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Netflix Granted Patent on DVD Subscription Rentals
A few folks noted a new patent showing up
from netflix. They apparently now have a patent on their model of subscribing to rentals- where instead of being charged per disc, you are charged a monthly fee and can keep the rentals indefinitely without late fees. You can patent anything! Get on the bus!
They've also got a patent on not being able to find my DVDs for at least a week and a half after I send them back.
Mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
Why don't I enter a patent for renting or leasing a car for a month?
Sometimes I wonder who it is they hire to work at the USPTO.
This appears to amount to patenting an idea, not an invention or method.
I claim the patent on short articles devoid of detail, royalties must commence immediately.
You can patent anything! Get on the bus!
Better do it fast, before someone patents the bus.
Does this patent only cover DVD rentals? I'd hate to see a site like gamefly get hurt over this if the patent is broad enough to include all media rentals with the same scheme.
Heck, my old Anime club used to do that with Fansubs to get around the "no sale or rent" clause. You paid a fee each semester that allowed you to rent N tapes (the N was based off which membership you got), you could keep the tapes as long as you wanted, although you did have to turn them back in at the end of the semester and you could not have more than N tapes out at once. The fees went into blank tapes and shipping from Japan, the fansubbers did the actual translating and timing for free though.
I read the internet for the articles.
Walmart To Buy NetFlix.
They've succeeded in making themselves worth buying, kudos.
-R
somebody actually beat amazon.com to a patent?!
I bet there's an earthquake occuring somewhere.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
So, I guess that means Netflix is crossed off my list. Does anyone have another DVD rental service to recommend? (assuming that this other company can survive despite the patent.)
I recently heard about GreenCine and they seem interesting. It's $21.95/month, but they have "over 10,000 titles, with an accent on indie, art house, classics, foreign, documentary, anime and Asian cinema."
I sought a second opinion and found this extensive review of DVD rental services at Stark Raving Normal. The guy seemed to like them: "GreenCine is my current favorite DVD rental service. The customer service people have been great, they have the best selection of anime that I have seen from a DVD rental place, lots of cult movies, sci-fi, horror, indie films, foreign cinema, and even a cool little online community of San Francisco movie geeks."
I don't work for GreenCine, but they're probably towards the top of my list at the moment. And, it doesn't hurt either that some of their profits go to film arts organizations.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Here's some more info: Netflix Issued Patent on Subscription Rental Service and complete copy of the patent (PDF). You can also search for patent # 6584450 on the US Patent office website.
Patents are for keeping out those pesky small innovative companies who can't affort to go to court and don't have their own patent portfolio so that they can force cross-licensing.
Expect Wal-mart to fucking bend Netflix over. I get your "pull for the little man" thing. On the other hand, I'm glad a relatively large company (Netflix) finally pulled this patent crap against a company that's actually going to challenge the patent, as opposed to a mom-and-pop who can't fight back.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Well, I have to say that it is a non-obvious business practice. Otherwise video stores would have tried it years ago. I'm not sure they should have patented it, but it is definitely a useful implementation. Of course the mailorder/internet thing makes it functional...
I don't think there is anything resembling prior art, and for most of us, it was kindof a WOW! epiphany/paradigm shift thing.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
You're showing your ignorance to basic capitalism.
BS patent or not, Netflix having a patent on this method of DVD rentals kills the competition--whether it comes from a Big Corporation or otherwise. A lack of competition is ALWAYS bad for the consumer. In the end, it's not WalMart who's getting screwed, it's you.
Umm, actually he never said that
Technoli
I'm not sure if this is good or bad. On the one hand, I applaud netflix for protecting a buisness model they invented, or at least they were the first to implement and sink a lot of capital into.
But this gives them a monopoly. If they have the patent on a business, they have the monopoly and can stop everyone else from competeing.
A lot of the eTailers are trying to patent things that in effect would give them a similar monopolistic control over entire ways of doing business (oneClick etc...), these are definatly bad.
So I guess after reasoning this out, it's bad. It gives NetFlix an unfair control over a business model. There will be no competition, and they can raise the price to any level they see fit. So instead of you and me getting a service like this for $5 a month, becuase that's just a little bit more than it costs to make it happen, we will be forced to pay $25 or more becuase no-one is allowed to compete with NetFlix.
BTW: I'm a netflix user and love it. I think the system is great. I'd love some competition to drive the price way down.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
If we're going to allow Business Methods to be patentable (and that's a seperate conversation) then this is definitely an example of something that ought to be.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
... (waits for everyone to respond calling me ingnorant...)
but is it even possible / should it even be possible to get a patent for a business model? If so, why hasn't the RIAA patented the process in place for screwing its artist & the general public, while pulling the wool over the eyes of lawmakers? Why hasn't SCO patented the process for going after more-successful companies in order to keep themselves afloat?
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
So you're OK with a WalMart coming along with all their resources and wiping out NetFlix as soon as they see that a market is there worth taking? Yeesh, so much for innovation!
I can understand giving somebody an 18 year monopoly on a product that required lots of money spent on R&D, but allowing any bright idea to be patented is just idiotic.
Well, that pretty much writes off any small inventor. If you have to pour $X into R&D to get a patent, you've basically walled off a class of innovators from ever bringing their ideas to market.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Netflix came up with a genuinely new business model, for which they should be rewarded
For which they are rewarded when someone joins and pays them money.
What secrets are they keeping that the public will benefit from the exposure of on their patent application?
None. It's bleeding obvious, and the first time you hear of it, it's obvious how to implement it, even by lemonade stand-level businesspeople.
If you're an American, read your Constitution--the justification is written into it. If you're not, well, quick start a Netflix-style business before the EU patent is granted.
Start reporting them as stollen. ..........How is german bread going to help?
If you start telling people that their DVDs have turned into german bread, they'll think you're mad.
+5? Good god. What are the mods smoking? Even though NetFlix is sort of cool- I used to be a member, but have moved on to "greener" pastures- and they did have a good idea, why should this be patentable? Being able to patent "Do X, only on the internet" is about as stupid as can be. What if it had been possible to patent "Do X"? Would you all be happy if Blockbuster had a patent on movie rentals? Alamo on car rentals? Or, perhaps, Expedia on "Buying airline tickets... on the internet!" As others have said, unlimited-time-out rentals are not a new idea, either, so they really are doing this based of off "... on the internet".
Laugh at stupidity: mod idiots +1 Funny.
Except, of course, that it's not. Rental clubs are nothing new. Growing up, we had a video rental store nearby that offered a subscription model. You take that and add round-trip shipping and that's suddenly something new? I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find an earlier identical business model based around something other than DVDs. The closest thing to being revolutionary here is the notion that it might actually make any money.
bance.net
(from the news release)"Netflix allows customers to rent as many DVDs as they want for the monthly fee, with three movies out at a time. Customers can keep the DVDs as long as they like and they are delivered directly to the subscriber's address via first-class mail." Such innovation deserves a patent! Unfortunately, that business method is a couple of centuries old, and still viable today.
In the early days of mass media (books), printing was manual, and books were expensive. And many people of means lived in isolated places. Few could afford to buy as many books as they wanted to read.
To overcome this, "subscription libraries" were developed in the 1700s (one in Newport RI was founded in 1747). They charged an annual subscription fee, which went towards buying books and administrative costs. The city subscriber could stroll over to the library (or send a servant) and get a book to read, keep it for as long as they wanted, and get a new book when they brought back the previous one. Rural subscribers would request books by mail and get the books by mail. Fast readers could read as many as they wanted, with the restriction being that they had to return one to get another. (there may have been a multi-book quota ... I've never had to discuss the administrative details)
How is this different than the NetFlix patent, allowing for advancements in technology allowing online subscribing and electronic payment. Whether it's an annual subscription, or a monthly one, you sign up, you pay, you borrow, you return, you borrow some more.
And subscription libraries still exist today ... The one in Newport is sitll going strong, and I've seen some websites where you can subscribe to get access to their library of books or other non-web information.
Unfortunately for you, many people, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, disagree.
Unfortunately, the people who believe that business models should be patentable will find out too late that it was a bad idea.
"Intellectual Property" isn't. Ideas are very different from material goods, and trying to treat them the same is stifling the creativity that has advanced science, technology, and business in the United States up until now.
TTFN
I was recently told by my boss that our company's legal dept. wants us to try to patent *anything* that we've created. BTW, I'm a web developer/SA building tools for internal use. The idea is that by patenting stuff that we've written, we protect ourselves from somebody else patenting it and then suing us. We'd win (well, hopefully) because we'd be able to show prior art but it would still be an ugly legal battle. By spending the money up front, we protect ourselves and ensure that if somebody *does* try to sue us, we can show the judge the patent and hopefully wrap things up simply, cheaply, and quickly.
Although we could potentially use the patent to give competitors a hard time, the point would be to protect ourselves and our IP *before* somebody decides to attack us. It's also worth noting that if any of this patent stuff within my company actually looked like it was going to happen I'd be pushing strongly for something in writing basically saying that the patent wouldn't be abused.
It's a shame that anybody would have to go to these extremes just to make sure they can avoid a lawsuit but hey, that's life in the big city.
Rob