Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Takes Pikachu To The Patent Office
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.
Amazon tries to patent:
Trolling is a art,
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...
Does this make Google liable (or indeed, most search engines in general) if you type in an incorrectly spelt search, and it suggests an alternate?
This is so not gonna work unless they put a filter on it.
If going by search engine queries is any example, pokemon is not the most commonly searched for word that begins with po...
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
...but not for others. Great for entering URLs you've visited before or text messaging, but suh-ucks in word processing. Thanks, I can write a sentence (or in this case, 1 word) for myself.
"Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first." - My Dad
Someone patent searching for '*' and '%', which between them will cover all other searches! ...
3. Profit!
Unlike the other patents this does actually look like an original idea.
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.
Listen Amazon, your website is slow enough - no need to slow it further by constantly pumping partial queries and results over the net.
Assuming you can get a patent on something as obvious as autocompletion. Whatever happened to not granting patents to the trivial, the almost-identical, and the prior-arted?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Everyone go there and search for goatse.cx!
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
*sigh*
this actually looks like an inovation, taking the client side history autocompilet a step further by making it a server side history. un-like the 'one-click' buy junk.
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.
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
Let me get this straight. This is what they patented, right?
:)
select * from items where name like 'PO%'
order by number_of_requests_last_week
I'm really glad that I'm studying to become an IP lawyer. The more stupid patents, the merrier
the pun is mightier than the sword
There must be hundreds of prior art. For example, URL autocompletion in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla fit the bill.
I am tempted to patent "patenting frivolous patents" as a business method. At least this way Amazon.com would have to come out of the closet and claim "prior art" (I wouldn't disagree with them).
When the user starts typing PO, obviously your first suggestion should be PORN :)
Amazon doesn't care if the patent can be canceled due to prior art. They'll strong arm other companies and many are bound to not put up a fight. If someone does, and the patent is later invalidated, then the max they'd lose would be to have to pay the original licensee back, I don't believe they'd have to pay any type of penalty on any fees collected. So they basically end up with a interest free loan, IF the thing gets invalidated. Not a bad downside. The way that the current patent system is setup, your much better off trying to patent everything, as even if a large number get punted, you'll probably make good money off the ones that don't (kinda like VC in the boom).
Hmmm... PO... dunno but PORN sounds like a viable alternative. Pokemon as an example for PO seems like wishful thinking.
Its not
"Where do you want to go today?"
It's
"Where do we want you to go today?"
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
At first, I just read the slashdot summary of the patent and agreed with pretty much everyone else, that it was insane. After reading the patent abstract though, it does sound to be a bit more complicated than just auto-completion.
"A system for facilitating online searches suggests query autocompletion strings (terms and/or phrases) to users during the query entry process, wherein the suggested strings are based on specific attributes of the particular database access system being searched. A string extraction component associated with a database access system, such as a web site of an online merchant, periodically generates a dataset that contains the autocompletion strings for the system. The datasets are preferably biased to favor the database items that are currently the most popular (e.g., best selling or most frequently viewed), and may be customized to particular users or user groups. The datasets are transmitted to users' computing devices, which may include handheld and other wireless devices that lack a full keyboard. An autocompletion client which runs on the computing devices in association with a browser uses the datasets to suggest the autocompletion strings as users enter queries that are directed to the database access system. "
That doesn't mean I entirely agree with the patent but I don't think the slashdot summary is very clear.
Now we're patenting "features" of software--behaviors even. How about Undo? Oooh, that's worthy of a patent. Or double-click to select a word, triple-click to select a sentence?
Pick any feature of any software system, and it's now fair game for patent. This means of course, in the future you'll have to get a licensing agreement from FubarU.com, the patent holder of the "Undo" feature.
What I wonder though, is it just pure malice that drives these humans to patent things like this? It certainly can't be business sense, since Amazon can't conceivably get any more online retail business by others not being able to use this feature on their retail sites. And it can't just be for license fees, since those may or may not ever come to fruition.
What ever happened to the good old days of insurance fraud, embezzlement, and plain old theft? At least those perpetrators had balls.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
1) This isn't such a "IE did this first" issue. If you read the claims, the process calls for some more detailed analysis on the suggestion end- for example, culling out null results. It'd be the equivalent of IE not autocompleting to 404's, which we all know it still doesn't do.
2) Prior art from any time after their filing date in 2000 won't matter, so don't worry about what was going on "last year."
3) The examiner clearly considered mere autocompleting- look at the references cited during prosecution. PDA operating instructions are among them, which I imagine contained lots of "this device will complete your word for you."
4) Prior posters seem to be confusing "novelty" with "non-obviousness." I think it's pretty likely Amazon was among the first to use this invention as disclosed, but I'm willing to grant that any reasonable programmer turning his or her mind to this problem would have created a similar solution. But that doesn't mean it really has been done before.
Just imagine if personal injury lawyers started offering a service whereby they will patent your injury! Not only do you get compensation when you hurt yourself, you get royalty fees the next time someone hurts themself the same way!
..... wouldn't be much good if they could get taken to court over it, though!
I can think of a possible antidote to all this court mania, though. Has a retailer the right to refuse payment, even if it is made in pound notes, if it believes the money was obtained by some means it feels objectionable? I.E. can some methodist-run establishment legally refuse money won on the horses? By extension it would mean NO LAWSUIT MONEY signs in shops and restaurants
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Let me see, I had been programming for about a year or so when I wrote an interest-generating bank account program for my C64 for use during a game of Monopoly (heh). Each time you wanted to select an account, you press the first letter of the name, and if it was unique you got the full account name. If not, it just waited until it had a unique string. If a 15 year old programmer can sort out autocompletion, for himself, without prompting from anybody, after only a few months of programming, how can anybody possibly argue this is non-obvious to a practitioner (a requirement for a patent)?
Any fule nose that typing 'PO' will always autocomplete to 'PORN', no matter how popular Pokemon is at any one time.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
The sad part is that this is happening over and over. I mean what kinda of R&D did Amazon sink into researching auto-completion? Zaroo dollars! More likely some summer intern added it because they learned it in comp sci 101 and now it's Amazon's to enforce. They may throw the "it's a defensive patent" line at the public but the distinction between a defensive patent and enforcing a patent is based solely on goodwill unless they publish a legally binding statement that they won't pursue infringers. It still wouldn't you from being dragged into court if they so chose.
The question on my mind is WHEN, not if, patent reform is going to happen. Like the internet bubble of the 90's, this patent bubble can't keep going in perpetuity. At this rate, maybe 3 or 4 more years? Simply put, process patents are eventually going to have to be abolished or the US economy will end up stagnating in a sea of litigation. Tech companies are going to be clobbering each other in the courts instead of in the labs. It won't be bad for everybody though, it'll be a boon for lawyers. Maybe it's time to shed this IT gig and head to law school where the real money is going to be!
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
RPM's are for pussies. Real men install everything using .tar.gz. On their Slackware box.
No, wait, that's too easy. Real men code their Linux from scratch. Without a compiler. Straight machine code. Input by ASCII.
Naturally, this prevents holding down a real job. So real men also live in their parents' basement. And priorities prevent time for useless things like girls. So real men masturbate. A lot. While looking at a picture of Stallman. Naked. Fucking that queer GNU ox mascot.
Any more questions?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
For the record, this kind of behavior bothers me. But, they really are within the confines of the patent system.
All the prior art examples I've seen posted have been about autocompletion or searching a users previously entered text. They are taking this and expanding it to search the entered text of a group of users, giving the benefit of possible autocompetion of text you may have never typed.
Patents are supposed to do this. They exist so that someone can take someone's idea and exand on it. That's what they are doing. There very well me prior art on *their* idea, but so far all prior art has been on standalone autocomplete.
And now...I should say that this is just plain stupid. I never thought something like this should be patentable, but it is. It's the system's fault, and it needs to be fixed. And although they are within the confines of the system, they are just contributing to it's failings. Of course, that could have the effect of more evidence to its demise and rethinking by providing even more examples of misuse of the system.
Actually, just add in an ORDER BY statement and we have this exact same thing as they have patented:
select top 1 toy_name from tbltoys where toy_name like 'PO%' order by number_purchased desc
Just drop that in a stored procedure, and have the program call that procedure, then use the output to fill in a text field, ala autocomplete. This is not exactly revolutionary, its a damn ORDER BY clause in a SELECT statement. If you want to get fancy, you'd probably go ahead and index both the toy_name and number_purchased columns.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
I just can't help myself. Every time I hear someone say the word 'Pikachu,' my gut-level reaction is to offer them a Kleenex and say 'Gesundheit.'
I know, I know... Probably off-topic... There go my karma points (again).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
I would suggest some prior art here.
I developed an entry suggestion system in 1994 or 95. In my system I looked for a correlation between the previous answers to other questions, and then offered a pull down of ranked choices.
Something like this.... if somebody goes to the DVD page, they could load the Top 50 DVDs into a JavaScript Array. And every time the user adds a character to the search field, it would look to that array and see how many titles match what the user has typed so far. When they're down to only one match, they pop the rest of the title into the search box and, in a perfect world, they would auto-select the autocompleted portion so that, if the user continues typing, it will erase the autocompleted portion.
For example, let's say (as a really lame, quick example) that you have two titles in the array:
The user enters...
"The Hand That Ro"...
and nothing shows up yet, because the "system" (ha!) doesn't know what title you're going to enter. But as soon as you enter the "c" in the word "Rocks", it only has one left and it autocompletes "ks the Cradle".
It's a reasonably good idea (not a great idea, but decent), and it DEFINITELY shouldn't be patentable, because it will become the SECOND thing (that I know of) that I, as a web developer, am prohibited from doing for my customers by law (the first is One-Click, Amazon's first silly little software patent).
Just my USD 0.02
Weirdly, Microsoft themselves may have prior art on Amazon's predictive auto-complete in their Visual Studio .NET programming environment. As you start to type a line of code, it pops up a select list of potential matches. You can then use the cursor keys or mouse to pick the one that you want and hit TAB to auto-complete your line...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur