Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon Takes Pikachu To The Patent Office

Posted by Hemos on from the it's-not-"would-be-nice-to-catch-them-all" dept.

theodp writes "On Tuesday, Amazon was awarded a patent for Search Query Autocompletion. From the Summary of the Invention--'For example, if Pokemon toys are currently the best selling or most-frequently-searched-for items within the database, the term POKEMON may be suggested whenever a user enters the letters "PO," even though many hundreds of other items in the database may start with "PO.'" See, Amazon practices the mantra "Gotta catch 'em all" with patents.

5 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. Prior Art? by dejaffa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There has got to be prior art on this. Didn't Yahoo do this before 2000 (when the patent was filed)?

    --
    There is no 'i' in team, but there is in fiasco...
  2. hmmm... prior art? by pngwen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well I'd have to say that there is a pretty good case for prior art on this one. I mean this is not too dissimilar from what web browsers have been doing for a few years now in the location tab (autocompletion of URLs)

    Also, in mozilla you can define macros that can be accessed via the location bar. So I can type google foo to search google for foo. The next time I come along I will probably just have to get as far as google fo and it will complete my search parameter!

    So there you go, mozilla has done it for at least a year. It even gives you suggestions, most popular at the top.

    Another app that does it is my check tender on my palm pilot. It does this for payees...

    Too bad most people will be scared off by court costs to argue the obvious. Oh well.

    --
    I am the penguin that codes in the night.
  3. The words "prior" and "art" spring to mind... by MrFenty · · Score: 4, Interesting
    My DOS (Clipper based) databases were doing this about 15yrs ago, and I think one or two of them are still running. Yet Another Unbelieveable Patent.

    *sigh*

  4. Bye bye Amazon by Illserve · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Implement this feature and I will stop using your service so fast it'll.... well it'll cause a .0000001% drop in your revenue.

    Seriously though, what a terrible idea. I'm already going out of my mind in a righteous fury when Excel converts 2/24 into a date without asking me.

    I'm going to see about getting a class action lawsuit together on the ground of increased blood pressure due to "frustrating features". Microsoft has deep pockets and there's all kinds of medical literature on the problems of stress to flood the court with.

  5. what I really don't understand by newsdee · · Score: 4, Interesting

    is how companies get patents on things that everybody is already doing. Shouldn't a patent be done *first* (or at least, be pending),before they start doing/producing something? As it stands, IMHO it seems to be something else: i.e. "let's see what's not patented yet and patent it". Insane...

    --
    The ENIAC Demo Competition