Patent Sought For Amazon Marketplace

theodp writes "On the same day CEO Jeff Bezos launched Amazon's Search Inside the Book feature, a 'completely new way for people to find the books they want,' the USPTO published Bezos' patent application for User interfaces and methods for facilitating user-to-user sales. Ironically, searching for 'Amazon' won't turn up Bezos' patent application--the claims are illustrated with example web pages for the hypothetical 'Store.com', as seen through the eyes of 'Sally Small', 'Larry Large', and 'Barry Buyer.' References are made to other patent applications, presumably Amazon's, that describe a way to efficiently create links to bank accounts, the use of product viewing and purchase histories to identify related products, an electronic catalog search engine, the use of a browse tree for navigating a catalog by category, a wish list service, and a service for allowing users to post product reviews for viewing by others." I've used Amazon Marketplace to buy a fair number of things - it's too bad such a cool service has to be "patented", because you know, the concept of people selling to other people is obviously a new one. *sigh*

Comments

Re:is it that simple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you've been asleep since 1999 but the USPTO grants just about any patent that goes through their door. Don't believe me? What about the patent for swinging on a swing that took over a YEAR to revoke.
Here is a link to a weblog that mentioned it.
http://www.dalager.com/weblog/archives/000022 .html

Re:Acacia's Patents Outlaws Streaming Video/Audio

[Concerned Onlooker]

Acacia isn't the only company on the prowl...

Indeed. This San Diego company claims nothing less than the patent on internet commerce. They started by suing dozens of small businesses with the apparent goal of getting a $5000 settlement.

Tim Beere, owner of DeBrand Fine Chocolates, refused to settle and started a group whose purpose is to fight this. It looks like they're making headway, but it would be nice to see some of the bigger players in e-commerce kick in to crush this thing. So far, it's a bunch of small players refusing to be extorted who are bearing the brunt of the battle.

Patent has nothing do with searchable text

[corbettw]

I'm not sure why the poster mentioned Amazon's searchable text, all the comment has done is serve to confuse a great many of the slashbots who have posted (not that that's hard).

This patent appears to cover Amazon's Z-Shops, not eBay's auction system, not text searching of books, and not just a business method. It covers a way to, in essence, share catalog information among small merchants in a marketplace. Having had a small online retail shop in the past, I can tell you that this is a great idea, and I wish Yahoo! Stores had had it back when I still had a shop.

RTFPA

[hacksoncode]

Has anyone actually RTFPA?

What is claimed here is a very specific system for creating a catalog of preexisting items (i.e. a "list of everything") so that people can, instead of writing up a description of their item, find it in the big catalog and say "I have one of these, anyone interested".

Perhaps there's prior art for this (though I don't know of anything that's very similar), but it's certainly not a patent application for "selling stuff over the internet".

Geez... Give the guys some credit for thinking of a cool bit of technology (even if perhaps they aren't the first to think of this one... I reserve judgment on that)...

He did take initiative in creating the Internet

[brlewis]

If you had any clue what Gore actually said, you would see that he was obviously referring to his service in congress, not technical inventions. He did take initiative in opening the university/military/government network to create what we now know as the Internet. If not for Gore, you wouldn't be able to flaunt your ignorance on Slashdot the way you just did.

Re:Ebay?

[ClubStew]

Prior art? Since when has prior art been checked by the USPTO? British Telecom with their hyperlinking, AltaVista with the search engine, and many other patents that have been granted all have very strong prior art. Even the recent EOLAs problem has prior art. The problem is that the USPTO doesn't 1) care and/or 2) has no idea what to look for. The judges and jurors in patent infringment cases are two stupid to know a bit from a byte so the patent holder usually wins because they have the patent that shouldn't have been granted in the first place.

Prior art these days is a non-existent concept.

Re:Ebay?

[squiggleslash]

Well: (Note before reading this the difference between a product - something you'd list in a catalogue where the actual unit that a buyer would receive is not listed and bought specifically (ie you'd buy a "Grotmaster 2000", not "the 87th Grotmaster 2000") - and a listing - a specific instance of a unit belonging to a product model being sold.)

1. eBay isn't covered by claim 1, because eBay doesn't allow the selection of a product (the best you can do is search for listings with a common phrase. You can't say "Show me the Wotsit 7800, with a description and list of all the Wotsits 7800 being sold")
2. eBay isn't covered by claim 2, because there's no single page on which all of the listings for a single product are shown.
3. eBay isn't covered by claim 3, because eBay doesn't maintain a catalogue, merely a collection of listings (what's the difference? A catalogue shows products, a collection of listings is of specific physical items for sale)
4. eBay isn't covered by claim 4, because eBay doesn't associate and store a specific product ID with each listing.
5. eBay isn't covered by claim 5, because eBay does not suggest prices to sellers, does not ask for the physical condition of the item, and does not require the seller refer to a specific product.
6. eBay is not covered by claim 6, because, while eBay has recently purchased Paypal and previously operated Billpoint, both are supplied as optional services, and Paypal does not in any way resemble the method explained here.
7. eBay is not covered by claim 7, just as it is not for claim 3: further, eBay offers no forums specifically linked to products for the discussion of those products.
8. eBay is not covered by claim 8: eBay does not have a pre-ordering system.
9. eBay is not covered by claim 9: eBay does not have a pre-ordering system.
10. eBay is not covered by claim 10: eBay does not have a pre-ordering system.
11. eBay is not covered by claim 11: This describe's Amazon's "Recommendations" system. eBay has no such system.
12. eBay is not covered by claim 12: The claim is as for claim 1 but changes the payment method: claim 1 fails to describe eBay because claim 1 requires the selection of a product. This, incidentally, is the only claim that gets close to describing eBay in that it's the only one with the word "auction" involved.
13. Wow. Anyway, eBay isn't covered by claim 13 either - eBay doesn't allow the selection of a product. An end user would find a benefit here of the what Amazon is patenting over what eBay does in that the former gives you a Yes/No answer as to whether or not something is available in the marketplace. With eBay, you have to search, and hope that you chose the right search terms.
14. eBay is not covered by claim 14, for the same reason as 13.
15. eBay is not covered by claim 15, for the same reasons as for both 5 and 13.
16. eBay is not covered by claim 16, for the same reasons as for both 6 and 13.
17. eBay is not covered by claim 17, for the same reasons as for both 7 and 13.
18. eBay is not covered by claim 18, for the same reasons as for both 8 and 13.

Claims 19-23 are similarly combinations of previous claims and therefore are inapplicable to eBay for the same reasons as those previous claims are inapplicable.

24 is an application of Amazon Marketplace to retail merchants. It, and 25-30 (which are combinations of previous claims) doesn't describe eBay because it's describing Amazon's product based marketplace system.

31 describes the "Have one to sell? Sell yours now!" button on Amazon product pages. Again, it doesn't apply to eBay because eBay doesn't have product pages, it has listings. 32-36 are all variations of 31 and fail to apply to eBay for the same reason.

37 again describes a product based selling system. I'm not entirely sure this isn't merely clarifying what's been said before, it's fairly opaque. What is absolutely clear is that it, and 38-41 (which are based on 37) still do not apply to eBay as