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Jakob Nielsen Defends "1-Click" Patents
danila writes "In his latest column the king of usability discusses competitive testing of website usability. Among other things he suggests that "Some tasks might be much easier on your competitor's site, and those tasks would indicate areas where you can learn from the competition and improve your design." Overall, a very informative and insighful article, if not for a small paragraph in the end. "You can patent usability innovations to keep the competition from stealing them. Most Web projects are managed by marketing departments that have no experience with the patent system. Websites, however, are inventions and should be protected when you invest in developing something new." How can you learn from competition if every potential improvement is already patented?"
This is getting sick...
g that it's amazing that we can acutally stay productive.
We're spending so much time suing/litigating/pateting/copyrighting/legeslatin
If we continue on this road - where we all pay tribute to layers for everything with dream of and do - we're simply going to get passed by.
From this fading civilisiation, cheers to you: India, Russia, China.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
1. Make crappy website
2. Steal competetors ideas and patent them
3. Sue your competetors
4. ???
5. PROFIT!!
If your name and buisness are associated with coming up with usability enhancements, it's not such a big surprise that you think such things are novel and deserve protection. It's protecting how you make a living.
The reason this logic doesn't follow for many software engineers and software patents, is that the stuff that gets patented is sometimes simple, and a horrible waste of cycles and time happens globally as people work around the patents. Also if you get a patent, it usually doesn't nessacerily(sp?) protect your opportunity to earn, just your companies bottom line.
How can you learn from competition if every potential improvement is already patented?"
Literally? Look at it and learn. You will have to wait 20 years to use it, but it doesn't stop you from learning, just immediately benefitting from the lesson.
There is another lesson to learn as well. Maybe you should innovate before your competition and earn a patent. Of course this is more difficult and expensive so I could see why some people don't like patents. Don't be afraid though, get out there and think and maybe one day you too might invent something!
My first first post.
I have a lot of respect for Nielsen, but...
IANAL but I'm quite certain that you can only patent innovations when they are truly innovative. For example, as a c++ programmer I notice that no one has patented a while-loop that compares user input to "y" or "n" to determine whether the user would like to enter more data. So I patent it as my "1-letter" loop. Never mind that loops are built-in to the language. Never mind that its an obvious application of loops. The patent office will probably give me a patent. But I wouldn't be able to defend it in court.
I work for a R&D dept of a large industrial company many of you probably have heard of. My boss is generally a pro-Libertarian anti-software patents person, but whenever we get told by the bigger boss to apply for a patent, he usually reasons it "It's not that we want to own this stuff, we just don't want anyone else to have it".
Why would you learn how to use something that you can't actually use? Would that not be a waste of time?
And what if you did create something truly remarkable, and didn't patent it, would then the next guy to come along patent it and block YOU from using it?
So if you had to patent everything that you wanted to use, would you not spend quite a bit of time and energy patenting instead of researching?
In the end, patents stifle innovation, since you have to spend energy patenting, energy taken away from researching. And innovation comes from researching, not patenting.
Now, the counter-argument is that you will have an incentive to research because the patent will grant you an exclusivity and you will be able to "corner the market" and make a lot of money.
Of course, if everyone did that, it would indeed be very difficult for anyone to invent anything patentable that actually makes good money. So only large corporations would do research, file patents, and rake in the profits.
But that leaves out Mr Tinkerer, who, instead of tinkering with his compiler/gadget, just sits and watches TV, wallowing in his inability to create anything that can pay the rent, being depressed.
And the big companies only innovate to maintain/gain market share. So when they are the only players in the market, they slow the rate of innovation to a crawl, because research is expensive, and the less research they do, the more net profits they get, and that's ALL the shareholders (owners) care about.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Oh man, Nielsen, you are such a smart guy, how can you even *conceive* such a stupid idea?
Usability is required on *all* sites, not just the ones that have the resources to patent everything.
So if I come up with a great usability enhancement, I should patent it? How does that increase the usability of the web overall? We live in a sea of unusable web sites and horribly designed programs.. now he's saying "hey, the goal is actually not to make web sites more usable. The goal is to come up with usability enhancements that one or two web sites will use. The other sites can go stuff themselves."
I'm reading this right?
Basic stuff like this should *not* be patented. The web needs all the help it can get. I wish every site could use 1-click shopping. When I first saw Amazon using 1-click I didn't think "wow, that's so innovative" I thought "gee, what took them so long? that's exactly what cookies should be used for!"
Insane. I can't wait to get sued for something like putting the "delete" and "submit" buttons on opposite sides of the form to reduce accidental deletions or some bullshit like that. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if that's already patented!
Why would you learn how to use something that you can't actually use? Would that not be a waste of time?
No more so than half of the time you spend in school, some might argue.
And what if you did create something truly remarkable, and didn't patent it, would then the next guy to come along patent it and block YOU from using it?
Prior art.
So if you had to patent everything that you wanted to use, would you not spend quite a bit of time and energy patenting instead of researching?
Nope, you'd draw up the schematic and hand it to your patent attorney.
In the end, patents stifle innovation, since you have to spend energy patenting, energy taken away from researching. And innovation comes from researching, not patenting.
Actually, innovation comes from playing, not researching.
Now, the counter-argument is that you will have an incentive to research because the patent will grant you an exclusivity and you will be able to "corner the market" and make a lot of money.
All good.
Of course, if everyone did that, it would indeed be very difficult for anyone to invent anything patentable that actually makes good money. So only large corporations would do research, file patents, and rake in the profits.
But corporations aren't creative and don't play, so they're really not going to innovate anything.
But that leaves out Mr Tinkerer, who, instead of tinkering with his compiler/gadget, just sits and watches TV, wallowing in his inability to create anything that can pay the rent, being depressed.
There are drugs for that.
And the big companies only innovate to maintain/gain market share. So when they are the only players in the market, they slow the rate of innovation to a crawl, because research is expensive, and the less research they do, the more net profits they get, and that's ALL the shareholders (owners) care about.
Not just shareholders.
This sig intentionally left justified.
...is just going to be a directory of patents? Just swap out any point where there is actual usability advice with the relevant patent number and you're done. Ooh, then you can copyright the directory, just like West law tried.
Websites, however, are inventions and should be protected when you invest in developing something new.
No, websites are code and/or art, and therefore are copyrightable but not (well, should not be) patentable.
If you read the article, Nielsen never mentions one-click patents. In my opinion he never even implies that one-click is patentable. The way I read his argument is that if you come up with a novel solution to a usability problem that requires enough work on your part as a company to even come up with, it deserves a patent.
I design user interfaces for a free network management application,
/*You can patent usability innovations to keep the competition from stealing them. */
Software patents are not common usage in the software industry. They only work for large companies and patent privateers. Just because the system is too expensive and we don't need them. Who lobbied for software patents? Patent attorneys, patent departments, patent offices. Most software developers don't even understand a word when they read the progress bar patent of IBM and other dangerous trivial patents.
Think of failed companies like SCO group when you are told that these patents are just defencive. they are WMD for software development.
Why would you learn how to use something that you can't actually use? Would that not be a waste of time?
Uh-oh, slow your roll g-money. I answered the question accurately and in full. Notice I got modded "troll", which on slashdot translates roughly to "rational and absolutely correct." The question proposed was not "why", but "how". Notice the first is a question for philosphy, hence subject to endless debate, and the second for science. The answer to "how" is still look and learn. You can discover your own "why" if you choose, but thats up to the individual. Based on the rest of your post, I'd say you have already decided not to play and take your toys and go home.
Behind every how question there is a why question.
the how was posed, I just asked the why.
>Based on the rest of your post, I'd say you have already decided not to play and take your toys and go home.
Yes, I had already formed an opinion. This whole discussion is hardly new, and has been hashed and slashed at endlessly on slash dotte already.
"Piter, too, is dead."
When I bought my second hand Atari ST back in 1997 it came with (among other things) a 3D sculptor/renderer called "3D Cad" or somesuch. Some operations took a long time to complete and therefore the friendly programmer had supplied (TaTah!): A progressbar ...
// Jens M Andreasen
I believe there are lots of even earlier textbased implementations around. Turbo Pascal comes to mind?
The IBM "patent" is from 1990 and therefore clearly not valid.
cheers
send + more == money?
Ooops, wrong year!
:-)
time flies like an arrow, fruitflies like a banana
send + more == money?
We're so productive, we don't know what to do with the rest of our populace. They don't really need to work (and they're aren't brilliant enough to become artists/scientists). Most societies are built around scarcity of resources and abundance of labor. They're meant for a wealthy few to use control of scarce resources to not only improve their standard of living but exercise power. As technology improves and resources are no longer as scarce people lose the power that comes with scarcity. "Intellectual Property" is one way to maintain artificial scarcity (there are others). With it, the wealth and powerful can maintain their hold on society in the face of raising productivity. I don't think China or Russia or any other country will pass us by. They'll want to join us in using IP to maintain the lower classes in the face of rising affluence.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
you'd draw up the schematic and hand it to your patent attorney.
Where would Mr. Tinkerer get the money to hire a patent attorney for the first time?
There are drugs for [depression caused by having learned that your trade is illegal].
Unfortunately, those drugs are patented as well.
that in Soviet Russia, WE PATENT YOU?
I'm good with numbers -
No, you were modded "Troll" because someone doesn't like you. I'm not saying it was correct and, if I were to come across it in meta-moderation, I would not agree with the modreration. But, considering how insulting and rough you can be with other users, are you really surprised a moderator would have a vendetta against you?
For the record, I agree with your grandparent, but your parent, again, explains why someone would become upset with you enough to just blindly mark you down as a Troll. Also for the record: I'm not the one who modded you as a Troll since I'm posting and your moderation remains. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks you need some better social skills.
If you try playing nice with the other kids, they might stop blowing spitballs at you during class...
So, basically, you are saying I should give in to this terrorist moderation? I should tip-toe around people, even when I am right in fact and not expressing opinion, because someone's feelings might get hurt?
Clearly you were not the moderator; I understand how the system works. I see I am on your foes list, however. Is this so you can tag people you don't agree with so that you, like the terrorist moderator of the grandparent, can follow me around and silence facts as you see necessary?
Actually, 20 years isn't long enough. You can simply renew the patent.
Euramerica rose to domination on the strength of property law. A thousand years of bloody wars have been fought to supply precedents for the power of possession and to back up subsequent negotiations. Now that intangible property is becoming more strategic and more valuable in the acquisition of tangible property, those wars are heating up. India, Russia, China and everyone else is clamoring onto the same bandwagon.
Although history shows these infowars will only escalate, there's no basis to believe that they'll paralyze their host societies. To the contrary, the mobilization power of war will likely raise these societies to new heights of power. They will, however, drag all of them into destructive, violent, wasteful diversions from creation of value inconsistent with the wars. While the difficulty of destroying intangible property as a means to control it suggests a possible alternative to our disatrous, glorious past, we will likely merely repeat all our old mistakes and squander this millennial opportunity. It's all we've ever done, save a few precious superficial refinements.
--
make install -not war
a web site is a bloody publication, not a program, not a product, a publication. You should be able to copyright it but not patent it; you can't patent a bloody newspaper.
Its like claiming that movies on DVD are different than those on VHS because the device that plays them is different, on the TV they are still a bloody movie.
Deep Breath, apologies for the explosion, couldn't help it.
err!
jak.
This whole 1-click shopping thing reminds me of the story of columbus and the egg:
``You have discovered strange lands beyond the seas,'' they said, ``but what of that? We do not see why there should be so much said about it. Anybody can sail across the ocean; and anybody can coast along the islands on the other side, just as you have done. It is the simplest thing in the world.''
Columbus made no answer; but after a while he took an egg from a dish and said to the company:--
``Who among you, gentlemen, can make this egg stand on end?''
One by one those at the table tried the experiment. When the egg had gone entirely around and none had succeeded, all said that it could not be done.
Then Columbus took the egg and struck its small end gently upon the table so as to break the shell a little. After that there was no trouble in making it stand upright.
``Gentlemen,'' said he, ``what is easier than to do this which you said was impossible? It is the simplest thing in the world. Anybody can do it,--AFTER HE HAS BEEN SHOWN HOW!''
In Soviet Russia, facts silence YOU! God that's funny.