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?"

Comments

America on Old Europe are screwed

[zulux]

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.

Not really a surprise....

[Flat Feet Pete]

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.

First First

[DaoudaW]

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.

stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

So his next book

[Felonius Thunk]

...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.

Grr

[Dachannien]

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.

He never defends one-click patents!

[robolemon]

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.

Common usage

[Elektroschock]

/*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.

The trouble is we're too productive

[rsilvergun]

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.