Buy.com Brags About SN+E-commerce Patents

RBAE writes "In an article in InternetRetailer.com, buy.com CEO Scott Blum brags about how they will protect and enforce their (pending) patents that link social networking and e-commerce, so that anyone trying to integrate these two fields will have first to pay them a handsome fee, or else. Mind that buy.com hasn't even started to offer such service, while other sites like Overstock and eGrupos have already launched services integrating ecommerce (online auctions) and social networking. A quote from buy.com's CEO: "We'll stand out with our patents on e-commerce and social networking, and we're big enough to protect them". Finally an interesting way to apply social networking, and Buy.com wants it all for themselves."

Comments

Anyone ever hear of referrer discounts?

[zymurgy_cat]

I wonder how they can patent this when referrer discounts (electronically implemented) would seem like prior art. I can hand out a code from Crutchfield.com. When someone buys a product of enough value, I get a coupon. As for these group discounts, people have already built sites/services where people get together to get a group discount. Then there's the "free X" (iPod, phone, whatever) deal. Put that in your blog, and you've got e-commerce and social networking.

I fail to see how such a thing is novel, new, or full of such inventiveness as to warrant a patent. Then again, that describes a lot of patents.

Obligatory Prior Art:

[Slime-dogg]

How about E-Bay? An auction requires a social network in order to really be effective, and if it's not E-commerce, I live on Mars. People have their own user accounts on E-Bay, can rate other people, contact info is there, etc. I'd say that is all that's required for a social network, no?