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Third Anniversary of Bezos-Backed Patent Reform

theodp writes "With IE, IM and Linux all threatened by patent infringement lawsuits, it's worth noting that Saturday marks what would have been the third anniversary of BountyQuest. With $1+ million of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' money and an Amazon VP on its Board, BountyQuest vowed to reform the patent system through its prior art contests. While BountyQuest raised eyebrows when it found winning prior art right off the bat for a patent Amazon was sued for infringing on, it surprisingly drew little heat when it announced no winning prior art could be found for Bezos' own 1-Click patent. 'There was no Bounty winner, mainly because the 1-Click patent is specific to the Web,' explained BountyQuest. 'This was a tough one to win because the Amazon 1-Click patent is so specific to the Web,' added BountyQuest investor Tim O'Reilly. Amazon's claim that the contest outcome vindicated Bezos' 1-Click patent went unchallenged by the New York Times, who instead took contestants to task for submitting prior art that 'failed to mention the Internet.' But legal documents have surfaced revealing that a month before these arguments were made, Amazon was told by a Federal Court that 'This distinction is irrelevant, since none of the [Bezos 1-Click patent] claims mention either the Internet or the World Wide Web.' If it was 'in everyone's interest to get all relevant prior art out into the open,' as Bezos said, then what happened?"

8 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Pedro's ego costs the Sox teh series by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    That moron's massive ego let the Yankees pick away until they were even and had all the momentum. He should immediately be traded to the Brewers for a box of fungo bats.

    1. Re:Pedro's ego costs the Sox teh series by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      And Aaron Boone is the new Bucky Dent.

  2. FP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    First Post! Woot!

  3. Why do the English have such disgusting teeth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Filthy blackish-yellow shit stained teeth with breath that smells like dried vomit. Even wealthy parasites like the royal family have awful teeth. Why is that?

    Oh and did the old bitch the queen mum ever die? I always hated her.

    Thank You Very Much

  4. YOU SO FUCKING FAIL IT, TARDMUFFIN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
  5. TIMOTHY likes LITTLE BOYS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hey Timmy, take that virgen boy's cock out of your mouth!

  6. AMERICAN MOONWALK WAS FAKE!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Did man really set foot on the moon?

    Shocking : See what NASA has done (Long but worth reading)

    Did man really walk on the Moon or was it the ultimate camera trick, asks David Milne?

    In the early hours of May 16, 1990, after a week spent watching old video footage of man on the Moon, a thought was turning into an obsession in the mind of Ralph Rene.

    "How can the flag be fluttering?" the 47 year old American kept asking himself when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon? That moment was to be the beginning of an incredible Space odyssey for the self- taught engineer from New Jersey.

    He started investigating the Apollo Moon landings, scouring every NASA film, photo and report with a growing sense of wonder, until finally reaching an awesome conclusion: America had never put a man on the Moon. The giant leap for mankind was fake.

    It is of course the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. But Rene has now put all his findings into a startling book entitled NASA Mooned America. Published by himself, it's being sold by mail order - and is a compelling read.

    The story lifts off in 1961 with Russia firing Yuri Gagarin into space, leaving a panicked America trailing in the space race. At an emergency meeting of Congress, President Kennedy proposed the ultimate face saver, put a man on the Moon. With an impassioned speech he secured the plan an unbelievable 40 billion dollars.

    And so, says Rene (and a growing number of astro-physicists are beginning to agree with him), the great Moon hoax was born. Between 1969 and 1972, seven Apollo ships headed to the Moon. Six claim to have made it, with the ill fated Apollo 13 - whose oxygen tanks apparently exploded halfway being the only casualties. But with the exception of the known rocks, which could have been easily mocked up in a lab, the photographs and film footage are the only proof that the Eagle ever landed. And Rene believes they're fake.

    For a start, he says, the TV footage was hopeless. The world tuned in to watch what looked like two blurred white ghosts throw rocks and dust. Part of the reason for the low quality was that, strangely, NASA provided no direct link up. So networks actually had to film man's greatest achievement from a TV screen in Houston - a deliberate ploy, says Rene, so that nobody could properly examine it.

    By contrast, the still photos were stunning. Yet that's just the problem. The astronauts took thousands of pictures, each one perfectly exposed and sharply focused. Not one was badly composed or even blurred.

    As Rene points out, that's not all: The cameras had no white meters or view ponders. So the astronauts achieved this feet without being able to see what they were doing. There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless. They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in pressurized suits. It should have been almost impossible with the gloves on their fingers.

    Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the pictures are fake. His astonishing findings are explained alongside the pictures on these pages, but the basic points are as follows: The shadows could only have been created with multiple light sources and,in particular, powerful spotlights. But the only light source on the Moon was the sun.

    The American flag and the words "United States" are always Brightly lit, even when everything around is in shadow. Not one still picture matches the film footage, yet NASA claims both were shot at the same time.

    The pictures are so perfect, each one would have taken a slick advertising agency hours to put them together. But the astronauts managed it repeatedly. David Persey believes the mistakes were deliberate, left there by "whistle blowers" who were keen for the truth t

    1. Re:AMERICAN MOONWALK WAS FAKE!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.