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Judge's Ruling Spares 1-Click
theodp writes "Agreeing with Amazon's characterization of its 1-Click feature as a feature of an electronic product ordering system and not an electronic fund transfer or transaction system, a Judge has tossed out a $50M lawsuit that threatened Amazon's 1-Click patent. But outside of Court, Amazon touts its patent-pending Amazon Honor System as a way for Web sites to use 1-Click shopping technology for voluntary payment transactions - most notably for 9-11 donations and campaign contributions - that do not involve consumer goods or Amazon-specified prices, which the Judge argues are essential 1-Click ingredients."
This is what happens when you are the ones who give the whores in DC money to write laws and regs for you.
Large companies in the US are not held to the same standard as others are.
Regretfully, what happens in civil court doesn't orften reflect the outside world. I think another suit will have to be filed with Amazon's claims as part of the complaint for them to be taken seriously and the patent thrown out (or at least clarified).
Put identity in the browser.
How can a company patent one-click shopping? If you think about it, one-click shopping is just a system for storing credit card info and address info in an account, then facilitating purchases without requiring to enter that info again. Software patents are just pathetic.
When you have the money, just pay the judge off. It's the american way.
Interesting, but you must realize:
Devising a 2-click shopping mechanism is simply the 1-click mechanism two times. Now you're in violation twice.
One click of the mouse will bring you to a sign up screen where you fill out lots of information. 1 Click is good if you have already signed up.
Mark
You give the whores in DC lots of money and they will make the laws that you want.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Some of these patents are way out there. I like to shop at Amazon, but a one click patent, come on? It reminds of that company that tryed to patent linking, now that would have killed the internet, crazy.
roamingfeet
This ruling doesn't actually say that 1 click ordering is a good and just patent, it just says that it doesn't infringe on another similar patent, is that correct?
In other words, if someone else were to implement 1 click ordering, and Amazon sued them, this case would have no bearing on that one.
Programming is the act of automating the use of complexity, usually made up of simpler complexities, so to enable the use and reuse of the complexity by the user of that complexity, easy.
There is a world of prior art here, going back even before computers were invented, to the initial use of abstractions to express a more complex thought.
Even if one-click was leitimate (which O'reilly said it very well may be) the honor system is definatly not non-obvious building on the first. So the honor system certainly shouldn't pass.
PS, I think software patents are bad, but in the framework that they are legel there is a case to be made for one-click.
I am more pissed that software patents tend to patent ideas and not implementations (the source code). If a software patent required the code to the application, whch would then become public domain it would make a lot more sense.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I don't see how any company thinks it can win by trying to pull this kind of stunt. Well, other than by the fact that companies usually do win by pulling this kind of stunt, because nobody really pursues it, since they expect the company to lie through their teeth anyway.
That, I think, is the biggest problem. Because nobody expects a business to have any integrity, they don't do anything when that proves to be the case. If you want better, sometimes you've got to believe you deserve better and do something about it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
First Microsoft filed a patent for double-clicking, and now Amazon has a single-click patent. Geez!
Sig Nature
Surprise! Your 9th grade social studies book was wrong. America is not a Democracy, and it's not a Republic either. It's an Oligarchy disguised as one or the other. People like Jeff Bezos aren't merely above the law, they get to surf on it.
Do not mix...
Companies should compete on their implementation of ideas rather than the ideas themselves. Amazon's implementation of 1-click is so excellent that it makes me want to shop there rather than anywhere else. Amazon's attempt to patent 1-click makes me want to shop elsewhere.
I hereby claim my patent: 1-stick.
"A method that allows multiple users to, using a single mouse operation, to stick their finger up at Amazon."
like the judge said that Amazon's specific applications of 1-click (non-material goods, etc) is the key to their patent. Now we need a series of cases that define just where that 'line' is between infringement, and non-infringement.
In the mean time, I'm going to fill out my patent app for 0-click, then 3-click, then 4-click, then...
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
I've already got a better method. I've patented 0-click shopping. If you mouseover anything in my store, you buy it. I've placed all the popular items in the center of the pages with the overpriced crap around it.
Combined with my no-return policy, business is booming!
This may be a nutty idea (as I'm still hungover this morning), but let's say you coded a form to accept a click input, then submitted to a second page which then did the second 'click' via JavaScript or some other silly method, would that violate the patent? Technically it's a two-click method, but would appear as a one-click method to the user.
Have they patented the process, or have they patented the 'look and feel' - which cannot be patented (to the best of my knowledge)?
Thank god that an other site where I can order my books is also only one click away from Amazon.
Now I know that this won't change to much, but I at least try to avoid companies that make their money with frivolous software patents.
From my viewpoint, spending money ought to require
more than just one click. The potential for
accidental purchaces is too high. I'm totally OK
with nobody but Amazon being allowed to do this.
Better would be if Amazon couldn't use it either.
Just imagine:
Oh no! My cat bought a Brittany Spears CD!
I'm suddenly reminded of the Dilbert comic where Dogbert explains that he has patented "zero-click shopping" and that if Dilbert doesn't click the mouse soon, Dogbert will have to ship him some books.
Look, if you're so outraged by Bezos and his stupid fucking patents, STOP SHOPPING AMAZON and STOP ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO DO SO. Might I recommend bn.com or, God forbid, get off your ass and drive to your local Mom and Pop bookstore? The latter is almost certainly more deserving of your loyalty than is Amazon.
Buy the President
AC comments get piped to
It's been around for ages. BMG "music club" has had zero click shopping for years. If you don't tell them NOT to ship the cd, you get it and are billed.
So what? I've patented One-Click shoplifting. One click, and you get Amazons DVDs and CDs for free! Hah!
"...which the Judge argues are essential 1-Click ingredients."
I thought that it was the job of Amazon's lawyers to argue that, not the judges.
On the Vote for HULK website there is "one-click voting" for your favorite candidate ... and that certainly "does not involve consumer goods or Amazon-specified prices, which the Judge argues are essential 1-Click ingredients"
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I hate to say it, but Americans are *screwed*. The real reason for things like software patients isn't to fight other big companies - they are already well down the MAL (mutually assured litigation) path, the real reason is to stop new people entering the business world, and to keep the economic caste system well in place.
Corporations make America the great country that it is, so why SHOULD they be constrained by petty law?
Nonsense lawsuits like this are just ways for low-value whiners to try to damage successfull businesses, because they can't do better themselves.
Did anyone else get the feeling from the Lawyer Press release that they were disapointed that the case was over so quickly? Loss of billable hours and all that?
-Ariel
That company was British Telecom (also known as BT)...
And they had some fuzzy little pattent in the US that could in their limited minds be interpreted as to represent what the www is today...
That is the problem with patents... they use broad terms of today and some years later are interpreted with another cultural focus and pushed to mean another thing...
That is why would be important for software patents to be acompained always with one implementation. That way, you could check with the implementation if there was in the scope of the patent or not!!!
I'm surprised nobody had tried making malware that loads Amazon in a browser and starts buying shit. On a sufficiently large scale, this could really hurt Amazon in the long run, due to bad press, etc.
Software patents are just pathetic.
That's a gross overgeneralization. Take, for example this patent on the "Marching Cubes" computer graphics algorithm. The paper describing this algorithm made it into SIGGRAPH's Seminal Graphics collection of most important papers in computer graphics. Not all software patents are trivial and obvious.
Reminds me of the Dilbert strip where Dogbert patented no-click shopping.
You better click something or I have to ship you some books.
They sit and listen to someone create a false reality, then the judge, without any independent investigation makes a decision.. which will affect many others for years to come.
Judges go through so many "decisions" in a day, decisions that cost others thousands (and millions) of dollars that they could not possible research each decision.
Once you examine the justice system you realize how unjust it is.
In other countires, Amazon buys YOU!
In some countries, Amazon has a great infrastructure; much better than any other local retailer. It's simply the easiest and fastest way to order books there, that would take AGES to get through other online retailers or local book stores. It's also often cheaper than ordering from other foreign online book stores that charge a fortune for intl. shipment.
So Amazon is not playing nice with its 1-Click patent (esp. on direct competitors like BN), but are there real reasons to avoid them, besides ideological arguments?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
a. A "unsolved problem" is registered for a small fee with the patent office by a potential inventor or licensee. A $1000 bond is held by the patent office.
b. Patent office is required to publish problem in a clear and unambiguous fashion.
c. If a solution is discovered in under 12 months the discoverer may claim the $1000 bond, in exchange for giving up the right to patent their discovery.
d. If after one year the bond has not been claimed the bond will be returned, a solution to the problem may be patented.
An action shall only infringe a patent if it is with respect to a problem the patent was intended to solve. It seems that this would provide a disincentive to spamming the patent office with trivial and overbroadly defined problems. I also don't think that it would put too big a burden on the inventor, as it would usually take well over a year to develop and market a solution to a real world problem.
The 1-Click feature as a feature of an electronic fund transfer patent is still up for grabs then?
Oligarchy?
All governments are rule of the masses by a choice few - to wit.
Until wealth, education, liberties, and opportunity are evenly distributed amongst the population, there shall always be the choice few.
Even then:
Guess what? You have oligarchy, again - few parties, few leaders... wild inbreeding, stained dresses, and leaders who mispronounce "nuclear".
Now, as for what the United States is ACTUALLY:
Hmm, democracy...I vote: [X] not on your life.
Republic...Corrupted as hell, like all republics in history have ever been... the Yeas have it.
Constitutional Federal Republic...Sure, if you accept that the constitution is not being reprinted upon this administration's bathroom tissue.
* FBI breaks in citing Homeland Security concerns *
Bureaucracy...We'll notify you when an agreement is reached.
Pleutocracy...I remember when we used to ask kids, "What do you want to be when you grow up". Anymore, it seems more appropriate to ask, "Who do you want to work for when you grow up?
And now, the wisdom of the sages:
The poster (and most replies) misunderstand what's happened, probably because they don't have access to the judge's opinion (I looked at it through Lexis) and because they didn't read the CNET article.
Amazon was sued for allegedly infringing IPXL's patent. IPXL's patent was VERY specific and the court found that Amazon's 1-Click system did not do all of the things that IPXL's patent claimed as their own invention, hence Amazon won.
It is true that PART of Amazon's defense was that the 1-Click system is not an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) system. The poster suggests this is disingenuous because they are touting their EFT capabilities in the CNET article. However, the article explains that Amazon is seeking OTHER patents to cover those EFT systems, and so the 1-Click technology is not relevant to those applications unless it turns out to be prior art. It might seem obvious to the lay person that it is (and probably it should be) but the lawyers writing patents for Amazon get paid a LOT of money to write good patents, and you can be assured that they will find a way to write up these new patents in such a way that the 1-Click technology is not invalidating prior art.
If you want to be irked with something, it's not this judge, Amazon, or even the lawyers involved that should upset you. They are dealing with the system they've been handed. Only Congress can decide that software patents themselves are a bad idea, so tell them you want to see a change if you're upset by all of this. Complaining about the rest of it is misguided and won't solve anything. The only other thing you could do is donate to EFF who is actively involved in busting bad patents. See link in sig.
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
So altough The Democratic Republic of Germany might not have been democratic it sure was a republic
Isn't "German Democratic Republic" a type of computer memory (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR for short)?
What is the 12 months period for and why don't companies wait till the 12 month period is over before patenting the solution and possibly earn millions of dollars from the patent?
Yet another ironic recursive statement.
The patent system has denegrated into patenting ideas. Ideas have always been explicitely excluded from the patent system and this is why the patent system has survived till today.
Now monopoly is the best way to describe the patent system today (I don't know who originally came up with this analogy). People start the game in a desperate land grab. As the game progresses you own enough patents to demand an income from your rivals randomly landing on your patents.
Patents can be categorised into different areas like property colours in monopoly, so if you get a whole set then let your rivals beware! If you cannot get a whole set then you have to negotiate with your rivals to make sure that both of you can benefit by a patent swap whilst everyone else can suffer.
The game continues and the number of your rivals gradually reduces and you become more and more of a monopoly whilst your rivals become bankrupt, at which time you acquire their patents and become even more of a monopoly.
When looking at intellectual property and software, there were two ways that the industry could have gone. Through patents and through copyright. Copyright was choosen because it is much cheaper (free), less beuracratic and has a longer protection period.
Copyright has served the industry well and the relative freedom and lack of beuracracy involed in copyright and has allowed a good balance of protecting an investment an organisation makes in implementing an idea at the same time as promoting competition between organisations who implement the same idea.
To some people, the amount of innovation that is occuring with regards to software is too great and too confusing so these people are comforted by the fact that the software patent system is putting intellectual property into the safe hands of the corporations. This is probably how conservative judges naturally act when overwhelmed by the rapidly changing world and the technology related cases that are put towards them. Therefore the patent system has become a mechanism to control innovation instead of encouraging innovation because of case law that conservative judges have enacted due to their fear of a rapidily changing world.
Yet another ironic recursive statement.