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Amazon Scores Another Patent
theodp writes "Chalk up yet another patent for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, this time for a Method and system for conducting a discussion relating to an item."
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We're all quite in the shit here at Slashdot, are we not?
Jeff Bezos will patent the sales pitch, and then the close!! --Profit!!
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
How can something as trivial as this become a patent?
-- 7 string electric violin + live loop samplers
I've applied for a patent that covers:
clicking the reply button
typing comments about other obvious solutions
Clicking submit.
I intend to collect royalties from everyone (I hereby grant myself a free license to use it)
perhaps we shouldn't discuss this item, then. don't want to infringe upon copyrights and all...
This is surely a complete joke ..
Isn't the scope of the patent something like slashdot? Comments about articles? A discussion system on the Web?
... whenever a text is transmitted, variation occurs. This is because human beings are careless, fallible, and occasiona
Yet again, another patent looks overly broad and poorly awarded. /., be prepared to pay license fees for use of this patent.
That business and government do not require Common Sense. Just greed and low standards.
I'm going to patent Common Sense, but I probably won't get too much $$ out of it. Seems that there really isn't much need for it in recent times.
Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
Well we are all patent violators now by posting on this board. I hope you're all happy, I guess I better start saving my paychecks for lawyer fees...
Slashdot has been conducting certain methods of discussion of an item for a while now. Albeit the implementation has some impurities, such as "goatse", -1 offtopic, and the like.
It's difficult to tell. But it does look like they patented the concept of having a discussion board linked to a product.
I should probably go ahead and patent "A method for mass advertising using electronic messaging to a group of recipients" and go for the spammers. But there there isn't much money in repo'd trailer houses.
...
Amazon has just patented Tupperware meetings!
A method and system for conducting an electronic discussion relating to a topic. The discussion system of the present invention receives a selection of an item that is to be the topic of the discussion. The discussion system then receives comments relating to the selected item and generates a message that includes a description of the selected item and the received comments. The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion. The discussion system receives from a participant who received the generated message additional comments that are to be added to the generated message. The discussion system sends the generated message along with received additional comments to the participants of the discussion.
That describes Slashdot. Where the Item to be discussed is a news story.
Patent the act of patenting.
Then Jeff Bezos will have to license your patent to submit his.
I'm going to patent a style sheet I just created for my website. Eat that!
-Dipster
Mad what people can get patents for. The patent for swinging on a swing is one of the weirdest I've seen in the last few years.
Omnis amans amens
Slashdot doesn't do anything like this, and I certainly didn't participate in message boards on a BBS Back in the Day
Is the patent office asleep at the wheel?
Dozings.com -- Its kinda funny... If you're as crazy as me.
be considered prior art on this one?
I mean, really. Somebody down at
the Patent Office needs to put down
the abacus and check out that new
thing called electricity.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Looks like anyone that has setup a blog, guestbook, or messageboard on their web site better run for cover.
...that we're using a method for discussing an item (in this case the item is the patent) right now don't you? :-D
Wow, maybe we can actually submit SlashDot as prior art!
(And they said this wasn't art.)
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
PHPBB
YABB
PHPBoard
CGIBoard
Tomcat BBS
Color64 BBS
Slashdot
Where's my bounty?
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
Sooner or later these patents are going to strangle communications completely. This would be no different if I were to patent a method in which 'two or more people can hold a conversation over a medium which converts the spoken word of one party into a format which can be understood by the second party, and vice versa', then charge everyone the next time they want to hold a press conference, debate, meeting, etc.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
this only applies to items for sale.
Here's a snippet from the abstract: The discussion system of the present invention receives a selection of an item that is to be the topic of the discussion. The discussion system then receives comments relating to the selected item and generates a message that includes a description of the selected item and the received comments. The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion. It was filed in 1999. I'm sure there were 100s of sites before that doing this: letting users post comments on websites. Prior art would be abundant. Looking at all of these patents being granted by the USPTO, I get the impression that they (USPTO) have given up their responsibility of taking a critical look at the patent. They are letting the courts decide whether there was prior art or not. This begs the question: why bother with checking any prior art anyways? Why not just reduce the USPTO to a "copyright" sort of office, where anybody can file a patent for anything, and the courts decide? Obviously this patent system is not old Ben had in mind.
How in the world did he prove that there was no prior art on a discussion group? Isn't a BBS a form of a discussion group? This sure sounds like a retro active patent to well known art. (You can patent something after it has been in general circulation for a year.)
I'd love to see him try to enforce this patent in the courts.
Users are like bacteria, each one creating a tiny problem until the host dies.
Up next Amazon is going to patent being the company to first patent common sense procedures that shouldn't be patentable in the first place.
This will save them considerable time, and automatically grandfather in everything they haven't tried to patent yet, including such classics as "Allowing full sentences to be used to describe product", "Shipping material ordered by people from our site", and "Using vowels in our company name".
(This message Patent Pending)
Clicking submit? I wouldn't recommend patening that. I already have a patent a 'visual design to facilitate the submission of data over a networked video typewriter interface'.
Perhaps we can split it though. I'll take rectangular GUI-based submit buttons, and you can have image-based submit buttons.
(But please, before you send off that reply, don't forget the 50 cent royalty in the tip jar to recieve your one-use license to click 'Submit'. This also includes 'Preview'. Thank you.)
BytesTemplar.com
We better all be quiet from now on, the mouth & vocal chords are certainly a device and system for conducting a discussion about an item. Sheesh, talk about prior art.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
I said it in the Interwoven patent thread and I'll say it again. Yes, I'm very worried about patent system abuse, but what I can I do about it.
All I can think of is to write a letter to my congressman and maybe make a donation to the EFF, but I really don't see that making very much of a difference.
Rather than the usual wailing and gnashing that we usually see on these patent abuse threads, can someone please come up with something that an ordinary person without a lot of money can do about the situation?
And if nobody can come up with something good to do, could the editors just stop posting these patent abuse stories, because they always simply generate the same set of responses.
I read the patent (#6,525,747)... Again this is somthing that really does not deserve a patent. Many of the patents I see granted these days seem to cover the most basic ideas. It's like someone is thinking "I want my web page and my page alone to look this spcecial way, so I'll patent the layout of my page." After a while A person might have to licence the right to make a page because all the available "layouts" are used...
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Step 1: This is simply yet another reason to not shop at Amazon. Show them that you don't belive in their system, don't shop there or at any of its affiliates. And make sure you tell everyone you know why you don't shop there.
Step 2: Start collecting anything that might be relevant prior art. Seeing as this was applied for in 1999 there has to be something. I personally am stunned that something this trivial is a patent, gotta love the USPTO.
This means I can cancel all of my meetings. After all discussing things on the agenda would violate the patent and I wouldn't want that.
Oh hang on this means that its okay as long as it isn't structured around a topic. Damn you Amazon for condeming us all to a world which only contains long rambling ill focused meetings.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
NT
This is very bad indeed when things like this are allowed to happen. The fact that there are people who will even consider it is scary enough.
Verbs in the passive voice are overused in patent applications. They are made very hard to read because of this. It is being assumed that the claim is as ridiculous as usual.
Scores another patent?
Has this 'e'-business thing become a goddamn competition?
I mean, it's a competition all right, but shouldn't they compete with best prices, best service or best selection? (etc)
Or, what else are Amazon going to do with these, keep them on the walls for posterity? I can't imagine any other reason for these than to shut down (or lessen) competing sites.
Can you?
BBS's and mailing lists have been able to function like this for years. The only difference is the patent references being used in a web environment.
But the principles are still the same.
So the question goes, how far do procedural patents reach.
The worst thing about the proliferation of easy patents and the Patent Office's philosophy of "let the courts sort it out" is the enormous barrier it erects to small businesses.
Large Corporations can afford the patent wars, they can afford patent lawyers, they have the resources to cross-license patents with other large corporations.
But the vast web of software and business-method patents will eventually lock out many small businesses. Anything they want to do will be covered by somebody's patent and they won't be able to afford the enormous costs of litigation.
Every aspect of our society is increasingly dominated by large corporations. We are no longer a Republic of 50 States - we are now a Republic of the Fortune 500.
This has got to be the funniest of the stupid patents ever. Even beats the swinging sideways patent. Basically, the sort of comment system it describes is implemented here on /. and in a million other blogs all over the web. In fact, even many mainstream news sites allow readers to poat comments. You might want to check out a list of prior art implementations ;^)
While I realize that patents can be given for Ideas and processes this patent is every bit as absurd as the patent awarded last year for a method to swing. Yep, a method to swing e.g. in the playground. So if you have children take care that their use of the swings in the playground does not infring on any patented methodology...
Disregarding the trivialness of this patent, people here are jumping the gun about prior art. This patent isn't for online discussions using software such as Slashcode or PHPBB, it is for discussions related to an object for sale.
A much harder case for prior art, but I'm pretty sure Usenet auctions would invalidate it.
What, me worry?
Check this out:
/. doesn't send anyone messages regarding comments on stories.
The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion.
Also:
The discussion system sends the generated message along with received additional comments to the participants of the discussion.
This will never hold up in court because that describes everything from Amazon's system to simply forwarding an email. I would like to remind everyone here that email predates the Internet, so there would be no problem annihilating this patent with prior art. Thanks for playing, Jeff.
Replace all electronic stuff to just using your voice, have a person as the main distributor and voila, you have prior art going back to the days of the first 'modern' democracy in ancient Greece. The agenda dictates the subjects, the chairman says who can speak and when.
And just for the fun of it: the chairman of the Dutch 'Tweede Kamer' (house of commons) has access to buttons which can turn all microphones on or off individually. Electronic prior art.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
Shit! Does this mean that every time I get a digest-mode mailing list digest I should be sending Jeff a cheque?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
...he is claiming to have invented the mailing list. Please tell me I am wrong.
Seriously, for anyone with that click paralysis that prevents reading source materials, here is the *gist* of the patent, which targets merchandise (almost unlike
I wish we were seeing more original examples of software method patents, if they are to be allowed at all. There's a lot of patenting the wheel going on here. I wouldn't assume, though, that Amazon enforcing a patent like this would have that much effect. Everyone will migrate elsewhere, as appears (?) to be happening to GIF's following Unisys's demand for license fees. Perhaps I'm an optimist, though I've been rarely accused of it.
GNU Mailman:
"A method and system for conducting an electronic discussion relating to a topic. The discussion system of the present invention receives a selection of an item that is to be the topic of the discussion. The discussion system then receives comments relating to the selected item and generates a message that includes a description of the selected item and the received comments. The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion. The discussion system receives from a participant who received the generated message additional comments that are to be added to the generated message. The discussion system sends the generated message along with received additional comments to the participants of the discussion."
If they insist on giving out these M&M patents to companies, they should at least have a staff that knows something about software! Its beyond a joke, beyond absurd; who precisely in Amazon is filing these patents, and why dont the people who maintain the gears of Amazon site stump up and say..."ummmm you cant do this"...obviously because Amazon can do this!
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
patent system is not a system at all.
it's just a log. whether your patent is a dupe, or doesn't make sense...doesn't matter...in it goes.
The USPTO is sounding more and more like a joke to me.
Somebody please hit them with a cluestick!
I get it... instead of reminding everyone weekly that the patent system is screwed, we're going to do it daily.
Amazon patents a process for evacuating waste product via a body cavity...to be known as "Taking a Dump."
the more carp patents that get let through the better.
Soon the whole stupid system will die under it's own weight.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Use all the long scientific wording and it would probably get granted.
http://www.englishfirst.org
Is there a way to change the copyright laws short to a revolution? We have a hoard of lawyers to face off who love the murky waters of confusing lagislation.
3 75 505784/102-9241725-4567334?vi=glance
You are encouraged to read the book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
1. A method in a computer system of a non-participant for starting a discussion relating to an item offered for sale, the method including:
This is the preamble. In most cases, the preamble does not actually limit the claim. So let look at the elements of the claim and see if they have been done before.
providing information describing a plurality of items being offered for sale;
So it is showing a bunch of items.
receiving from an originating participant a selection of one of the items being offered for sale;
The client selects one of the items.
providing to the originating participant information describing the selected item offered for sale and an indicator for starting a discussion relating to the item being offered for sale, the information and the indicator to be displayed to the originating participant;
The client gets information about one of the items and the client is told that he can start a discussion on the item.
in response to selection of the displayed indicator by the originating participant of the discussion, providing to the originating participant an initial discussion thread that includes a description of the item being offered for sale;
If the client "selects the displayed indicator" (clicks on a link) a new discussion thread is created where there is a description of the item for sell.
receiving from the originating participant comments to be added to the discussion thread;
The client adds comments.
receiving from the originating participant an indication of one or more other participants of the discussion;
The client notes that he (and perhaps others) is going to be a participant in the discussion.
providing the discussion thread, with the description of the item and the received comments added along with a link that when selected effects the placing of an order to purchase the item, to the one or more other participants, and
Now other people see a link to the discussion thread.
tracking the discussion thread as one or more of the participants add comments to the discussion.
The discussions thread is "tracked". Sending out emails as it is updated is probably enough.
The first claim is probably easily beaten. You would need to find something published or publically known on or before August 1st, 1998 which satisfies all of the above elements/limitations. Of course, there is the doctrine of obviousness (which this could probably be beaten under), but looking at the claims, it might be hard to find something that actually beats this under anticipation. This is especially true considering how limited some of these claims appear.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
Here is an image of the patent.
Someone is sleeping at the wheel or just saw Jeff Bezos' name and thought, "OMG, didn't he basically invent the Internet!? Plus he predicted that the Segway was going to change the world! Now where's my big approval stamp?"
- Write a letter to your House Representative and Senators. If you are not sure, check the front pages of your telephone book, or look it up on the Web. You might want to include a campaign contribution -- I'm not kidding. Money talks.
- Write to the anchors of the CBS news show "60 Minutes" and send them copies of some of these ridiculous patents, such as the one which describes how to swing on a swing set.
In both letters, focus on
a) the fact that the patent examiners seem to be rubber stamping the patents without actually examining them.
b) the triviality of the patent claims and the obvious prior art
c) anybody you can think of they ("60 minutes" or Congressmen) can contact, either as an interview subject or somebody who would be willing to testify before subcomittees with a bunch of cameras pointed at them.
I would add my two cents on the subject, but instead I now owe them to Amazon.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
And check out the amazon homepage. OT, but they're touting their high customer service ACSI score. And no I don't think this patent will bring this score down.
----
Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
Going out to the Patent office to get a new patent on a fun process that everyone does.. 1a.) The inflation of the lungs by either will or human response to needs of oxygen. 1b.) The deflation of the lungs by either will or human response to expel carbon dioxide. 2a.) The inflation of the lungs to store air and other gases for the rapid exhalation through the mouth or nose. This will cover blowing birthday candles, shouting, talking, yelling, smoking, blowing bubbles and every other human act covered. 2b.) The deflation process that acoomanies the inflation process covered in section 2a. Coughing (both voluntary and involuntary) are also covered as well as sneezing. Wish me luck folks...
If you could sum it up in a nutshell, maybe you should be writing O'Reily books. --- Domasi 2001
You know how after stirring your tea or coffee, you remove the spoon and tap it twice on the mug rim, making a 'tink-tink' sound? Well, I patented that move. Please send cash. Sheesh.
If they get to patent this, I deserve the patent for rubber feet. You know those rubber feet on the bottom of appliances, I use some of those, so I need a patent for them.
I wonder how many rubber feet CowboyNeal has? Maybe he too could get a patent.
Whats almost funny is they also have pattented the process of taking someone to court and having them discuss the issue at hand!
We cant sue them because we would be voilating their patent heh
Ahh I'd love to see what happens with this one in court.
What's really needed for patent reform is the ability to penalize companies and individuals who file overly broad and bogus patents such as this. Right now, there's no reason for Amazon (or other large corporations) not to do this, and bully license fees from anybody they think would rather pay a fee than fight them in court. The burden of proof is currently on the wrong side here.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I actually have several patents, but they're in very specific areas (not software patents either, they're actually for electronic circuits) and none of them by themselves can stop a company from progressing in a certain direction, they aren't so broad that they stop progress but they might force a competitor to have to think a little bit harder to avoid it.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
I propose we cross licence and set up a cartel. POrefereably one ending with AA.
We then sue a geek for a spurious reason to give ourselves coverage in Slashdot.
Of course, if you were daft enough to provide source code for your software, evil patent lawyers might be able to see which patents you are infringing, but what sort of idealistic fool would do that?
I would think any number of usenet *.forsale groups would provide prior art to counter this patent (epecially claim 12). Ott.forsale has been around a lot longer than Amazon.com, and provides exactly what this patent describes.
Not to be recursive but isnt that what these forums are?
This sounds like a case of obtaining a patent through fraud (they had to lie and mislead to procure such a ridiculous patent and somehow "slip one by" the Patent Trademark Office). Use of such a patent may constitute antitrust violations.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Or, how to take over the whole world without firing a shot.
First, you put in place agreements with the rest of the world to enforce each other's "intellectual property rights".
Then you let anybody in your country patent anything they damned well please, trivial, with prior art or not. Then the rest of the world is yours for the taking.
The US patent office has horribly debased it's credibility.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Rewind 8 or 9 years.
No one bought anything over the internet. E-commerce didn't quite exist.
Here comes some upstart that asks people to risk them the cash to make this new business model happen. They do something that most people would call innovative. A new business model is formed, the face of commerce completely changed. Today everyone sells over the internet.
If you're this upstart who was there since day one doing what no one else did, taking the risks back then which aren't really risks today (relatively speaking), you'd be pretty mad. Especially when your big stupid competitor finally wakes up and realizes the internet exists and copies your site almost exactly, from look to semantics, and starts eating away at your bottom line.
All of your hard work, creative energy, raising capital, the meetings, market analysis, research, etc. you put forth to make your crackpot idea a reality is now being blithely ripped off by your inferior. Through simple cloning your inferior is now your equal.
If you've been in that position before, you know how infuriating it is. So what are your options? Sadly, very few.
Amazon is getting patents because it seems like the only way to fight off their idiot copycat competitors. I think software patents are detestable, but I understand Amazon's reasoning.
It's kind of a mixed bag. It sucks that Amazon does it, but it's not going to stop me from supporting them. Why? I'll put myself in their position.
The position is one where my shareholders are screaming at me to protect their investment which they entrusted in me. A position where my customers are leaving to buy from my copycat because they can't tell the difference anymore no matter what we do. Where my employees who helped me build such a great service are worried that they might not have a job in 6 months. The choice is clear, I'd do the same thing.
As stated earlier this could wipe out newsgroups and comment forums. Scary enough though, it looks like it is meant to get E-Bay...
1. A method in a computer system of a non-participant for starting a discussion relating to an item offered for sale, the method including:
providing information describing a plurality of items being offered for sale; receiving from an originating participant a selection of one of the items being offered for sale;
providing to the originating participant information describing the selected item offered for sale and an indicator for starting a discussion relating to the item being offered for sale, the information and the indicator to be displayed to the originating participant;
in response to selection of the displayed indicator by the originating participant of the discussion, providing to the originating participant an initial discussion thread that includes a description of the item being offered for sale;
receiving from the originating participant comments to be added to the discussion thread;
receiving from the originating participant an indication of one or more other participants of the discussion;
providing the discussion thread, with the description of the item and the received comments added along with a link that when selected effects the placing of an order to purchase the item, to the one or more other participants, and
tracking the discussion thread as one or more of the participants add comments to the discussion.
Stop the insanity!
-EB
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
For the method and process of submitting idiotic patents?
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
i think im going to apply for a patent on "conducting e-commerce, infact, e-anything on the internet." hell, im just going to patent the INternet!!
better yet "using electrons in the transfer of data"
sheesh. im tired of those morons at the patent office.
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
Every patent discussion on /. eventually brings up a dozen such patents. Prior art!
Infuriate left and right
The lawyers convinced us that filing the patent is the only way to prevent someone else from filing a patent, covering your technology, and then suing you, forcing you to PROVE to a court (always a chancy thing) that you had created prior art. And quite frankly every innovation we made to our online calendar showed up 3 months later in someone elses calendar. In fact we even found instances where people had literally cut and pasted our code, comments and all!
So we knew that there were unscroupulous bastards out there, willing to completely rip us off. So bearing that in mind, we agreed to file for patents, not so much to enforce them, but to protect ourselves from future suits. I agree, if the system was healthy and working, we wouldn't need to have done that, but the system is already full of sharks -- I don't blame people for getting shark repellant. Applying for the patent HAS to be done nowadays. Enforcing the patents is when I start to get mad. I know it's a fine line...
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Here: Adobe sues Macromedia over the use of tabbed windows and is awarded 2.8 million by the jury for damages. The funny thing is that Macromedia countersued Adobe shortly after and was awarded 4.9 million for simularly stupid patents. So Adobe ended up loosing 2.1 million plus all the court costs for what they did. Ironic indeed.
it doesn't use the word facilitate...
...if in USPTO internet or intranet site they have a discussion forum for each patent filed, or something similar to this.
Is reasonable to think that the US Government, or parts of the legal system, have in many places such ways of collaborative work.
Now what Amazon should do is sue USPTO or US Government because this patent and maybe, just maybe, US patent system will gain a bit of common sense.
You can't patent software. Unforutnaly the Captilist pigs from the big corperations are lobbying their best to change this. Along with > 50 year copyright. Hopefully stupid patents such as this may help common sense prevale over here.
Welcome to HTML 101. Our first lesson is how to properly create a hyperlink using an anchor tag. We begin typing >a followed by a space and the four letters href. Next we place an equal sign and a quote. The URL of the site follows but here is the real trick. We must first place the magic http:// in front of the URL. That is the hardest part. From there on out it is easy.
Here is a fixed link as an example. CopyLeft
I am applying for a patent:
:)
An online web deiscussion system that make sfun of Companies that attempt to get patents on web technologies.
Slashdot.org will be royalty free but no one else will
Funds earned wil got to FSF and EFF
Don't Tread on OpenSource
... come on people, let's all post some really obvious thinks that we would like to patent in order to show how ridiculous this patent is *yawn*.
Fleur de Sel
Hey you people, i hold a patent for "reading letters left to right in such a way that sertain combinations of letters form words that make up a more of less readable sentence".
You should pay me bizar hugh amounts of cash.
Seriously, are we heading towards a digital ice-age ? I guess we are. Damb corporate fools.
Did ZDnet exist before Amazon, or at least do user reviews(zdnet.com) before Amazon started discussions of items?
It would be nice if they stated as much explicitely and maybe join the many voices asking that the patent office reject trivial patents like this. Even if you believe in strong IP protections, it can be argued that this trend is a very bad thing. If it continues, it is entirely possible that a groundswell of protests will emerge against patents in general, and I'm not just talking about /. because industry will start to see the entire systems and its costs as parasitic.
which targets merchandise (almost unlike /.)
What about Slashdot Book Reviews, which include a link to purchase a copy of the book at Barnes & Noble?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Is the patent office asleep at the wheel?
I'd think the USPTO is asleep at the wheel in the figurative sense, but the Australian patent office is asleep at the wheel in the literal sense. In fact, the Australian patent office was so asleep that it granted a patent on the wheel.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Verbs in the passive voice are overused in patent applications.
Passive voice leaves the agent unspecified. The author of a patent application uses passive voice because he does not want to limit the scope of the patent by specifying the agent.
The meat of the patent is in the claims, which are written as a humongous noun phrase.
Will I retire or break 10K?
For me, what it is trying to do is to avoid someone else filling it and sue them or put them out of business.
The next thing they should do is open this patent, i.e. in the way described in OpenPatents.
it is for discussions related to an object for sale. A much harder case for prior art
Look to the left of the comments on this Slashdot page. In the "sections" box, between "askslashdot" and "bsd", is a link called books, which points directly at prior art.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Amazon provides a simple service. That service is mail order over the internet.
Their site is merely a medium to make that happen. Websites should not be patentable anymore than traditional paper (mail order) magazines. Amazon's business model relies on being the best in their business. Well, it should, but it seems Amazon doesn't want to compete on their merits. They just want to make it harder to others to compete with them by turning the business into a maze of patent law. There is nothing original about mail order and putting it on a web site does not constitute originality. Again, web sites should not be patentable. That's what copyright is for.
BTW, today in 1991, Tim Berners Lee presented the world with the first web browser. That means today is arguably the birthday of the world wide web.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
ACS (Arsdigita Community System) did this before Amazon.com filed their patent.
ACS has become OpenACS and Redhat CCM
Coding Blog
In slashdot's case, the story is the item
bbs, I am sure there is discussion board about certain brand's 14.4 modems. And bbs is an electronic platform. So it establish prior art, right? How about that, they change it to Amazon platform, everybody happy. No, I am serious about the change.
So this patent concerns people holding discussions based on an object? WTF? This has got to be a dubious act since they don't relegate the objects to electronic stores and such. Yay, another legal weapon in Bezos arsenol again. Thanks USPTO!
.smell my feet.
...but this patent doesn't cover ALL discussion systems, just ones that discuss items being offered for sale (Right there in the patent claim).
I invite everybody reading this article to read and understand the patent abstract, claims, and description. If you're serious about patent reform, you should be able to read and understand patents.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Slightly off topic... Did you ppl notice how amazon.com has most el. out of stock or discountinued? If I had amazon.com stock I would sell... sell I tell ya :-)
I'm already boycotting them for the last patent. A big pain in the ass, too, since Amazon bought out CD-Now. :/
Oh well, at least Barnes and Noble has started getting some harder-to-find cds in lately.
So are you saying that Amazon is doing us all a favor by patenting common-sense ideas so that no one will get sued over them? If they only enforce their patents in a few cases that they are forced to pay attention to and even then only for trivial royalties, then in fact, they're doing something which protects the intellectual commons from excessive exploitation.
Has Amazon ever sued anyone over their patents?
this is crazy -- i'm going to start applying for my own patents. what the hell, it seems so damn easy to get, i might as well... then i can start making the big bucks... contact this Kristine Kincaid who seemingly approved this thing, regular - 703 308-0640 FAX - 703 305-3719 -- contact list is here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/patpers/patpe rs3.htm
This patent proposes a novel way to gain any patent desired. It uses a web interface where the applicant can describe her invention and a single click button that submits the application to the upsto-or whatever it is called. After payment of due fees the patent is granted. A money back garantee is given to the applicant in case the patent is overthrown in court.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Amazon's within to get a patent. It isnt their faults that the UPSTO is a fucktard. If anything, I'd say we ought to move all 'questionable' content to offshore servers and BOYCOTT the US PATENT SYSTEM.
Come on, you make it sound like the USTPO forced them to make a broad patent, get real, Amazon is looking for more quick cash to grab, so they patent something everyone uses and sue sue sue. There always a differance between what is legal and what is morally corrent.
BNews (original Usenet News)followed by CNews
Here's More...
Anyone want to challenge it -- I'll find prior art on this one.
ok, I just sent an email to the USPTO office. Just asking for some info on why the person(s) who handled that patent saw no evidence of prior art.. If they return my email I'll post it. If anyone knows of a site that had this before amazon, you should email 'em too. VersionTracker came to mind for me, and there were a few others who've been using it since the late nineties, but I'm not sure... Whose in control of this office is there someone we can complain to. this is getting lame.
According to the patent document, these are the people responsible for granting this patent:
Primary Examiner: Kincaid; Kristine
Assistant Examiner: Nguyen; Thomas T.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Perkins Coie LLP
Can't we just contact them and ask them how much they were paid to grant this crap? Seriously, maybe someone could ask them what they are thinking.
I will call is "talking" I think. Anyone know if this has been patented yet?
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Maybe they should patent a device that resembles a chair with water in it that is used for humans to deficate in. Maybe this device could be made of porcelin and be put in the same room as your shower. :-)
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
If IBM hops on the bandwagon, we're all screwed.
"Method and apparatus for the protection of methods, procedures, systems, and apparatuses by grant of exclusive rights by a governing body having executive authority over such rights" (Grant of Patent)
"Method and procedure for the dismantling of civilized society by exclusive diversion with legistative processes" (making people so busy defending themselves against lawsuits to do anything productive)
"Method and apparatus for the production of intellectual property and information by means of the exercise of a passive or active electromechanical or electronic relay or switch causing the dissipation of energy in various ceramic, plastic, semiconductor, or organic elements, causing the semi-permanent organization of atomic or subatomic particles on a dielectric, metallic, organic, semiconductor, ceramic, or plasticine substrate, also causing the luminescence of phosphorescent or electronic optoelectrical or optoelectronic elements." (use of computer)
Ha ha... I was gonna say "wow, amazon's had this for years, how can it get patented by..." oh yeah, Amazon.
/. book reviews is a good one, but what about eBay?? I've personally had my account since 1998, and I know they've had feedback the entire time. Of course it's a discussion per-user, but each post is about a particular item and transaction. This seems to really, really count.
But seriously. I think B&N has had this on their site all along as well; the question is, did their site start before 1999? I know they were kind of a late-comer on the ecommerce scene (Oh god... I did not just use that phrase).
Anyway, the point about
Here's what the patent office said when I asked 'em about these.. is this an automated msg? lol. Ok I've got calculus3 now...late
From: USPTOInfo@uspto.gov
Date: Wed Feb 26, 2003 8:40:16 AM America/Phoenix
To: xxxxxx
Subject: RE: Patents [T20030226003P]
Dear : xxxxxxxx
A patent for an invention is a grant of property rights by the Government through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The patent grant excludes others from making, using, or selling the invention. A utility or plant patent in force on June 8, 1995, is subject to either the 17 year term from grant or the 20 year term from earliest effective U.S. filing date, whichever is longer. A design patent term is 14 years from patent grant. The right conferred by the patent grant extends throughout the United States. The terms "Patent Pending" and "Patent Applied For" are used to inform the public that an application for a patent has been filed. Patent protection does not start until the actual grant of a patent. Marking of an article as patented, when it is not, is illegal and subject to penalty.
A patent cannot be obtained on a mere idea or suggestion. Patent applications are examined for both technical and legal merit. Prior to filing a patent application, a search of existing patents can be conducted at the USPTO Patent Search Room or at a Patent and Trademark Depository Library in your area.
For additional information on patents, you may visit the USPTO Web site at http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/pats.html.
General Information Services Division (GISD) provides customers with a wide variety of information and documents pertaining to patents and trademarks. GISD also answers technical questions regarding the electronic business systems available on the USPTO web site. You may contact GISD at 800 786-9199 or 703 308-4357.
This just in: Amazon.com has just patented the action of having sex!
Whoa! Another news item! Amazon.com has just patented the orgasm!
Thank you Federal Government, your little office has encouraged so much that is useful and good. Will you next award Yahoo a patent on internet chat? Please! I feel so guilty for using royalty free software.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
makes me wonder what they are waiting for?
Waiting for someone to dispute these ludicrous claims they make perhaps?
Go to work for Amazon and destroy them on the inside.
(modify press releases, send fake corporate pr email, general mayhem)
All your (message) base are belong to us!!!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
It seems that patents are copyrights are converging, thanks to the sheer unstoppable volume of communication that our digital world is creating. No-one can seem to enforce copyright on digital media, and no-one can seem to grant patents in any meaningful manner. The US patent office is basically doing to patents what P2P has done to intellectual property, and what every young geek wants to do to Nathalie Portman.
Now, this has interesting possibilities. (I don't mean Miss Portman, or perhaps I do...) At some point, say 10 years from now, patents will become a totally debased currency, arbitration of which the courts will at first try and then abandon as claim and counter claim come piling in. There is probably a magic ratio of junk-to-valid patents which will cause this tipping. Commercial copyright, similarly, is becoming a debased concept. I don't believe for a second that DRM can recover control of that. We are thus heading for a world where the notion of the state as the ultimate arbitrer (and thus, ultimate owner) of all intellectual property is going to vanish. Think about this for a second. The trademark in question here may nominally belong to Amazon, but it is the US government that actually gets to decide its fate.
We should welcome junk patents. They are each an indelible ratchet step on the way to full public ownership of what is, after all, our common intellectual birthright.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I'll admit to being a little of both, at least from your point of view. I have seen the "hot coffee" suit defended in the past in much the same way, that is that McDonalds coffee was much hotter that it should have been, blah blah blah. The thing is, I would never have thought to sue because I spilled coffee! I probably would have chastised myself for being careless. The bottom line is that Americans have gotten into this mode of wanting someone else to pay whenever something bad happens. Sometimes, bad things happen and you just have to deal with it. The argument for punitive damages is that the puny amount for compensatory damages won't deter deep pocketed corps. Great, but why does the plaintiff deserve the money?
For me, the bottom line is this: when we protect ourselves from lawsuits by putting common sense instructions on products (such as don't drive with this sun shade blocking your view of the road), there is a serious flaw in the system. So the question is, did McD's change the temp of their coffee or did they just put stupid signs up in the drive thru window that say "Coffee is served hot"? Duh!
"The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion. "
This would imply that web-based message boards
and discussions are not impacted but rather e-mail
based discussions. The key, to me, depends on
your definition of "send". This implies a passive
role by the participants. That is, reading a
discussion on a web page would not be covered.
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
A copyright will protect you from someone cut and pasting your code but it won't protect you from someone playing with your product to see how it works (or taking it apart) and building their own. That's what a patent is for.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
The claims are:
1) attracts both idiot and genius; neither of which can spell anything or use proper grammar.
2) is green.
3) ??? Profit -- ha ha ha
4) your mom
5) poll stimulates interest in world issues
6) karma system satisfies people who are boring
If your lawyers were really being this kind hearted, they could do one of two things less obnoxious than what they did:
1) Patent it and donate the patent to the public domain.
2) Publish it in a journal. Bell Labs has (had?) a journal specifically for things they dicovered but were not going to patent purely for the purposes of establishing prior art.
I suspect the real reason your lawyers did not do either of these two things was to maintain a defensive patent portfolio. Basically someone is going to sue you for patent infringment on one of their patents (justifiably or not) so you look in your patent portfolio and come up with something to countersue for. Hopefully this is enough to make them go away.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
But in addition to the abstract, there are 13 pages of figures and 9 pages of text.
To judge from the figures alone, Amazon is patenting a *very specific* method of discussing an object for sale. While I haven't read the entire patent, this seems pretty reasonable to me. After all, my firm's biggest client has hundreds of patents on DOORS. By some of the logic being displayed here, they wouldn't have any, because, hey, everybody knows what a door is, they've been around forever. But they don't patent "a door," they patent a "A Specific Sort of Door and Method for Making Same," that specific sort of door and method being something no one else has. So, while it might seem Amazon is patenting the obvious and getting away with it, I'd say that's not the case.
In a fair fight between your First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech and this patent, who will win?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...and the ensuing flamewar that could potentially follow spam, if I'm reading the details of the patent correctly (don't just read the top portion of the document). What a hoot! I guess they're out to shave some change from the millions that go into spammers' pockets every year?
The prior art here goes back to the BBS Days (Yeah! for SysOps!).
One could argue that it goes back as far as the old serial teletype terminals.
I doubt seriously that this would stand up in any courtroom.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Can anyone hope to stop the Bezos juggernaut? Unprofitability and prior art sure can't...
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
Yes, but you'd only have to pay for two of the wheels on your car because the other two would be going clockwise.
Sounds counter-intuitive to the current situation , but its not. If more and more CS students would apply for law school, then there would be more attorneys qualified to work in the realm of software patents. Increased competition will drive down the cost of prosecuting and defending patents - thus lessening the so-called chilling effect.
My advice to CS students: Take the LSAT, you might suprise yourself. Law school is hard, but then so is your current curriculum. At the very least, you'll wind up in a profession that'll be one of the very last that's outsourced to India.
So Amazon just patented USENET?
I've just been patented by Amazon.com!!!!!!! They will come for you to, there isn't much time left... we must... must... THEY'RE COMING FOR ME... HELP!!!!... *ach*
I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to patents and such, so by "method" do they allow for others to produce their own methods, or are they patenting the idea of a message board in regards to an item?
Are they going to patent the /. effect?
and file a patent! You've already done most of the work. Maybe someone can write a Perl script or XSLT to transform the diagram into the requisite patent legalese.
Imagine the possibilities...and the windfall! Ay carumba!
If we must be forced by our government to accept software patents, should they not be appropriate for the environment they live in? The world of computing moves much faster than the ordinary world.
The life of a software patent should be good only for 1 year, then the method falls into public domain as it is likely becoming obsolete.
Z. http://www.play.net Your games, my job. C'est la vie!
The links at the top of the page give away what it's all about, don't thay? I hope the Pattent Office is paying royalties for those. Do they use 'one-click'?
1: patent something stupid ...
2:
3: profit!
It seems like anytime anyoe has an idea, they want to patent it. Here is how I imagine the original meeting going ...
Marketing: We need to allow users to discuss items that are for sale and have discussions about them.
Developer: You mean, like a threaded discussion board ? Developer then goes on to describe a threaded discussion to clues Marketeer.
Marketing: Great idea. Does anyone have a patent on that.
Developer: It's been around for 20 years but maybe no one has patented it for e-commerce.
Marketing: Cha-Ching!
Way to go americans...
Nothing surprising from you here.
The patent as filed is for a "system" and not specific to the WWW. Therefore, USENET would be prior art... the various "forsale" newsgroups are presented for subscription, many by item, and discussion is allowed without registration.
Patents are not defined by whether they are awarded, but by whether they can be exercised. Amazon couldn't win any claims with any of its patents, so whether or not Amazon has paper patents is a moot point... such uninforceable patents serve only to help Amazon's annual reports deceive uninformed investors into forking over more capital-- nothing more.
Feel free to continue exercising your Constitutional right to free speech.
Okay. Guess we know what stage 2 is
1)collect underpants
2)patent underpants
3)$$$
According to the law governing patentability, 35 U.S.C. section 101, an invention must be "new" and "useful" to be patentable. Slashdot appears to be taking issue with "new". In order to be new, there must be at least one inventive element - one piece of the invention - that has never before been incorporated in the prior art.
I suggest that the discussion is missing the reference to the "link that when selected effects the placing of an order to purchase the item" that is provided to the discussion thread. The rest seems to be covered by any Usenet or IRC product discussion.
So: is the use of the "link" new? Is it (as is required by 35 U.S.C. section 103) nonobvious in the context of this claim?
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice.
If you look at the linked article from ipmenu the preamble clearly states that this is an "innovation patent" (similar to German Utility patent). This is a _registration_ to prevent others from nabbing your idea. You get a reduced term of protection (ie Monopoly) the Patent Office doesn't search or examine the innovation patent - it's just registered.
Now whether you approve or not is a different matter: big bully companies can use financial clout to enforce an unwarranted monopoly as little weedy companies can't afford the court bills. But by no stretch of the imagination is the Australian PTO failing to perform it's duties here.
Get informed. Try http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/ for starters.
How is this different from Henry Ford (or Diesel, or whoever) patenting a left-hand turn in an automobile?
What we are seeing here is simply a shopping cart with commenting allowed for each entry. Come on, it doesn't take much genious to do that? Working in my dorm room, I can (and am) working on such a system. And I don't intend on handing Amazon a single solitary cent!!
Not being a patent lawyer, I don't know what qualifies as prior art, but this looks like it is for their book review and discussion method, and if so, I know of an institution that has been dedicated to the practice of a 'Method and system for conducting a discussion relating to an item' since 1937. Is it so different to do it on-line that you get to have a patent?
Newsgroups have been around for many years.
How could this patent have been granted?
http://www.cptech.org/ip/business/
Did anyone in the patent office ever buy hardware components over the old modem based bulletin system? I still remember seeing messages on bulletin boards across CA with reviews of hot new modems or video cards.
I mean, come on!
I bought an Atari Jaguar in September 1995 from a guy via a newsgroup. I think it was either rec.games.video atari or one of the misc.forsale groups which doesn't exist anymore. It's sad, how many of the marketplace-type newsgroups disappeared as Ebay started becoming popular.
According to the USPTO (and my own experience), the USPTO recently changed it's practice and started publishing patents before grant. The link (as I know most won't read it) says that items go into the database up to 18 months before grant. That is, this case may not have been examined for novelty/obviousness yet. Most commonly (ie across worldwide patent systems) there is an A and B-publication. The A is published to tell the public what's happening. The B tells the public what's being granted. The claims will nearly always change before B-publication. It appears the US is now following this type of system.
pbhj
If patents as lame as this are being accepted, God help capitalism... I remember decades back using classified listng 'doors' (yes new products were sold on these too by local computer dealers) on bbs's with feedback questions/answers. One could hope its only a defensive patent - but like Amazon has a good reputation on that (remember one click purchase). My God the millions they must of spent on R&D to develop this technology. My Respect goes out to companies like IBM who do REAL RESEARCH, not greedy scum bags like Amazon. Hell i'll even give Microsoft more respect then Amazon for Patents. Netscape should of sued them, when they sued B & N for their one click -- when its Netscape's technology that allowed that to occur -- can one say COOKIE... If Slashdot was smart, they should patent their threshold technology, cause if they don't losers like Amazon probably will... As for the USPTO see you in hell for selling your souls to the devil...
you used to be required to submit a functioning model of your invention to the PTO in order to receive a patent. This enabled examiners to determine whether it worked , or at least had a chance of working. It also had the effect of winnowing down claims to those explicitly demonstrated by the model and made obvious claims more readily obvious.
I suspect that alot of these 'internet patents' would be rejected if they were actually demonstrated to examiners. It would be evident that they were attempts to patent techniques that were already widely deployed.
This sounds a lot like epinions? They have an item and you can buy it (from external places) and discuss it....
Hmm...
-Sean
Good God! I would think half of UseNet's posts fromt he 80s could be used as prior art!
Has the patent been issued, or is this just the patent application?
I think that even usenet is prior art in this case. For example, you've got comp.sys.*, each of which could be viewed as a discussion about a specific product...
I bet Amazon has a whole department that's targeted specifically at trying to formulate every little part of their process into a patent, and trying to push it though. I suppose there is nothing to stop them from trying, but I sure hope there is something to stop them from actually getting patents on things like "Talking about stuff over a network" and "Clicking to buy things".
-S
A lot of these business process patents could be challenged because they are automation of a known manual process
When Q-Link was around you could post comments (reviews gripes, whatever) to files in the download sections, sounds exactly like what Amazon is trying to patent.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
http://goatee.net/2003/02#_26we
03.02.26.we | Non-Novel Patents
An outcry over an offensive software or method patent is surfacing
nearly every week now. But the storm is not yet upon us, these are
merely the first chunky hail stones: it can, and probably will, get
much worse.
Patents are supposed to be novel, useful, and non-obvious. However,
these are rather subjective criteria that require the discretion of
knowledge, experience, and good judgment. Such attributes belong to
those skilled in an art, not of bureaucratic institutions. (Witness
how those administrative functions formerly administered by John
Postel, a skillful and respected Internet elder, are now bungled by
ICANN, the bureaucracy intended to the same.) However, we have no
great patent arbiter, only a governmental process and this has led to
a focus on, and misunderstanding of, prior art by computer
professionals.
The question of novelty and non-obviousness is proxied by a
mechanistic process of push and pull between a patent applicant and
patent examiner. An examiner, on his judgment can not arbitrarily
dismiss the application of a proprietary interest worth, potentially,
millions of dollars. He can only ask, "how is your claim different
than this prior art." Once this dance is done, a court is not likely
to disregard the patent's novelty as documented in its file wrapper
(the exchange between the applicant and examiner) and the resulting
claims.
In the narrowest construction, this process of emulating good judgment
with respect to novelty and non-obviousness works: the resulting
patent claims are more narrow than the initial application with
respect to some existing works. But in the sense of promoting
innovation and the "useful arts and sciences" of computer software and
networking, it is a huge failure.
As I've mentioned before, "Good technology, often created through
simple processes, lends itself to applications unforeseen by its
designers." As Lessig, in The Future of Ideas, amply demonstrates this
principle is what makes the Internet and Web such an innovative force
when as expressed as layered end-to-end architecture. To adopt his
metaphor, our common roads permit arbitrary journeys; our private cars
permit us to traverse our chosen paths. Much like the Internet and
Web, there are no patents or controls on the roads that determine
where you must go. (There are rules such as which side of the street
to drive on, much like networking protocols, but these don't affect
your destination.) It would be a shame to loose this flexibility, and
this is just what the patent system encourages: claims that combine
our common infrastructure and abilities in "novel" ways.
It's as if roads and driving themselves are recognized as an important
infrastructure and ability, but someone could patent using a car on a
road to drive to my house. Is using a car on a road to drive to my
house really that novel? The Patent and Trademark Office can not make
this judgment well, it will only look for prior art of someone
previously, explicitly, specifying this exact method in the past.
Perhaps they will find the method of driving to my house that I've
provided on the Web. The applicant can then amend their application
such that they have a claim for a car, on the road, driven to my house
using a stick shift, and a new claim for the same using automatic
transmission. The claims have been narrowed and there is no previous
exact description of this, hence no prior art. Success, or failure?
It's a failure of innovation because even if the patent office is
reformed and there are more examiners with access to larger prior art
data-bases the claims only become more numerous. The space of
innovation layered upon our common infrastructure and abilities is no
less encumbered, it is only more complex and confusing. The Free
Software Foundation calls this the "new wrinkle" when they explain why
Patent Reform Is Not Enough.
Intellectual property lawyers know this, and they will refer to the
courts as a final arbitrar: "Yes, this process is, as all processes
are, imperfect and may yield mistakes, but in those rare exceptions a
judge or jury will decide." However, as I mentioned, courts are
extremely reluctant to second-guess the decision of a patent examiner
with respect to novelty and prior art. And this process is so
expensive it is an option only exercised by those who can afford
lawyers or their own patent portfolio. Sadly, those individuals and
organizations that provided the enabling concepts, technologies, and
standards of innovation are threatened from actually using them! And
the future of innovation is displaced by a malignant growth fed by a
downward spiral of greed (those that never innovate, only sue) and
fear (those that don't like the system but feel compelled to
participate as a defense).
We need to setup a Slashdot topic similar to 'Ask Slashdot' in order to submit patent ideas. Then allow some of Slashdot's users in the legal profession to apply for a bunch of patents that are a load of crap. No one else could file the patent and the holder would not enforce it...
Scott, Keeper of the Crystal Flame
In our last episode
the Beaver and Wally were on their way to the Prior Art tavern...
Beaver: "Gee, Wally, why do you figure they call it the 'Prior Art' tavern? Do you think it's because of all the old pictures hanging on the walls?"
Wally: "Probably has something to do the previous owner's name being Art or something stupid like that."
Eddie: "Kids, you're both wrong! It has someth'in to do with legal stuff that used to be related to patents. Hey kid, why don't you quit being so lazy and look it up on google"
Beaver: "Can it, Eddie, I'm no kid I'm over 50 and so are you! Wally was right - he always used to tell me you were a smart ass on that old show... what's google, anyways?"
Wally: "No I didn't! You couldn't even say 'ass' on TV back then! Actually I kind'a think Eddie might be right, 'prior art' had someth'in to do with patents back in the old days,back when they built this tavern next to the patent office and named it 'Prior Art'."
Apart from a suspicion that this is not a granted patent (see other post, if you can find it) ...
... from then on it's a standard discussion group (like 'egroups' or whatever).
... ", et cetera).
If you read the doc, particularly the bit "DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION" (normally were you find the bits you can actually read and possibly make sense of!), then it appears that what is happening is more like this:
Albert (the 'originating participant') finds an item for sale among several offered (eg at Amazon). Albert decides that he'd like friend Bill to know about it so he clicks "tell a friend" and sends Bill the info (either publicly or privately) about the product via the system. A thread is started by the system for this discussion
It appears to be an enhancement of the "tell a friend" about this webpage idea, except that the webpages are for products for sale and that the tell-a-friend starts a discussion ("Bill: isn;t that a bit much for a baloney sandwich; Albert: it's 2c cheaper than the work canteen; Charlie: I saw spam sarnies on e-bay much cheaper last week;
Whilst Slashdot (as it existed before Aug 1999) may meet the claims it doesn't appear to knock out the whole disclosure. That is, the applicant can amend and file narrower claims to an un-anticipated invention.
Did 'Slashdot books' allow private discussions? Were the discussions initiated in terms of for sale items? Were messages sent (eg 'subscribe to this discussion') or only posted for later access?
Remember the examiner needs hard evidence not just 'of course this was around'. I think she may find it, but I don't think it will be as easy as Slashdotters are making out.
pbhj
Again, another reason NOT to support Amazon in anything they do.
This is nothing more than "innovation by patent application". Perhaps more appropriately, "profits by patent" -- obviously Amazon doesn't have much of any other way to make a buck, so why not try to make it so that anyone who wants to do business online ends up paying Amazon some way or another.
Bezos really has some gall trying to insist that they came up with this. What a joke.
Amazon needs to learn, by having their patents overturned in court -- that just because your business employs a certain process does not mean that you are due a patent on that process.
How many companies are out there violating this right now? How many software packages are available out there which can enable this type of thing - and apparently now violate Amazon's "patent" on discussing an item for sale.
Absolute lunacy, and yet another fine example of why the USPTO is amazingly unable to properly handle these type of applications. This should never have been awarded, plain & simple.
K.
If you look at the linked article from ipmenu the preamble clearly states that this is an "innovation patent" (similar to German Utility patent).
I don't know about German law, but in USA law, "utility patent" refers to the ordinary 20-year patent on an invention, as opposed to a plant patent or design patent.
This is a _registration_ to prevent others from nabbing your idea.
Last time I checked, registration of an invention to prevent others from patenting it was called a "technical disclosure".
You get a reduced term of protection (ie Monopoly) the Patent Office doesn't search or examine the innovation patent - it's just registered.
I find any monopoly that encumbers independent invention and is granted without examination a Bad Thing.
Will I retire or break 10K?
His patent lawyers win again. Wonder how many more $$$ they can take him for?
... is a bit too late here, but if we can start finding these patents while they're still pending...
From their FAQ, there's a link to the procedure of allowing the public to file a protest to a pending patent. There are some interesting problems that a patent lawyer might be able to clear up...
One of the conditions imposed on when a protest may be filed is (from Section 1901):
How is the public to know that an incorrect patent has been filed? I haven't been able to find a repository of unpublished patents. So far, I haven't seen a company publish their patent application before the uspto does....
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
it doesn't look like they're trying to patent online discussions as a whole. the patent, if you read past the summary (i know, we have difficulty with that here) it goes into database structure and design of the software.
I guess my question is where do you draw the line? Or do you? Does a companies moral stance and corporate policy matter to you?
1. Pick a patent at random
2. Add "on the web" or "on the internet" after it
3. Patent
4. Sue
5. ???
6. PROFIT!!
I'm going to do them all one better... I'm going to look at all the emerging technologies out there, and all the successful web/internet patents, and then tack on my buzzword.
1. Pick a web/internet patent at random
2. Add "Java" or "XML" or "SOAP" or after it
3. Patent
4. Sue
5. ???
6. PROFIT!!
THEN, I'll patent the method of adding on a useless claim to a patent in order to stifle innovation or gouge inventors, and I'll REALLY rack up the dough!
Oh. Except that Amazon has prior art here. D'oh!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
As an old fart, this just sounds like a fancy News GUI... hell even like GNUs. There have been loads of discussions on selling things over Usenet for years and years and years.
Now the argument here is that a "non-participant" doesn't start the disucssion. Or in otherwords...
This is a Usenet discussion in which root items are posted by a moderator.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I wonder...
... would it?
Nah, it'd never work.
Track down the quotes by USPTO staffers that say:
"We don't care if a patent is correct or not, that is what the courts are to decide."
I had a bet that Amazon's next patent would be for one-blink viewing- a method whereby a web page is presented within a time frame that should allow, at the most, one blink, before the entire page is visible.
Having said that, I have never purchased anything from Amazon, and I never will.
Amazon's a great system for find and purchaing books and music.
But Amazon has made a practice (perhaps they should patent it) of abusing the patent system.
So I don't buy anything from amazon
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Or, like Dogbert said, "I've just patented no-click shopping. You better click on something before I send you some books"
How can you say they are forced to do this? That logic ranks right up there with the whole mutally assured desctruction Cold War bullcrap. You are making an assumption with little basis, how many things has Barne's and Noble's patented and sued Amazon over?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
As I posted further down, I think Amazon.com have been very innovative and inventive, and they deserve credit for that.
How have they exactly been "innovative and inventive", they sell books online (which isn't really new) and and they seem to have diffuculty making money at it. I guess I just don't see them really doing anything new or differnt and their "innvoation" doesn't seem to have made them any money yet. About all I have seen Amazon do is spend investor capital like crazy and patent what seem to be very obvious buissness methods and "license" them.
That's it.
f -a -fruckin-brain can do. I would love to use some more "colorful" words to describe this, but I'm too freakin pissed off to think straight.
I've had it with all this "I own the Internet" and "I own how many times you can click to purchase" and "I own shopping carts" and all the other patent nonsense that's been going around.
SERIOUSLY...
I'm going to flagrantly violate every stinking patent I can come across that tries to lock down "business methods" and other obvious extensions of what a computer/keyboard/monitor/network/person-with-hal
I work for myself. I'm not rich. What're they going to do, patent my furckin birthday and throw me in jail? Wanna SUE ME Bezos?? I wanna hear that stupid Bezos laugh as he spends a million dollars trying to sue someone who doesn't have shit -- I can sit in court ALL DAMN DAY. Can't get blood from a stone, as they say.
Screw'em. Bezos and his like can just bite me. I'm going to ONE-CLICK CHECKOUT myself all the way to the bank, and then probably to court. And then I'm going to laugh my freakin' head off all the way back to the bank with the free press (and resulting investor interest) I'll get from Wired and Slashdot articles/interviews and everyfreakin-body else who covers it.
Ahhh... feel much better now.
But I'm still going to do this -- a site will be launched with patented ONE-CLICK checkout, and any other patented "business methods" I can find.
Email me with any other patent-infringing features you can think of -- sfulk@zoominternet.net -- I'd love to set up a website with the only goal of being sued by as many dickhead companies as possible.
Someone please let the cork bulletin board down the hall from my office know that it owes Amazon.com a licensing fee. People tack up things like anti-war sheets, apartments for rent, concerts, sign-up sheets, etc. Other people sometimes scribble replies. Seems pretty clear to me that that bulletin board is in violation of this patent.
"One skilled in the arts". What a laugh.
1. How do you measure effectiveness of their online retail environment? They aren't turning a profit are they?
2. Recommending books other people have bought isn't exactly innovative, it is nice, but nothing more then what a real life retail sales person would do (oh yeah the last person in here bought this product too).
3. A scalable environment supporting thousands of products? What are you reading this out of their Annual Report? Sounds like marketing hoopla to me.
4. They didn't pioneer customer reviews, we had this in the BBS days for files, in the 80's, this is far from new.
5. New and Used books combined, hmmm there are other stores that do this, granted they are doing it online. Sort this is the closest I have seen to innovation, still not a new idea.
6. What new model is this they created? Any bookstore can generally order ANY piece of media, which is all Amazon does, they just do it online.
In summation if they are so effective and innovative why aren't they making money hand over fist like eBay? Why aren't all the brick and mortar bookstores out of business? Hmmmm, maybe Amazon isn't as good as they appear to be, maybe they are answering a question that was never asked. Just seems like something is really not right if they can't turn a profit consistently after all this time. Amazon will probably end up like the Spruce Goose, they got off the ground for a little while and then never were up again.
Apparently Amazon doesn't think thier patent is the same as USENET's forsale newgroups, and I'm pretty sure Amazon's lawyers could do a good job convincing a jury the same thing.
Thier patent isn't moot, because Amazon could file a lawsuit against me, and Amazon could convince a jury thier patent is valid insofar as it covers a smaller scope than what *you think* it covers (Large enough in scope to really hurt every eRetailer with User reviews/comments).
YAPNAL (You are Probably Not a Lawyer), and I think you're assertions are irresponsible.
Even if Amazon holds a patent they don't plan on cashing in now, doesn't mean they won't later. Even worse, it sets a precident for all of these other scumbag companies who want patent obvious features that would have been invented by every other Tom, Dick and Harry had they waited for the Internet to get out of its infancy.
I'm sorry, but pointing to USENET as prior art is uninformed (you didn't read the patent), speculative (both in Amazon's motives and how a jury would decide), and obtuse (Foresale USENET != Amazon's Patent).I'm sorry, we're not going to win against the patent Nazi's by being uninformed, speculative, and obtuse.
If we can't even read and understand patent applications, than these IP Lawyers and beaurocrats are going to eat us for breakfast and shit us out during lunch. They're experts at taking the pedanticly stupid, smelly, hippie, geek stereotypes and using it against us to kill any public support before it even starts.
None of us seems to have a fucking clue as to how the patent system and litigation system actually work, yet we're the voice for reforming it???
Where's our Lawrence Lessig, or heck even an RMS for patent reform?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Uh no take a look at the balance sheet there, at the line that says "Net Profit", the numbers in paranthesises(sic) mean they are NOT making money. So last year they LOST, as in didn't make money, about 150-160 MILLION dollars, doesn't look like a good balance sheet to me.
If only the USPTO could reach the high standards you set for /. readers...
Sadly, Atleast USPTO workers can read/interpret patent applications...
If you're going to mod me down for not being funny, make sure you mod me down (-1: Ha-Ha-Funny) and not (-1: Ironic-Funny)
(NOTE: While the parent's post was funny and in good fun, I think it needs to be mentioned that while USPTO workers are stupid, we should be chagrined for not even achieving USPTO worker's level of stupidity. Hence, my sad joke, depressing irony, and attempt to win you over with a sad joke (second paragraph))
Oh yeah, we're fucked... Know any good jokes?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I have purchased a lot of things from Amazon, however. They are well organized, have a lot of good features. The user reviews are great (but hardly something they can patent), and the wish list is nice for keeping track of items you want to buy later. They also have a really good purchase-interest prediction based on past purchases, wish list items, and whatever else they use.
They have a lot of free shipping now, and their prices are getting very close to the lowest on a lot of things.
Once they patent accepting money in exchange for goods, they can rule the world.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I wasn't so much questioning the quality of Amazon's service, as I was questioning their greed and their and ethics. For me, it doesn't matter how 'good' it is- if they suck because they're patent whores (or just plain unethical like Microsoft), I'd rather give my money to someone else. It all boils down to how much you as a consumer are willing to give up in terms of convenience in order to stand up for some well-founded principles. It's the same problem with RIAA and the music biz.
I'm going to patent Using light or electrical signals to transmit any sort of data . Then The ability for an electronic device to produce readable material
I meant to say Net Income, suffice to say if you can't read a balance sheet (which it seems a good many Slashdoters can't) then my explaining is pointless, but I will try. Think of Gross Profit as what you make on your paycheck, your Net Income is what your get after taxes and paying all your bills and crap, your Net Income is what you are left with. And if you look at the bottom of the balance sheet they had only made a profit ONCE that year, and it was only about 2 million, if you add that to the losses, the last line on the bottom with the BIG numbers in between the (), you see they lost a LOT of money.
So to sum it up they were about 150 million in the red (meaning loss) for the year.
That's a good one, patenting the electronic forum. I guess I'll have to sue, since I own the patent on looking at the monitor, and most sighted folks who use his patent will also use mine.
stuff |
Don't buy anything from them. The less money they have, the fewer lawsuits they'll be able to bring in regard to these ridiculous patents (and the less able they'll be to defend themselves from lawsuits regarding the patents.)
evil adrian
Plus, I have nothing wrong with trying to make a buck, but ya, this patent stuff is getting way out of hand.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Would UUNET not be considered prior art?
It is not enough that I should succeed. Others must fail.
-- Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's
[Also attributed to David Merrick. Ed.]
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
-- Gore Vidal
[Great minds think alike? Ed.]
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