.

As a prelude to the 'one cheek sneak'.

The n-Click Shopping cart Patent

[Pac]

Before this gets even more ridiculous, let me propose here that someone develop a generalized shopping cart system. The number of carts is undetermined, the cards may have names, numbers, colours and smells and a cart is filled with a configurable (0-n) number of mouse clicks. Or with a gesture. Or pressing one or more keys. Or whistling in the microphone.

Else in 5 years we will still be seeing "Amazon Seeks '10-Click, three Jumps and a Crtl-F' Shopping Cart Patent" headlines here.

Re:The n-Click Shopping cart Patent

[LostCluster]

I'm waiting for the pi-click shopping patent. :)

Re:The n-Click Shopping cart Patent

[Tenebrious1]

Else in 5 years we will still be seeing "Amazon Seeks '10-Click, three Jumps and a Crtl-F' Shopping Cart Patent" headlines here.

Two articles after the "10-click, Ctrl-F and Three Jumps shopping cart patent sought by Amazon" article.

Tack enough clicks on there...

[Hubert_Shrump]

...and you could patent the internet.

Think I'll patent 'four-clicks and above' and put a cap on this crap.

The wonders of education....

[MosesJones]

Sometimes I sit back and admire the educations systems that exist within the world.

Then along comes a Sociology student like yourself to depress me.

I had IM prior art in Hypercard on a Mac in '93

[Arcturax]

No kidding, I had a hypercard stack which let you message people over an Appletalk network (using xcmd's for networking). It was pretty slick really! My friends and I would use it to talk during class without the teacher knowing about it.

I guess it worked a bit more like a chat room, but it was still a form of instant messaging and I think it could be considerer prior art.

Now if I could only find which 3.5" floppy the source is located on...

I think what we really need is for the Patent Office to publish the patent BEFORE approval to allow anybody with prior art to come forward, say within 7 days of it being posted. There are certainly enough vigilant geeks to keep an eye on what would be posted, have a story here so we could dig up any existing prior art on stuff like this and shoot it down before the patent was even granted.

First IM prior art that comes to my head...

[rosewood]

I remember right before ICQ using a program called Powwow. ICQ just did it better.

But, long before ICQ there was IRC and you could do everything in IRC that you could do in ICQ. You could use scripts to see who was on the server (or just have all your buddies in the same room), /msg worked as the IM, dcc worked for file transfer and you even had crazy group chat areas! I know for a very long time, a lot of nut purists would not use ICQ because "IRC WAS SO MUCH BETTAH!"

I would like to say a few other things about ICQ.

Why the hell is it that now, 5+(?) years later, it is still a free limited time BETA? Im nominating ICQ for the longest beta in the history of mankind.

Also, ICQ still does something that YIM, AIM, MSNIM all do not do -- store messages for when a user comes online. I switched to trillian pro so I could consolidate Aim, MSN, and ICQ. At times I miss my ICQ client but since Trillian saves logs in plaintext, I will never go back. However, it drives me nuts when Im trying to get ahold of someone on MSN or AIM and they are not online. Seriously, there needs to be a trillian plugin that holds a message on my box until a person comes online and sends it automatically for me. Grr. Even with trillian I still try to get people to use ICQ as the prefered medium for this very damn reason.

Onilne UI patents....

[_ph1ux_]

I just think that patents for online UI shouldnt really be something that people should patent. I think that it should be patentable - but jsut shouldnt be patented.

I jsut think that any people who come up with new and improved methods for interacting with the virtual environment (with regards to clicking and using a keyboard) should hope that those improvements are used all overthe place - to better the online experience as a whole. not just some single sites purchasing applications....

also, having a box labelled "Johnny's crap" doesnt sound as though it should be a patentable idea - even if its in a virtual box.

Maybe they should just patent the whole idea of buying things for other people online - or maybe sorting items by various criteria.

Congratulations

[asv108]

Amazon has just patented the "folder!"

phew, thanks to foresight

[circletimessquare]

with the 1 click and now 2 click shopping cart patented by amazon, i am so relieved i had the foresight back in 1994 to patent the 6 click and 7 click shopping carts! you can see which way these click counts are trending... right into my grasp. hehehe, i have you now amazon ;-P

Hmmm...from IBM VM/CMS days...

[AWhistler]

CP SM RSCS CMD MSG

That's over BITNET.

Then there's the old CHAT system. Then came RELAY. Then came IRC.

There's a lot of prior art for instant messaging.

This is prior art - I have proof!

[mustangdavis]

I used to work as a bag boy in a grocery store ... and let me tell you (from personal experience) that I have already seen MANY 2, 3, 4, .... click shopping carts.

For that matter, I'm sure everyone has!

You know the ones I'm talking about ... with the messed up front left wheel that just won't stop clicking!

Just smile and admit that you've had one of these things before!

No the idea is what counts.

[Codex The Sloth]

What matters is the actual creation of the thing. Anyone can have an "idea".

That's not true. In a patent dispute, the important act is invention, not making a product. I believe TV patents were granted prior to it actually working (but I could be wrong on that). AOL would have to show that someone came up with the idea (though dated notebooks and designs) prior to someone who worked on Zephry. OTOH, I'm sure Zephyr didn't just appear from the ether -- there are probably papers / presentations which predate the release of the product.

This one is pretty embarassing for the PTO in my opinion.

Re:No the idea is what counts.

[dh003i]

Invention in your own head doesn't count: only actual implementation in reality.

Simply having some "idea" and not bringing it to fruitation doesn't count for shit. I have an idea about a perfect User Interface which intelligently predicts what the user does/wants, and re-configures itself dynamically based around that. That doesn't count for shit: only the actual implementation of that idea.

Coming up with an idea for something that could be useful is easy and not worth rewarding. Actually doing the work to make that idea a reality is.

Re:No the idea is what counts.

[dh003i]

In that case, the entire system is a crock of shit.

First, only the rich can get patents.

Second, its fraudulently based on "when the patent office finds out" not when the idea was brought to fruitation. Someone comes up with an idea, but doesn't report it to the USPO, and somehow someone who later comes up with the same idea and reports it has a patent right over it? Nonsense.

Thirdly, the entire idea of patents is to encourage invention. Invention means things actually being invented: ideas being implemented in reality. I can come up with an idea to make a UFO, that doesn't mean it should be patentable.

This is a bunch of bullshit. The person who first implements the idea should get patent rights. At the very least, AOL simply having proof that they "had a working idea" prior to anything else shouldn't prevent others from offering IM services, because those others were working on that when they had no idea AOL had such a patent.

The entire patent system is based on unconstitutional and fraudulent retro-active action. This is a case of AOL trying to retro-actively prevent anyone else from offering IM services, even though IM services have been around before AOL's IM and have been around for quite some time (common) now.

Re:more news today:

[Randolpho]

Mod parent informative!

I'd realy like to know what the "Broad wording" of the patent exactly is, and how I can get around it with my own IM software.

You know when this patent enforcing . .

[WankersRevenge]

is getting out of hand when a bunch of lawyers slap down hard for violating kama sutra's copyright.

DCC Chat?

[Ho-Lee-Cow!]

Works like an IM. You just have to /whois to see if someone is on or not.

Emacs and D.E.Knuth

[jefu]

More than once I've seen patent applications that have been predated by emacs (command completion was one such), or documented in "The Art of Computer Programming".

Make all patent examiners learn emacs, read Knuth and run unix and half the patent claims in the computer field would be discarded for prior art.

Reading the patent

[zurab]

It is full of existing prior art, I fail to see anything new. The first claim is the multiple shopping cart functionality. This is hardly anything new. A lot of retailers currently allow users to save their multiple shopping carts, or other types of lists of items for purchase fully or in part at a later (or any) point.

One of the main claims of the patent is the "plurality of electronic commerce contexts" for a user. Look at this for vagueness:

7. A method in a computer system for conducting electronic commerce, the method comprising; providing a plurality of electronic commerce contexts for a user, each electronic commerce context having information relating to electronic commerce conducted while in that electronic commerce context; receiving from the user a selection of one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts; after receiving the selection of the one of the plurality of electronic commerce contexts, conducting electronic commerce with the user; and associating, with the selected electronic commerce context, information relating to the electronic commerce conducted with the user so that when the user subsequently selects that selected electronic commerce context from the plurality of electronic commerce contexts, the associated information is available for conducting subsequent electronic commerce.

Whoa! Could they have jammed more phrases containing "electronic commerce context" in this paragraph without explaining a damn thing? The above paragraph basically vaguely states that user has several identities; when a user clicks on one of the several identities, the information from that identity is retrieved and user is switched to that identity. And this is innovative, not obvious, specific, how?

Patent denied! Next in line please!

How about VAX/VMS send/receive commands?

[Quixadhal]

I seem to remember using the send and receive commands from ancient VMS 4.x back around 1987. These allowed you to send "instant messages" or indeed whole files to other users. If they were logged in, they got a notification and could "receive" the message or file. If not, it told them next time they logged in.

We used it mainly to get around our disk quota by sending the files to ourselves and not receiving them until we shuffled space.

Re:How about VAX/VMS send/receive commands?

[hughk]

I think some layered packages used in academia used this for packaging up messages and files that must transit multiple network types.

Obvious

[jefu]

Doesn't a patent have to include something that would be non-obvious to a practitioner in the field? I've never worked on anything like this kind of shopping system, but as soon as I read "multiple shopping carts" I could easily figure out how to do it all - and reading the patent claim didn't tell me anything new about it. Lots of hints about one specific method of implementation (the most obvious and simple one - the one I'd have come up with first if I'd bothered to think it through), but certainly other implementations are possible

Now, I'm not even in the field (if we pick field as "electronic commerce") so I suspect it was pretty damn obvious.

If the patent office can allow patents on things that are this obvious, we should be able to patent about one out of every five or six lines of code written as non-obvious and no prior art - after all, it was the first time this line of code was ever written. Then since patent claims are always extended, with a bit of work we should be able to stop anyone in the US (or in the set of countries that agree on some sort of common patent system) from ever writing any new programs.

Inventive to the max

[billd]

Oh gosh these guys are clever. First one-click shopping, now two-click shopping. What next?

Much Ado about Nothing.

[expro]

I'd hold judgement on either of these patents until I see whether it is being used offensively or defensively. I do not recall AOL using any patents offensively.

Serious businesses cannot reasonably ignore the threat of hostile patents to their valuable services, and so, arguably, must be active in taking out patents.

If you want to talk about evil, refer to the British Telecom patent on hyperlinks, which they tried to enforce.

There is little to this news until we see how the patents are applied. They could, for example, be used to defend the royalty-free nature of Mozilla open source, and IMHO it is quite likely it would be used in this way if a significant problem arose blocking this technology which AOL values.

Re:DECnet "phone" is closer prior art

[hughk]

The VAX was launched in Europe with VMS at least in 1978, maybe PHONE wasn't there then but it was definitely there by 1980. However, although it did some very nice person-to-person chatting, and over some very large networks (DEC's internal engineering network, for one).

However it didn't do "buddies", and had no way of watching out for people other than doing a directory on a node (gets a list of logged-on users with PHONE enabled). It was instant and it certainly was persistent.

This is one strong patent for Amazon.

[bmetzler]

I'm glad they got it. I am terribly excited about this patent. I have never even heard of a company implemented multiple shopping carts before.

Amazon has shown once again why they are the leader in the eCommerce field. If Amazon hadn't shown up and innovated like they have the ecommerce field would still be in the dark ages. I'm deeply impressed with the real innovation that Amazon has been able to accomplish.

-Brent

I've lost track...

[BTWR]

I've lost track now...

What dot coms are we NOT supposed to hate these days?

Re:I have an idea

[Tim Browse]

Step into my office...

Yes, and...

[c0dedude]

This brings up an interesting point. Is AOL making money off of AIM? The server cost must be taking up gobs of money, and those tiny ads can't possibly pay for it all.

Does it really matter?

[telstar]

Since Amazon is swallowing up pretty much every major online retailer (CDNOW/Target/Toys 'R Us/etc.) eventually everything will be under their single umbrella and there will be nobody to infringe on the patent.

does it need to be a click?

[brad3378]

I haven't read the article, I'll admit.

But surely there are potential ways around the patent.

How exactly are we definining a "click" ?
Would a pulldown menu be considered a click?
would a text box be considered a click?

Does "a click" need to happen with a mouse?
If so, why not just navigate through a webpage using keyboard quick keys?