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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."
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
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.