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Amazon's Bezos Wants Web Advertising Patent

Posted by Hemos on from the dear-lord dept.

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.

7 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. I hope he gets it by davetrainer · · Score: 5, Funny
    How much easier would our lives be if amazon.com were the only site on the entire www with advertisements?

    Yes, wishful thinking, I know.

  2. Yea!!! by ryanvm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yea! No more banner ads! Welcome to the Internet circa 1993.

  3. looks like we're screwed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  4. Hmmm..... by mistermund · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?

  5. The only thing Bezos won't try to patent by unitron · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. It's only time before by FunkyMarcus · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

  7. Re:I did, I did!!! by cabraverde · · Score: 5, Funny

    I.E. A system of showing ads based on companies' bid amounts??

    Yes, I'd say that sums up IE fairly accurately!