Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Jakob Nielsen Defends "1-Click" Patents

Posted by timothy on from the learn-why-you're-being-sued dept.

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?"

5 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. America on Old Europe are screwed by zulux · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is getting sick...

    We're spending so much time suing/litigating/pateting/copyrighting/legeslating that it's amazing that we can acutally stay productive.

    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.

  2. Not really a surprise.... by Flat+Feet+Pete · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  3. First First by DaoudaW · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. stupid idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!

  5. Common usage by Elektroschock · · Score: 3, Insightful

    /*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.