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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?
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)
Drinking wine by removing the cork to allow the wine to pass trough the bottleneck, on the web
Trying is the first step towards failure.
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
---Rewind 8 or 9 years.
REwind a thousand years...
---No one bought anything over the internet. E-commerce didn't quite exist.
Things were bough in the marketplace. Brick and mortar stores didnt 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.
Here comes this upstart that actually builds a building for commerce and sells pieces of it for sale for others. A whole new business model is formed: selling parts of your building for sheltered 24-7 markets.
---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.
Same goes for then too. After a while, "ideas" are everybody's. You opened up them first, so you reap first. After such, you actually have to BE COMPETITIVE TO MAKE MONEY.
---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.
And that entitles you to make money? NO. YOu juat happened to be the first to capitalise off of it.
---If you've been in that position before, you know how infuriating it is. So what are your options? Sadly, very few.
You sue for things you can win, not because "It's like mine".
---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.
Competitors... Like Barnes&Noble, eBay, and other online sellers? It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out you can negotiate to sell stuff on the internet. Hell, I've been buying stuff off of Usent since '93. Same "barter", "Agree", "Trade Info". And banks will do escro also, for a price. And the same ratings have been enacted far longer than what eBay has done. It's called public opinion.
---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.
I've already advocated instead of boycotting Amazon.com , boycott software Patents that the USPTO agrees to.
---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.
Innovate or die. That's the heart of capitalism. Whoever stagnates is left in the dust.
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?