Slashdot Mirror
Amazon's Bezos Wants Web Advertising Patent
theodp writes "Just published today by the USPTO--Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' patent application for adding advertisements to web pages. Sure would be ironic if those 50,000 online banner impressions on oreillynet.com Amazon receives as a Platinum Sponsor of the upcoming O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference turn out to constitute patent infringement." Someone *has* to have prior art on this - GEnie/Prodigy/BBSes embedding ads for memberships.
No Patents For Oil!
Maybe this will be the end of pop-up ads :-). Just don't go to amazon
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
Yes, wishful thinking, I know.
Yea! No more banner ads! Welcome to the Internet circa 1993.
Was this filed on April 1st?
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
I just talked with Al Gore and he said he helped Amazon place the first one on the web. Looks like they got this one.
I always thought Al Gore invented those too...
Well, one could consider that those who apply for these patents on various forms of annoying web advertising could really be held responsible for those. I mean, how many times have you said to yourself, "If could only find the !#@*&er who came up with these things"? Now we have the answer. Anyone want to register the patent for spam?
Can I patent adding something that isn't an ad to a web page?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Something needs to be done about this.
I still say patenting the proccess of patenting would put a swift and complete stop to all of this. It just needs to be vague enough to cover every patent ever issued.
Seriously, if they get a patent on banner ads, and charge people for using the patent, everyone who uses banner ads will have to stop as I am sure they do not make enough money to cover the costs along with the patent costs. So in the end, NO MORE BANNER ADS!!! YEA!!!!!!!! CHEERS!!!!! JOY!!!!!
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Apparently the only thing ol' Jeff won't be able to justity getting a patent on is making an actual profit off of doing business on the internet.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
we used to run banner ads on our old proprietary service back as early as 1991.
You killed the Internet! You bastards!
Superflous Patenting Patented
SEATTLE, March 20, 2004 -- Amazon, Inc. (Pink Sheets: AMZNQ) announced today that the U.S. Patent Office has granted it a patent for "a method to systematically patent all things obvious and previously discovered by others." Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, indicated that this patent places the company firmly on the path to reorganization as an intellectual property and rights management firm. "I fully expect this strategy to enable us to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection later this year," Bezos said at a press conference this morning, where he outlined his plan to an enthusiastic crowd of such totalitarian dictators as Fidel Castro and Bill Gates. The remaining points of his strategy include patenting patent infringement as well as a method to litigate patent infringement cases.
Mark
In addition to patenting "adding advertisements to web pages" Slashdot reports that in the same patent, titled "Method and system for allocating display space", Jeff Bezos is also trying to patent "adding the word 'and' to a patent application".
The Slashdot community is in outrage
"There must be prior art. I mean someone must have the word 'and' in a patent application" writes one reader.
"I never read the patent, but I can see from the other comments that this monster is really trying to patent the word 'and'!! How ridiculous. The patent office is ensuring its own doom with this one."
"No one is sure if Bezos' secret agents in the patent office will get this one approved," reports the Slashdot editor who posted the story, "but this is yet another sign of the impeding downfall of western civilization"
A way to make money from banner ads!
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
...who initially read the title as "Amazon's Bozos Wants Web Advertising Patent"?
* Q
P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.
I.E. A system of showing ads based on companies' bid amounts??
Yes, I'd say that sums up IE fairly accurately!
instead of writing knee-jerk reaction posts
<humor>
Given that it's Amazon that filed the patent application, I think these knee-jerk reactions are justified. I looked up "frivolous patent" in the dictionary and it said "see Amazon". You just can't argue against that.
</humor>
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
If its Bezos's job to take advantage of the government due to poor enforcement for as long as he can get away with it, that must make it my job to take advantage of the government due to poor enforcement by killing people for as long as I can get away with it.
In the off-chance that you're not kidding... when you begin your rampage, can you please start somewhere FAR AWAY from where I live?
Thanks a bunch. --Jon