Amazon Sued Over Recommendation Patent

PaschalNee writes "Cendant is suing Amazon for their recommendation patent saying it infringes on a "System and Method for Providing Recommendation of Goods or Services Based on Recorded Purchasing History" patent they own. "

Comments

I See Prior art.

[stecoop]

Sears sent out Christmas catalogs based on past purchases; thus, it is prior art. Anything you could buy is in the catalog and anything bought at sears is in the catalog. Further more, this is a case whereby Sears provides a means of purchasing products via past purchases. Not too targeted yet you get a good lawyer to wrangle with this twist and you have yourself a case that could last years.

Re:I See Prior art.

[justforaday]

Wow! If only Sears had filed a patent for that...

Re:I See Prior art.

[isometrick]

So, does anyone think the newly elected Senate or the soon to be appointed Supreme Court justice(s) will do anything about the rampant abuse of the patent system?

I really hope so. I've never heard anything conclusive, though.

Re:I See Prior art.

[bay43270]

Wow! If only Sears had filed a patent for that...

It would have ran out 100 years ago

Re:I See Prior art.

[meabolex]

I seriously doubt it. Republican administrations are always looking out for big business interests, and it's in the interest of large corporations to have as much control as possible over their products. If anything, patent law will become more strict.

Doesn't make sense that republicans are suppose to stand for lessening the control of government on the people (:

Re:I See Prior art.

[Pxtl]

Yes, but you forgot the magical digital rule, which was the basis for the DMCA: Everything is completely different when its on the internet, and can't be compared to any existing real world matters in any way.

Re:I See Prior art.

[G_Biloba]

Does this make "Do you want fries with that?" prior art?

Re:I See Prior art.

[Winkhorst]

So you're suggesting one can resubmit a patent that has expired? Funny I never heard of THAT before. ;-)

Re:I See Prior art.

[Tablizer]

Yes, but you forgot the magical digital rule, which was the basis for the DMCA: Everything is completely different when its on the internet, and can't be compared to any existing real world matters in any way.

Idea: Pay people in Timbucktoo 5 cents an hour to sort it by hand.

Re:I See Prior art.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Hold on a mo!

Remember, Here at the USPTO we grant patents without predjudice to trifling things like originality, prior art, or indeed patentability itself!

Have a very merry, litigous season!

Re:I See Prior art.

[Anonymous Coward]

It just sounds good to say they are for "small government" and makes a nice insult for the liberals to say that they are "big government". The fact is both parties are big government. Democrats are big government for the people, Republicans are big government for the corporations.

You have to pick which type of big government you want, but that would be nuance. As we all know, nuance is as evil as "big government" liberals.

Re:I See Prior art.

[ppz003]

I know several online retailers (like Newegg) that show a "May we suggest" bar or a "Also purchased with this item" bar on the side of any product detail page. How is this anything new? And if they do win, how many other targets could they sue? It's just crazy.

Re:I See Prior art.

[AviLazar]

Netflix gives me recommendations all the time - and they have been around for a while. Maybe Cendant should sue them too.

Re:I See Prior art.

[eofpi]

Where's a "6 molar sarcasm" moderation when you need it?

Re:I See Prior art.

[NoMercy]

Which is totally false, and my opinion of law should be that every single digital thing has a real world law which already exists to cover the problem.

I'm still not totally sure why we need new laws to make copyright protection systems illegal to bypass, or to make the sale of machines which have the soul purpose of copyright infringement illegal.

After all if you write something and sign it at the bottom, if someone modifies that signature, it's fraud, and selling something to someone knowing there going to commit a crime with it is conspiricy to commit that crime.

Why did they need a new law?

Why do they press for new laws, is it impossible to simply relate modern practicaces to those which have been going on for hundreds of years, or do they want a clean slate, no case history so they can fight the same battles all over again?

Re:I See Prior art.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is Prior Art to seeing prior art.

Richard Feynman in his Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman tells of his dismissive disbelief at a Los Alamos bureaucrat asking for nuclear power patent suggestions, which were as easy as just taking any well-known device and upgrading it to work with nuclear power. Feynman though he proved his point by listing several totally obvious examples (atomic airplanes, atomic submarines, atomic automobiles, etc.) and was surprised much later when the bureaucrat told him that one of them was not yet taken, and it was now Feynman's very own little patent.

Re:I See Prior art.

[hchaos]

Sears sent out Christmas catalogs based on past purchases; thus, it is prior art. Anything you could buy is in the catalog and anything bought at sears is in the catalog. Further more, this is a case whereby Sears provides a means of purchasing products via past purchases.

Sears isn't prior art for a couple reasons:

1. Sears catalogs are not customized to the desires of the individual shopper. This customization greatly increases the probability of an extra sale, thus satisfying the "usefulness" patent requirement.
2. The Sears process for sending out catalogs involves humans compiling data on who has made purchases into a mailing list. The Cendant process (presumably, I haven't actually read it) involves analyzing the purchase data of all its customers and using algorithms to determine that a given customer is likely to desire specific products because of similar purchasing patterns. These two processes are completely different, satisfying the "novelty" patent requirement.
3. Similarly, the algorithms for predicting which products a customer will want do not obviously derive from the Sears process, satisfying the "non-obviousness" patent requirement.

Of course, these points only apply to Sears catalogs. There may be other prior art that uses computers to run purchase-predicting algorithms (which would undermine the "useful" and "novel" claims unless Cendant's process had significant advantages over the prior art). There could even be prior art that used humans to process the same algorithms as Cendant, in which case the move to computers could be an "obvious" transition. The algorithm gives the process firm legal ground for the patent, because it's something that required effort to develop.

For more information, read this.

Re:I See Prior art.

[the_mad_poster]

It irritates me when people make these comparisons.

At one time, the republican party DID stand for shrinking government, fiscal conservatism, and a host of other things. Guess what? At one time, all the racists were democrats. Guess what? Pointing out that fact about the democratic party now is nonsense. Why? Because all the racists swung into the republican party for myriad reasons. Guess what? Fiscal conservatism seems to have swung to the democrats as the last 24 years should attest.

You can't look at these stupid labels and say "well, this person or group must then stand for x, y, and z". It doesn't work like that anymore. There are too many politicians passing around too much disinformation and blurring all sorts of lines to get as much support from the electorate as possible. There's no real government anymore, it's just a bunch of power mad people desperately trying to take things over and preserve their own hides.

Saddest part of it all? Nobody gives a fuck and they keep voting against those horrible "lefties" or those knuckle-dragging "conservatives" anyway. If people stood the fuck back for five goddamn minutes and actually looked intelligently at who they were voting for, they'd be absolutely disgusted.

Re:I See Prior art.

[bleckywelcky]

Other forms of prior art:

Early 1900s hardware store ...
Shopper: *Buying some cast iron pipe for plumbing*
Shopkeep: Ah, I see you are buying some cast iron pipe for plumbing, would you also like a ball of twine and some lead to melt down and form the connections?
Shopper: Sure, thanks.
Shopkeep: You're welcome, that lead gets pretty hot when you make the connections, would you like some gloves to protect your hands too?
Shopper: Yeh, that sounds like a good idea.
Shopkeep: And just in case you get a little parched, there's a boy selling lemonade outside the door.
Shopper: Hot damn! That sounds dandy!

Re:I See Prior art.

[hazem]

Does it even have to be all that.

I've gone to the "usual" bar, and many times, the bartender tells me, "We just got this ____ in. You usually drink ____, but I think you'll like this one."

Same with the local library. I go there to pick up some books I've reserved online, and the librarian says, "Oh, I see you're reading a lot of ____. Have you read any ___? I think you'd enjoy it."

That's all this stupid thing is on Amazon or the idoits that are suing them.

It's really sad.

Re:I See Prior art.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mean to irritate. I was only talking about the parties themselves. I have conservative tendencies, but lean a little further to the left than the right. I have no qualms whatsoever with individual people who consider themselves republicans, and they are not who my comment was directed at.

Re:I See Prior art.

[Tailstuxtophat]

The only parties left with any sort of real ideals are the thirds, and nobody will vote for them because there's no way they can win, because there's nobody who'll vote for them, because... ::infinite loop error::

I'm a Libertarian. http://www.lp.org/

It's the only party I can find that actually wants to shrink the government and actually says what they mean 99.98% of the time.

From a 2002 articale on the party website, "According to the Constitution, the federal government has the power to 'promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries,'" he noted. "In other words, Congress can grant exclusive copyrights, which entertainers can defend, as necessary, by filing copyright infringement lawsuits.["]

The Feds should be doing nothing more and nothing less.

http://www.lp.org/press/archive.php?function=view& record=575

The article is an old one about a fight against one proposed "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act" that would mandate anti-piracy shielding of copywrighted material on most forms of media, but last time I checked I didn't see a 'use by' date on the constitution so the position should still be valid.

Re:I See Prior art.

[Tailstuxtophat]

There are so many laws that nobody wants to spend the time to find out if there's already a law that covers it, so they shovel on another layer. ::evil grin::

Either that, or they want the problem to make headlines so that people will be properly outraged and the politicians will get credit for patching a hole in the system. Most of them aren't above that.

Re:I See Prior art.

[strider44]

"Would you like some fries with that?"

Re:I See Prior art.

[back_pages]

1. A computer-implemented method for the recommendation of goods and/or services to potential customers over a distributed network based on customer buying history utilizing an information processing system containing processing means having transmission means for receiving and transmitting data, and database storage means for storing information in database files, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving customer commands specifying a particular good or service to be used as filter data;
storing information pertaining to goods and/or services purchasing history of previous customers;
comparing said filter data with said stored information and determining whether, for said filter data, corresponding entries exist within the stored information; and
if corresponding entries exist, displaying the identity of other goods and/or services purchased by said previous customers who have purchased the good and/or service used as said filter data.

Claim 7 is also independent and directed toward a computer-implemented method. Claim 16 is also independent and directed toward a statutory computer program which requires a tangible embodiment and interacts with a user.

The Sears catalog is not prior art. The average Slashdot reader has no idea what the words "prior art" actually mean.

Re:I See Prior art.

[back_pages]

Other forms of prior art:

This is factually incorrect and moderated incorrectly. Rather than interesting, it is false.

I trust you can use Google. I therefore presume you can operate the uspto website and find the patent in question. It consists of three independent claims, all of which require that the invention be implemented on a computer. What you have posted as "prior art" does not read on the claims. Your post is not interesting, it is factually incorrect.

Re:I See Prior art.

[Anonymous Coward]

That means I can still get the patent on atomic farts!

Re:I See Prior art.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter. If there is prior art, the patent won't stand.

Re:I See Prior art.

[pawnIII]

Well, the conservatives actually were fiscally conservative till Bush got into office. It was a Republican congress that passed the Balance budget. Too bad they don't really seem to care about deficits anymore with the Democrats not having a message(vote for me, cause I'm not him isn't a way to run a campaign).

Sooner or later Bush will probably swing the other way. Why you ask, cause all this lawsuits are killing the economy and hurting the future prospects of American companies.

I'm not a Bush fan, but I don't think he would be stupid enough to let these large coporations kill the economy. He already saw the affect the effect lawsuits have had on the health care area. Switching the emphasis to other aspects of the economy shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Re:I See Prior art.

[TheHonestTruth]

I can't believe all the tripe that that is modded insightful while the parent post wallows at 1. "Sears system is prior art." +5 Informative. If /.ers spent half the time they spend bitching instead reading the statutes and case law, they'd realize that 90% of what they consider "obvious," isn't. I'm sorry, but saying a mail order catalogue system makes implementing a potentially completely different algorithmic (or combination of algorithms) solution on a web site in 1997 obvious is idiotic. That's like saying I have a boat and I know about pond skimming bugs, so a hydrofoil is completely obvious. Whatever. Yes, there are bad patents out there, but this isn't one of them.

-truth

Re:I See Prior art.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they press for new laws?

Easy. If they didn't, they would be out of jobs, wouldn't they?

Re:I See Prior art.

[maysonl]

Well, the conservatives actually were fiscally conservative till Bush got into office.

Yes - Reagan and Bush shrank the deficits and eliminated the national debt.

Re:I See Prior art.

[Erik Hollensbe]

No shit, the fact that my previous company owns source code which (I was told, sorry) they bought from a company who sold their application to Amazon, then Amazon traded it in for a custom product....

The fact that most likely these recommendations are based on Likert Scaling or Guttman (otherwise known as Cumulative) Scaling makes me flare up at the concept that they even have the balls to propose this.

Re:I See Prior art.

[PsiPsiStar]

The blue dog democrats are as 'big government' as the republicans. Where do you think those huge campaign contributions are coming from?

Re:I See Prior art.

[surprise_audit]

Why did they need a new law?

I'm inclined to believe that a principal reason is so that the old laws can be quietly updated/modified without all that tedious business of getting the original laws replaced or repealed... I mean, look at the DMCA - we've all been bitching about how "fair use" has been set aside, along with various other things. And we've seen a number of lawsuits invoking the DMCA in completely inappropriate ways.

Re:I See Prior art.

[JuggleGeek]

If a computer is just simulating something that's been done for 100's of years, then the idea hardly seems to qualify as "nonobvious", which is a requirement for a patent. Sticking "Use a computer to" in front of something shouldn't be an automatic green light.

Re:I See Prior art.

[the_mad_poster]

He wasn't smart enough to run his own companies, what on earth makes you think he suddenly got smart enough to guide an entire country's economy?

Re:I See Prior art.

[CommieOverlord]

The Republicans lost fiscal conservatism when Reagan took over. The average yearly deficit in Reagan's administration was about 5-6 times higher than under any previous administration. (~300B vs ~50B)

Under Bush Sr. it climbed even higher. Clinton took it back down to ~200B.

Dubya then preceded to break new records.

Before Reagan, the debt stood around $1T, it's now at around $7.5T. Clinton accounted for around $1.5T of that. The remaining $5T was from republicans.

Re:I See Prior art.

[crbowman]

Um, you may not understand how the system works, you see the president only proposes a budget (and legally he isn't even required to do that). Then it goes to the congress which under Reagan and Bush I were both Democratically controlled. It is the legislature which controls the purse strings in the US system, not the President. Further Clinton was the only one of the 3 to have a congress controlled by his own party. Plus (as if that weren't enough)Reagan and Bush I didn't even have the line item veto so there was little they could do but sign or veto a bill altogether.

Re:I See Prior art.

[CommieOverlord]

I'm not an American, so please forgive my lack of knowledge of some details of the system, and less than complete historical knowledge.

Under Reagan at least, the economic policy was run from the president's office. Congress may have been irresponsible in going along with it, but the adminstration directed the policy. And the policy was decreased taxes and increased spending (mainly on non-investment things like the military). The policy has been called Reaganomics for a reason, and it signalled the end of any claim the Republicans had to being called fiscally conservative.

My question to you, then, is as follows. And it's just to better understand your system. Why since the dawn of time have issues like taxes and spending been central to presidential elections if they're things the president has no power over?

Re:I See Prior art.

[back_pages]

If a computer is just simulating something that's been done for 100's of years, then the idea hardly seems to qualify as "nonobvious", which is a requirement for a patent. Sticking "Use a computer to" in front of something shouldn't be an automatic green light.

No, the requirement is that the invention would not have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application under 35 U.S.C. 103. This concept is NOT the same concept as "nonobvious" in every day life. If it were, then there would be no need for the volumes of case law which define what those words mean. The idea that a patent should be simply "nonobvious" is a crude simplification that fosters a critical misunderstanding of the nature of patenting by the public.

Re:I See Prior art.

[ScrewMaster]

No ... I think that one was granted to John Belushi back in 1978 or thereabouts.

Re:I See Prior art.

[ScrewMaster]

Because we have a secret subculture here in America, the members of which are known as "lawmakers" (they're everywhere, in every state in the Union, even in the nation's Capitol) whose sole purpose is, not surprisingly, to make laws.

Re:I See Prior art.

[dangrsmind]

Isn't Amazon's own work prior art? This patent was filed in 1997. When did Amazon start giving recommendations? I can't remember.

Letterman to be sued next for Top 10 List?

[Tablizer]

crazy

Re:Letterman to be sued next for Top 10 List?

[Anonymous Coward]

NBC did try to keep him from taking the Top Ten list to CBS. That and viewer mail. He did change viewer mail to the CBS Mail Bag, but they got to keep Top Ten.

Re:Letterman to be sued next for Top 10 List?

[Steve Franklin]

Do you suppose I could patent a top eleven list? For that matter, I wonder if I could patent the eleven commandments? Aha! I have had an enlightenment! I will patent all lists of rules that consist of a prime number of components.

Re:Letterman to be sued next for Top 10 List?

[ePhil_One]

NBC did try to keep him from taking the Top Ten list to CBS. That and viewer mail. He did change viewer mail to the CBS Mail Bag, but they got to keep Top Ten.

Personally I was sad to see "The World's Most Dangerous Band" become "The CBS Orchestra"

Another one?

[deemaunik]

Oh my god, so when I've advised my friends on things to buy and services I've enjoyed, I've infringed patents?! Oh No! These patent lawsuits are getting rediculous.

Re:Another one?

[AndroidCat]

Getting rediculous?

Re:Another one?

[jjsoh]

really + ridiculous = rediculous? *shrug*

Re:Another one?

[Tailstuxtophat]

No, he's just saying that they're getting diculous again. I absolutely agree.

If you infringe this patent...

[What is a number]

If you infringe this patent you may also infringe...

---
I type this every time.

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, nice one

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone please explain the joke to me, tnx.

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[Jason1729]

I would explain it, but then I might be violating the patent...sorry.

Jason
ProfQuotes

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[rackhamh]

If you liked this book, you may also like...

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[dedeman]

/.ers who liked this post also liked......

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[gcaseye6677]

Or the version for lawyers (quick, somebody patent this): People who infringe this patent are also infringing patents 4,456,456 4,654,123, ...

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[tepples]

People who infringe this patent are also infringing patents 4,456,456 4,654,123,

Actually, patents already list other patents as references, and patents for inventions often build on already-patented inventions such that any device that reads on the derivative patent's claims will also read on the original patent's claims.

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[gcaseye6677]

Cool. That means I get to sue everyone who filed a patent and listed other patents as references. I bet nobody patented this process yet. I could probably make a case against the patent office itself. Since prior art is apparently no longer a limitation, I can't see how this would fail! The key would be, making my patent state that this will be done using the internet. Since all patents are now online and searchable, they all infringe!

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[awtbfb]

Based on this query you may be interested in:

• University Research and SCience, Rational Engineering, and Wisdom Entrepreneurial Database (URSCREWED)
• Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe
• The Mother of All Prior Art

Re:If you infringe this patent...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just patented "System and Method for Infringing Patents of Goods or Services Based on Recorded Infringing History" So mylawyers are issuing a C&D to this thread.

*sight*

[Anonymous Coward]

Patenting should be a crime.

Frivolous

[Dekks]

These patent suits are getting sillier and sillier, whats to stop someone saying I'm going to file a patent now for "Using a credit chip to pay for goods and services via the internet or online kiosk booths" and waiting 25 years for the demise of physical money and then suddernly cashing in on what was obvious. I really hope suits like these start getting thrown out with all court costs pushed onto the company that bought the suit.

Re:Frivolous

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for the idea dude

Re:Frivolous

[germanStefan]

good point, but patents only last 17 years : ) so change 25 years to 16 and your good

Re:Frivolous

[ppz003]

What do you think it would take to get a "Frivolous Lawsuit of the Day" slashbox on the homepage?

Re:Frivolous

[VitaminB52]

What do you think it would take to get a "Frivolous Lawsuit of the Day" slashbox on the homepage?

Probably a lawsuit, because your idea is so f***ing obvious it must have been patented a dozen times by now :) .

Obligatory Simpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

*point finger*
Ha ha

Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[rainman_bc]

After the BS around one-click shopping, Amazon gets exactly what they deserve.

If it was anyone else being sued, I'd think this is getting really stupid. I mean, why not patent line-ups? Where does this crap end?

Ordinarily I would object to this kind of patent.

[JamesSharman]

But there is a little truth in the old saying. "He who lives by the sword, Dies by the sword."

People who infringe this patent

[What is a number]

"People who infringe this patent may also infringe..."

(sorry for the repost - it is just a slight improvement over my previous version of this post)

---
I type this every time.

Re:People who infringe this patent

[Spad]

Shouldn't that be:

"People who infringed this patent also infringed..."

Re:People who infringe this patent

[andyrut]

Yep. He'd better repost it. Again.

Re:Interesting thing...

[Feminist-Mom]

Yes you are right. In that case IBM was filing a patent that recommended types of software systems for companies that neeeded to keep larged inventories, and I think Information Builders sued them.

Talked about this yesterday.

[blanks]

This deals with something that use used by thousands of websites, I even wrote a web application about 5 years ago that did this, and if I remember this patent is only about a year old? (could be wrong). Basically they say they own the idea of listing other customers opinions or recamendations of different products. For example, if you were looking at a pc, you would have things suchs as Members to ordered this product also ordered this monitor, or feedback about the pc from customers who did buy the item etc. This is totally a prior art situation, I dont know why this company didnt go after smaller companies, but if they get their trial by jury that would be a very very bad thing...

Re:Talked about this yesterday.

[Ironsides]

If the patent is only a year old then they don't have anything to stand on since Amazon will say "Well, we've been using this thing for 4(?) years. Everyone knows this. You just patented something you saw us doing for X years. That's your prior art." Patent Busted.

Re:Talked about this yesterday.

[SeanDuggan]

Why they didn't go after a smaller company... Simple, the small company will fold and you won't get any money
True, but I wonder why they didn't go after the mid-sized companies without lawyers... Although I guess they could be trying for the "big enough that they'll spare some spare change to get rid of us" factor. After all, Amazon is actually returning a profit these days, right?

Re:Talked about this yesterday.

[Stone316]

The patent may be only a year old but sometimes it takes years to get a patent approved.. I'm not sure of the details but they probably filed it years ago.

Re:Talked about this yesterday.

[theancient2]

More generally, it's data mining. Take a database, apply a few formulas, get some interesting information. Will every data mining application be patented?

It's not a standard course in any university computer science program, but lots of people learn this stuff. Once you learn the theory, lots of applications become obvious--and recommendation systems are probably at the top of the list.

Re:Talked about this yesterday.

[JuggleGeek]

The patent was issued in August. But the question is "when was it filed", as far as the court is concerned.

If it was filed a year before August, then Amazon, CDNow.com, and many other sites have prior art.

Patent lawsuits

[ilyagordon]

I thought patents were a way to stop someone from stealing another person's idea or invention. However, it seems that most of the patent lawsuits lately are against people and companies who invented similar things without stealing anything. How is anything considered your intellectual property when another person acquired the same "property" without any knowledge of you?

Re:Patent lawsuits

[imkonen]

"How is anything considered your intellectual property when another person acquired the same "property" without any knowledge of you?"

Unfortunately that is not only how patent law is written, it seems to have been done on purpose. It is true that even if you can absolutely prove without a doubt (don't ask me how) you had absolutely no knowledge of me, my patent, or my patented invention, yet managed to coincidentally come up with something infringing on said patent, you are still infringing on my patent. It is one significant difference between patent and copyright: your code might do exactly what my copyrighted (but not patented) code does, and the source may look suspiciously similar, but if you really wrote it yourself, you're not in violation of copyright law.

I can't claim I understand WHY patent law is written this way. I suspect it's another unforseen consequence of technology. It made sense to the original people writing patent law when most of what they envisioned actually required physical construction, testing, and original thought. Rather than put the burdon of proof on the patent holder of an actually useful mechanical invention who is claiming his competitors must have reversed engineered his product, they settled for a first-come first-serve lottery system. Bummer if you get scooped, but it was probably considered highly unlikely that two people would independantly invent the same thing at nearly the same time.

This of course seems to be the exact opposite of the situation with software patents, and is precisely why they shouldn't be allowed. Software patents stifle more innovation than they encourage because it's all to easy for many people to come up with the same blindingly obvious yet apparently patentable idea.

So much for that idea

[Tablizer]

I was going to give a list of the top 10 patent lawsuits, but now I am afraid to get sued.

Well...

[nightgrave]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I find Amazon to be an amazing tool to find other bands that I might like. I would really hate to see this go. If I have some extra cash laying around, I'll search for some bands that I like, look at the other recommendations, read the reviews and then I'll buy the cd if I like what I read. This is an extremely helpful tool that I will hate to see go just because some company decided to patent this common idea.

Re:Well...

[drinkypoo]

you could also visit the typically very laggy (which does not differentiate it from amazon) allmusic.com, aka the all-music guide. They perform a similar function.

Sue me for breathing...

[LegendOfLink]

I'm still waiting for SCO to sue me for not licensing their patented, breathing mechanism which provides oxygen to the human body.

Re:Sue me for breathing...

[Agret]

It's called the lungs. I invented them and patented them back in 25BC dang namit!

Re:Sue me for breathing...

[frugle]

Don't hold your breath...

Bezos Told You So...

[lousyd]

When Amazon first got their infamous 1-Click patent, the response Jeff Bezos gave to the people who were up in arms over the patent issue was that it was defensive patenting. He said Amazon was patenting it just so that somebody else wouldn't and then sue them. It appears this story is a case of "I told you so", for Bezos.

Re:Bezos Told You So...

[Anonymous Coward]

He said Amazon was patenting it just so that somebody else wouldn't and then sue them.

That's obviously a load. If they had the process in place and someone else tried to patent it after the fact, then they would have clear prior art.

Re:Bezos Told You So...

[Rashkae]

And of course, that must be why he "defensively" sued B&N? Jeff's definition of defensive means to defend against competitors competing, not against lawsuits.

Re:Bezos Told You So...

[einhverfr]

And of course, that must be why he "defensively" sued B&N? Jeff's definition of defensive means to defend against competitors competing, not against lawsuits.

Wow, Amazon must have the Bush Administration's official dictionary. They are using the same definition of defense!

Re:Bezos Told You So...

[mdielmann]

Wow, Amazon must have the Bush Administration's official dictionary. They are using the same definition of defense!

Given the chronology, I suspect Bush bought his official dictionary from Amazon.

These guys had better watch out

[eln]

If they go through with this suit, I'm going to sue them for infringing on my patent for "Method for suing patent holders over infringing on your patent by registering their patent".

Of course, then I'll probably get sued by someone with a patent for "Suing people for patent infringement on your patent on suing patent holders for infringing on your patent by registering their patent."

Patent patent

[no_mayl]

I'm sure the Patent Office does not have a patent on patenting.
It would be very likely (in view of their recent non-efforts to search for prior art) that the patent would be granted.
Even better, patent receiving a patent-grant... now that's a money maker.

Re:Patent patent

[Anonymous Coward]

If they won't be held financially liable for the damage they are causing, they have no right to issue patents at all. I hereby donate slashpat #0000001, "method and apparatus for issuing frivilous patents" to the slashdot community. Slashpat's are as valid as those issued by the USPTO and just as much consideration is given to obviousness and prior art.

How old is their patent?

[chipmeister]

It took them long enough to figure out Amazon was infringing their patent.

I thought there was some similar problem a while ago with NetPerceptions and Amazon.

Re:How old is their patent?

[Halcy0n]

Looked up the patent quick, its from September 4, 1997. Here's a link to it: http://tinyurl.com/3ohgu

Just more software patents that hurt everyone, in my opinion.

Re:How old is their patent?

[nimblebrain]

Jesus, I just had a look at that thing. I've gone through the patent rigmarole a couple of times myself (still a couple pending), and must say that this out-fluffs our fluffiest patent by an order of magnitude.

Take away the standard boilerplate for 'can be run on any kind of terminal', and the preferred embodiment taken from a diagram in a database class tutorial workbook, and you're left with practically nothing. This isn't an invention, it's an idea.

As a software developer, someone can come up with the likes of this in their head during two minutes of idle chatter. Throw a tape recorder in any shoot-the-breeze session at an operations meeting every week, and you could churn out 50+ of these things a month. That's not where the real work is. It's not like describing a catalyst process that can shave your energy costs by 20%, or discovering a 5-step process to make finasteride. They've just thrown fancy words around a business requirement.

As a software developer, I worry that I tread on hundreds if not thousands of these things, just in the process of doing completely independent business. There are certain processes that have to be done to meet a business requirement that you don't need anyone else's patent to solve:

• Optimizing - if round-trip time is taking too long, you have to cache it, bring it closer - your only other alternative is to throw hardware at it. Yet, there are patents on caching. It won't be on caching itself - that would be too obvious, but apparently "caching in a data warehouse" would be a worthy patent
• Interacting with users - the users will move things or type things in and scream "why won't it remember?" - there are a lot of UI patents out there, and I find it disgusting that you can take practically anything you'd do with paper, throw it on "said computing device" and it's a potentially valid patent.

Many software patents contain no useful information. The recipes on the back on food cans convey more information, and can at least lead to a practical result. If you've got the time, just start flipping through a few on the USPTO site (start at anything 6,000,000 or past it). A great many of them can be conveyed in their entirety just by their title. Try handing these to one of your development team and say "make this". Next, try hiding the patents on day 2 and see if anyone notices. They won't, because there's nothing inside them worth referring to.

I'm bitter only in that it's only good manners that are keeping idea and obvious patents from being used against the rest of us in a giant legal Whack-a-Mole game, and for the risk of being put out of business by an unscrupulous patent holder, we get precious little value from other peoples' patents. We're not licensing inventions, we're buying indemnity insurance. I wouldn't be so all up-in-arms if licensing a software patent could actually gave us even a couple of weeks' head start in a project. You're not getting any source code. If you're lucky, there are screenshots of the "preferred embodiment". Apart from that, you get a few diagrams. How many millions is that worth?

On the plus side, if you have patents, you can sell your company for more :)

I know that biotech and engineering companies try to slide by some pretty dubious patents, but even they can't hold a candle to our industry.

I do hope the headlines over this sort of thing continue. It's far too easy to go back to being complacent if things calm down again.

-- A concerned developer

Well, that depends

[Safety Cap]

Which country you live in...

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Ghent99]

I prefer: "What goes around comes around" ;) Seriously though, when are we going to overhaul these amazingly archaic patent laws? It's like watching a bunch of kids in a sandbox playing tag... eventually one of them punches another and they all start crying and peeing in the sand...

Talk about stupid

[ssand]

All sorts of shops use recommended purchases both offline and online. Bookstores have their own personal recommended list, and "top sellers" which are often recommended since they are top sellers.

Someone Should find Prior Art

[pegasustonans]

Someone should really find prior art for this. I'm sure it existed in some form. That way it's null and everyone can make recommendation systems, which is really a common-sense idea in the first place.

Just my two cents.

Re:Someone Should find Prior Art

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Every year for the past 10 years or so I get phone calls from the Paralyzed American Veterans wanting to sell something at inflated prices to raise money for their cause. Their sales spiel contains the phrase "I see here that you bought trashbags from us last year, could you use more this year?"

Does that count?

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[nebaz]

While this is true, it is not good. I don't wish for this type of misfortune on my worst enemies, as if found legal, will still be a precedent for evil. Just like violence begetting violence, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. (Ghandi was a smart man)

SQL is dangerous

[Tablizer]

SELECT * FROM products ORDER BY total_sales DESC

Your secret formula is now exposed. Take that!

Re:SQL is dangerous

[emtboy9]

Prolly more like this:
SELECT c.prod_name, c.prod_num FROM completed_orders c, temp_order t WHERE t.prod_num IN c.prod_num ORDER BY c.prod_num

But my SQL is a bit rusty

Re:SQL is dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot LIMIT 10

Re:SQL is dangerous

[rainman_bc]

Good, let's hire you for an sql job. That has got to be one of the most poorly written queries ever. Rewrite:

SELECT TOP 10 count(c.order_id) as ordercount,
c.prod_num
FROM completed_orders c
INNER JOIN temp_order on t.prod_num = c.prod_num
GROUP BY c.prod_num
ORDER BY count(c.order_id) desc

Re:SQL is dangerous

[emtboy9]

HA HA.. I never claimed to be a professional SQL coder... I just read a book once. ;-)

I wouldnt want a sql job either.. I had a single semester of sql in college and that was enough for me. But either way, I bow to your superior SQL skills...

then again, TOP doesnt exist in Oracle, AFAIK... which is all I have ever used (other than doing very basic stuff with postgres...)

Re:SQL is dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

and I thought you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night. :)

Re:SQL is dangerous

[spoonyfork]

And you forgot Poland.

Re:SQL is dangerous

[rainman_bc]

Yeah, it's that IN statement at the bottom -> you take a bad performance hit. Many optimizers will rewrite your code properly, but still... Joins, not IN clauses :)

Dunno the ORACLE syntax - I'm working with Sybase which would be SET ROWCOUNT 10 SELECT...

In SQL Server you use the TOP keyword.

Re:SQL is dangerous

[VGPowerlord]

If you want to be compliant to the SQL standards, use LIMIT 10. If you want 11-20, use LIMIT 10 OFFSET 10.

Of course, OFFSET wasn't standardized until SQL99...

Re:SQL is dangerous

[rainman_bc]

And which database servers are fully SQL99 compatible?

Hell find me one that's fully ANSI-92 compatible :)

Re:SQL is dangerous

[Tablizer]

If you make it too long, then the patent office might think it is ingenious.

Re:SQL is dangerous

[VGPowerlord]

And which database servers are fully SQL99 compatible?

Hell find me one that's fully ANSI-92 compatible :) Have you tried PostgreSQL? Oh, and if you think that's bad, there's an SQL2003 now, too!

Re:SQL is dangerous

[Erik Hollensbe]

I hope you weren't actually suggesting that as an alternative to prediction algorithms.

Re:SQL is dangerous

[rainman_bc]

Nope, just a correction to the GP... The original one used an IN statement which was terrible...

3D Patent Info

[FienX]

Just found some stuff on that 3D patent lawsuit. Filed in Texas (Eastern District). PACER lists and complaints at here and just incase you are intrested the list of defendants is:

6:04-cv-00397-LED

Hewlett-Packard Co
Dell Computer Corporation
Gateway Inc
International Business Machines Corp
Toshiba America Inc
Sony Corporation
Acer Inc
MPC Computers LLC
Systemax, Inc
Fujitsu America, Inc
Micro Electronics Corp
Matsushita Electric Corporation of America
Averatec, Inc
Polywell Company, Inc
Sharp Electronics Corporation
Twinhead Corp
Uniwill Computer International Corp
JVC Americas Corporation
Acer America Corporation
Micro Electronics Inc.
Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation
Dell, Inc

6:04-cv-00398-LED

Electronic Arts, Inc.
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
Activision Inc
Atari, Inc.
THQ, Inc.
Vivendi Universal Games, Inc.
Sega of American Inc.
Square Enix, Inc.
Tecmo, Inc.
Lucasarts Entertainment Co
Namco Hometek, Inc.
Ubisoft, Inc.

6:04-cv-00399-LED

Sony Corporation of America
Microsoft Corporation
Nintendo of America, Inc.

Re:3D Patent Info

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. I didn't see ATI, Nvidia or even Intel on the list given those three guys are the biggest shipper of graphics hardware

Re:3D Patent Info

[gr8_phk]

I didn't get exactly what part of 3D stuff they are claiming. Atari produced 3D wireframe video games in the 1970s and the first flat shaded one in 1983 (I, Robot - which had several patents of its own). There is obvious prior art before Atari depending what exactly they claim to own.

Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, anyone who ever owned any sort of shop or vended anything out of a tent since time immemorial and who said to his customer "Say Yaga, Maybe you'd like some butter to go with that bread? How about some Jam - I have the flavor that Bakla likes - you could keep her happy for a week with this jam you could!" would be fucken prior art...

Patent examiners are supposed to be SMART people, but they actually have no common horse sense...

Re:Prior Art

[lakiolen]

Amazing how easly money blinds even the best people.

Off-topic: Amazon introduces queuing service

[Eric Giguere]

Speaking of Amazon, yesterday they unveiled their new Simple Queuing Service, their latest foray into web services. They're exposing some of their infrastructure in order to let you share data between distributed components. Free for the time being, though limited in terms of how much data you can queue at once.

Of course, someone will probably sue them over this, too.

Eric
William Shatner boldly goes like no man has gone before

*Blindness*

[torqer]

No, Patenting should be Patented.

Re:*Blindness*

[no_mayl]

Patent "being granted a patent", you get to sue more people.

Re:*Blindness*

[Todesmetall]

But if you patent the process of granting a patent, then you at least get to sue some of the people who are responsible for the current mess, namely the patent office.

Well, the most obvious obstacle to this...

[PornMaster]

...is that the patent will have expired in 25 years.

*sigh* some people...

Re:Well, the most obvious obstacle to this...

[Dekks]

You get my point though, its not something I'd expect someone to of patented because its so obvious and not some sort of secret technology that no one else has not figured out.

Re:Well, the most obvious obstacle to this...

[pyros]

its so obvious and not some sort of secret technology that no one else has not figured out.

Technically that is enough reason to not grant a patent. There's just something about adding "online" to a patent that throws common sense out the window.

Re:Well, the most obvious obstacle to this...

[Coryoth]

...is that the patent will have expired in 25 years.

Easy enough solution for that - simply keep makign adjustments and rolling new ideas into the base patent as you think of them. Doing this it is fairly easy to keep a patent in "pending" mode for years on end. Once things are actually underway and you have someone to sue, stop the prolonging, let the patent be accepted, and begin litigation. This has effectively been done, although admittedly not over a 25 year time frame (more in the 5-10 year range).

Jedidiah.

Re:Well, the most obvious obstacle to this...

[gcaseye6677]

Actually, you can't do this anymore. The rules were changed a few years ago. Now, when you file for a patent, the clock starts immediately. The validity of a patent has been expanded to 20 years, from the original 17, in order to account for the filing period. This change was made to stop people from doing what you just described. Unfortunately, a few of these "submarine patents" still remain.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[datbox]

Still doesn't make it right.

The moral of the story is to NEVER support lawsuits like this. Never.. Ever.. ..

Seriously...

Let me be the first to say

[GarfBond]

(nelson laugh)
Ha-ha!

of course, if it were anyone else, this would suck. However, I consider this to be "just desserts"

I'm suing both for patent infringement

[phikapjames]

and I'm going to take both Amazon and Cendant to court due to their infrindging on my patent which is a method for submitting and receiving patents that are too broad and should not have made it through the system. Big payout for me.

NBC Tried

[SteveM]

When Letterman switched networks the NBC tried to prevent him from using top ten lists.

They were not successful.

SteveM

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[Krow10]

After the BS around one-click shopping, Amazon gets exactly what they deserve.

While it is somewhat satisfying to see Amazon hoist be their own petard, I still think that this is an example of software patents stiffling innovation. Two wrongs still don't make a right, but poetic justice is something of a consolation. The system still needs to be fixed.

Cheers,
Craig

Why bother...

[builderbob_nz]

It makes you wonder why people bother to do anything these days. It seems as though you cannot even breath without infringing on somebody's patent.

Re:Why bother...

[Arimus]

You can't - I own a patent for a method of extracting oxygen from the air and the circulation of the oxygen via a liquid to all components in a system requiring the oxygen and removal of waste carbon dioxide by the same fluid.

Please pay all your money to me and my evil minions immediately.(Oh and point me in the direction of a spell checker)

Obligatory prior art?

[EvilMagnus]

Didn't the Library of Alexandria (the website, not the ancient Library) do this before Amazon got it? I seem to remember seeing it on the web around 1996... maybe earlier.

Re:Obligatory prior art?

[AndroidCat]

They were supposed to get a lot of money from a licensing agreement with Roman Inc, but they got burned on the deal.

Great Timing.

[clinko]

Good to hear this now; I stayed up until 4 a.m. last night writing the Recommended Function code to my site last night.

Re:Great Timing.

[FinalCut]

just a thought but your recommendation system should be tweaked a little.

1. don't recommend the person your looking at - it seems like the recommendations should point to people OTHER THAN the person your looking at.
2. make sure the listed recomendations are unique - ie. no duplicates.

A good example of a place where this is whacky: I clicked on ashlee simpson - and the recommendations were:

• Ashlee Simpson
• Kevin Lyttle featuring Spragga Benz
• Seether featuring Amy Lee
• Black Eyed Peas
• Black Eyed Peas

Re:Great Timing.

[clinko]

Yeah, it's a bit wacky. The function is written for songs and I put it on the artist page. It's just printing 2 songs by the same artist. It's kludged up, but hey... It's not like i'm making money off this crap.

As they say...

[slavemowgli]

Live by the sword, die by the sword. I can't exactly say I pity amazon.

Re:As they say...

[Anonymous Coward]

While that statement is a nice generalization. Being realistic, those that don't draw swords can still die by them and vice versa, those that do, don't necesarily die by them.

Can we say that...

[Vicsun]

Amazon has a bad karma?

Two stupid patents...

[Pysslingen]

...cancel each other out? Silly waste of time and money I say. Why don't patent clerks check these thing thoroughly? Some of these patents are so obviously not new ideas. Why not have review magazines, somewhere all pending patents are published for review? Would save a lot of time and money later.

USPTO Link

[cOle2]

This seems to be the patent: System and method for providing recommendation of goods or services based on recorded purchasing history

Re:USPTO Link

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed that with this patent filing (as well as the 3d patent) that there are a number of previous patents and works cited (including references to Amazon). It makes me wonder if these people are really inventing anything or just documenting other people's ideas and claiming rights to them. Seems kinda fishy to me.

not if

[Anonymous Coward]

George Bush is still president ;-)

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Vicsun]

If abusing patents is living by the sword, in most cases the saying should be "Live by the sword, live a good long life!"

Just how broad is the patent?

[NaugaHunter]

Years ago I worked on hospital systems that would recommend possible needed treatments based on what you were having done. Would it apply there?

As much as Amazon might deserve patent karma, this isn't it. This is quite definitely as opposite as you can get from 'non-obvious', even more so then one-click. One click at least required the new technology (cookies); buying recommendations have been going on as long as there have been sales people. 'You know, other people that bought Oggs-brand Wheel(TM) also bought Oggs-brand Club(TM).'

Re:Grr!

[dgagley]

Oxygen can be scanned with a digital spectrograph can't it? I think I now have the ability of patening the process where two oxygen molecules combine with an Hydrogen molecule to create water.

I am also patening carbon dioxide so all you who pollute better watch out!

Pressure building...

[JohnnyGTO]

brain exploding... CAUTION CAUTION
Is this what our future holds? One dumbass patent after another? This is what will kill the net!!

HEY - I have SO got this sorted.

[Linker3000]

Ref MY new patent #0987612345:

"A method of attempted or actual revenue generation based on claiming damages for patent infringement from other parties, based on the ownership (or acting on behalf of the owner) of patents pertaining to actions or concepts that any sane person would consider blindigly obvious and not worthy of being covered by a patent."

These guys owe me aplenty!

patent

[geg81]

Patent number is 6,782,370, filed September 4, 1997. The distinguishing feature relative to prior recommendations basd on purchase history is that it is over "distributed network".

Such systems had been in use and published for several years before the patent was filed, so this shouldn't stand. But, given Amazon's history with stupid patents, one can only hope that both Amazon and Cendant lose lots of money in the legal fight.

Re:patent

[JuggleGeek]

one can only hope that both Amazon and Cendant lose lots of money in the legal fight.

Hold on a sec... So we're rooting for the lawyers?

Re:patent

[Anonymous Coward]

that's right. whomever has the best lawyers wins, not whomever is right. Money decides court cases, not justice. It's pretty simple.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Anonymous Coward]

old saying? at least quote it right...

Matthew 26:52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Cendant only have 3 patents...

[HavokDevNull]

All relating to the same thing just about

PAT. NO. Title 1 6,782,370 Full-Text System and method for providing recommendation of goods or services based on recorded purchasing history

2 6,076,070 Full-Text Apparatus and method for on-line price comparison of competitor's goods and/or services over a computer network

3 6,035,288 Full-Text Interactive computer-implemented system and method for negotiating sale of goods and/or services

All three

Re:Cendant only have 3 patents...

[DaFrogBoy]

Well, because of #3, I guess they can sue every online sales company that ever existed.

Why do companies like this always wait until years later to "notice" someone infringed on their patent? I mean, did they forget they applied for this patent? Or did they not hear about Amazon until just recently?

A link to the patent itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Decide for yourself. Here is a link to the USPTO patent filing: http://tinyurl.com/5gq9

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[doc modulo]

No no, let the patent wars commence!

Businesses will lose millions more than patents will bring in. When that happens, patents will disappear quicker than a lobbyist can count to $100,000.-

That's what publishing is for

[davidwr]

If you have an idea and don't want to be sued by someone's future patent, PUBLISH IT.

Prior art is the easiest way to fight a patent.

Re:That's what publishing is for

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if no one in USPTO actually looks for prior art.

Re:That's what publishing is for

[CustomDesigned]

Wrong. Prior art does not prevent anyone from filing for and obtaining a patent. It does not prevent them from suing you. I might help you win your case in court provided you have enough money to pay the lawyers.

That is just one of the ways in which the current patent system is broken - especially for software.

This patent is yet another example of patenting something that retailers have done for 100 years (Sears Catalog customized by past orders) - "but do it on the internet!"

• The first wave of stupid patents: do something that people have done for centuries - "but do it on a computer!" (E.g. Bingo on a computer was patented.)
• The second wave: do something on a computer that people have done on computers since 1960 - "but do it on the internet!"
• The third wave: do something that people have done on the internet since 1980 - "but do it on the web!"
• The fourth wave: do something that people have done on the web since the first browser - "but do it with web services!"

Re:That's what publishing is for

[mdfst13]

My favorite example was that patent Kodak owned that listed Smalltalk as prior art. I read the claims, but I didn't see *anything* that wasn't already part of the published Smalltalk work. Yet Sun still paid millions to settle the patent claim.

Microsoft is also appealing the Eolas patent, claiming that the original trial didn't give proper weight to the prior art.

are they going to sue Apple?

[fallendragon]

iTunes music store has this feature too doesn't it.

CRM

[Antithetical]

System and Method for Providing Recommendation of Goods or Services Based on Recorded Purchasing History"

Sounds like a CRM (customer relationship management) system to me. There's lots of prior art on that going back to at least the early 90's.

Because

[PigeonGB]

if the patent application does get rejected, the company/patent holder has the right to keep it as a trade secret.

Someone should sue the patent office

[davidwr]

Someone should sue the patent office to publicly announce that all patents granted in the last 10-20 years are suspect on the grounds that the patent examiners were understaffed and could not have known about much of the prior art.

The net effect of this would be to overturn the "presumption of validity" on prior-art challenges.

The real reason is...

[r_j_prahad]

Cendant just wants to use Amazon's "one-click" patent and not pay anything. All these settlements end up being patent rights swaps.

We Live in the Dark Ages

[Don Tobin]

Who will break us out of this dark age? I submit the dead weight loss to society from the abuse of the USPTO in the digital realm is greater than any cost humanity has ever paid.

No patent is as specific as the IP lawyers claim, all will be considered ridiculous to even the smallest children in 500 years.

Someone save us so we can move forward. Abolish the USPTO.

If they outlaw patents...

[NotQuiteReal]

...only outlaws will have patents.

Um, wait, that was obvious, right?

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[gcaseye6677]

Like other corporate trends such as six sigma, offshore outsourcing, quarterly layoffs and mission statements, patent barratry will be considered essential for a while, Fortune magazine will rave about the need to "protect your intellectual property", then it will die down. Once companies see that it costs far more money than they could ever take in from it, and all proceeds go to the lawyers, this will fall out of fashion. Until then, the damage will be costly, especially to small companies which can't afford a big fight.

Here is the link to the patent

[nearl]

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=Cendant&s2=recommend ation&OS=Cendant+AND+recommendation&RS=Cendant+AND +recommendation

Mr One-Click...

[KJACK98]

As they saying goes, 'You Reap What You Sow' one frivolous patent for another... I only have 5 words for them "You want fries with that?"...

The only way to stop this is murder

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply kill people who sue over patents they claim to have on general ideas.

Which bank has a patent on "saving accounts"?

A less extreme measure would be to disbar the lawyers in all states for 5 years and fine all members of their firm and stipulate a 1,000,000$ fine to prevent nuisance patents.

Lawyers must be taught to think logically and made to pay for the exhorbitant cost they impose on society.

Bonds equal to 10% of a companies revenue or 10million$ (which ever is least) would need to be posted before a suit could be launched.

etc .etc

Pardon, but the infringed on my patent

[HiyaPower]

entitled "A method of making money by claiming patent infringement on bogus patents of the painfully obvious and prior art."

They will hear from my lawyer shortly.

this just in

[Anonymous Coward]

mcdonalds goes bankrupt after paying out a massive fine for everytime an employee said

"would you like fries with that"

the judge denied the second claim about 'supersizing it' since it can not be considered a seperate purchase.

In Other News

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is counter-sueing Cedant for infringing on their "frivilous patent lawsuit" patent. (Yes, I know it was said before, but I had couldn't help myself)

Attention Internet

[LentoMan]

I have just patented reply button and any form of replying to posts on the internet, so before you reply make sure you pay the appropriate amount of $$$ to me, only me. Seriously, the patenting have to stop.

Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you say "prior art"?

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/shardanand95social.htm l

This is the first hit on Citeseer: a 1995 paper that describes pretty much the exact same thing. This patent is totally bogus, it should have never been awarded.

Re:Grr!

[SnakeJG]

I am also patening carbon dioxide so all you who pollute better watch out!

Forget about suing people who pollute, you can just sue everyone who breathes!

Patent for Filing Software Patents

[Ranger]

I wish I had a patent for filing software patents. That way anyone filing for a software patent would be infringing on my patent and I could sue them if they didn't pay me royalties for filing their patent.

From Amazon---

[rdurell]

Under the "Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks for Dummies" book page:

Customers who bought this book also bought:

How to License Your Million Dollar Idea: Everything You Need To Know To Turn a Simple Idea into a Million Dollar Payday, 2nd Edition by Harvey Reese, Harvey Reese (Rate it)
Inventing for Dummies by Pamela Riddle Bird, Forrest M. Bird (Rate it)
The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Cashing in On Your Inventions by Richard C. Levy (Rate it)
Patent, Copyright & Trademark: An Intellectual Property Desk Reference (Patent, Copyright and Trademark) by Stephen Elias, Richard Stim (Rate it)
Patent It Yourself (Patent It Yourself) by David Pressman (Rate it)

Patents out of control

[Anonymous Coward]

The Patent system is getting out of control. This is just another example of Prior Art and Common Sense. Amazon should have no problem fighting this one in court.

I think it's time for a change in the US Patent office though. As well as the Copyright office.

Between SCO, and all the rest of these frivolous Patent and copyright claims, the courts are tied up beyond belief. Businesses are held hostage by the current system.

The DMCA has done nothing but make a bad situation worse. I think it's time to start a major letter writing campaign, and ad campaign and boycotts. It's time we start fighting this fight and winning.

DOWN WITH THE DMCA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Patents and Lawsuits...

[SmokeHalo]

Two bad things that go worse together!

Crap, I shouldn't have said that...Henny Youngman's estate is gonna sue me for using a one-liner (TM).

Limited customer base

[Anonymous Coward]

The patent seems pretty narrow. According to the patent abstract (see USPTO link elsewhere), it is "for the recommendation of goods and/or services to potential costumers".

Re:Limited customer base

[NaugaHunter]

Umm... patients are customers. They come in, request a service, get it, and are billed for it. Think more along the lines of going to your family doctor or a specialist. I'm specifically thinking along the lines of you go in to have something looked at and the system kicks out others that had that looked at also had another test for condition x. That test is a service that will get charged for (this ain't Canada, someone's going to pay for it), so technically it counts.

Re:Grr!

[paradizelost]

Just a few corrections. You would combine 2 Hydrogen ATOMS and 1 Oxygen ATOM to make a water Molecule.

Hm... have a time limit on suing for infringement

[Arimus]

Why sue now? As Amazon have being offering recommendations for a long time now....

Maybe one way to stop spurious claims is to rule that in order to claim for infringment you must file your claim within 6 months of becomming aware of a potential infringement or lose all ability to claim damages from the infringing company/organisation/individual....

legal tactic hereto know as...

[the-build-chicken]

the 'amazon come-upins' strategy

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[zoips]

Of course, the lawyers have already figured this out. They merely buy up patents and swing them around with impudence because they do nothing but litigate, therefore they have no fear of patent infringment. It's a win-win situation for law firms, which guarantees this will situation will be repeated ad infinitum.

Way too near fetched

[Walter Wart]

Heh. BBSpot just took the next logical step, software that does all your shopping for you automatically based on your income and Amazon purchase history. I'm hoping this one remains satire for a little while.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[RAMMS EIN]

``Ghandi was a smart man''

Oh yes. My favorite quote is what he said when asked his opinion about civilization in the West:

``I think it would be a good idea.''

What about Firefly?

[Tea-Bone of Brooklyn]

Anyone remember firefly a.k.a. HOMR a.k.a. Ringo? Created by some MIT grad students sold to Micro$oft and killed? That was a recommendation engine that went back to 1993. I still have a t-shirt.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Anonymous Coward]

Cover your nose Boo, we will leave no stone untouched! *squeek*

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[ozric99]

But there is a little truth in the old saying. "He who lives by the sword, Dies by the sword."

Indeed - likewise he who lives by the pen, he who lives by the word processor, he who who lives by the fax machine all shall die by the sword. Only he who lives by the tank shall remain immune.

Your patents are belong to us

[Anonymous Coward]

Your patents are belong to us

to clarify

[davidwr]

Having prior art makes it a lot easier to:

1) ask the patent office to review an existing patent that didn't cite your relevant prior art
2) ask a court to invalidate a patent that didn't cite your relevant prior art

If you did NOT have prior art, you'll likely LOSE.
If you do have prior art, and a good attorney and the money to feed him, you'll have a good chance of winning.

IBM's done this for decades with their Technical Disclosure Bulletins, with success I might add.

except

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is completely different when its on the internet, and can't be compared to any existing real world matters in any way.

Except, of course, in the case of treating information as if it were property.

Why doesn't the defendant just say:

[kingj02]

cout << "IP IS BS" << endl;
. . .
printf("IP IS BS\n");
. . .
int i;
char * s = "IP IS BS\0";

for(i=0; i<strlen(s); i++)
___printf("%c", s[i]);
printf("\n");

The output is the same, but the means to get there are completely independant of each other.

And the winner is....

[DaFrogBoy]

And the winner is.... Once again, it is the lawyers. When will people learn? Why does today's society insist on suing one another for every (in)feasible thing?

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[rainman_bc]

It will only repeat until a lawmaker is offended.

Personally I'd love to see balancing laws for the courts -> if you are paying $100,000 for lawyers, you should be able to pay that for the other side as well so that personal / corporate wealth isn't a legal factor any more.

And if the lawsuit is frivalous, judges should be afraid to ram punitive damages down the throat of the litigious bastard, and the lawyer for bringing such a frivilous case to the courts in the first place.

Amazon's technology is cited in the application!

[TrentC]

Seriously, there's a reference in patent application to the article "Amazon.com Catapults Electronic Commerce to Next Level With Powerful New Features", dated September 23, 1997 -- barely two weeks after the patent filing date. And the odds are good that it took Amazon.com a lot longer than two weeks to develop, test, and deploy that functionality.

But wait it gets better... reading further in the PR blurb, we see that their group filtering technology was based on an existing product, called Grouplens. I assume that this is the same kind of functionality that Cendant is claiming as their own work; if so, surely Grouplens must have something to say as far as prior art goes...

Jay (=

I'm going to get myself sued!

[Game Genie]

Watch this:

So guys, I see you read Slashdot. I saw some really leet gear on this one website you might like.

SHIT! I can already see the lawyers on the horizon!

So much tapioca and nothign else?

[mr_mischief]

Are you sure you don't mean "just deserts"?

Lock nit cup if your nut assure.

Defeating the Overall Objective of IP Protections

[4of12]

Pardon my naivete, but aren't all of these patents and intellectual property law protections supposed to encourage innovation and overall provide maximum benefit to society?

I see a great deal of innovation that is unprotected (open source) that, precisely because it is so unencumbered, serves to invite more and more rapid innovations built upon it.

Crazy.

Can My dad sue Cendant?

[solune]

My dad has been in the automotive business for years. Often, especially older customers, get the benefit of his taking notes on what similar customers bought as they changed cars, changed their service contracts, or commented about a rental. I mean literally take notes:"Customer loved the Toyota camry rental." Because they were a long time customer he'd have 'filed' their age, race, etc. in his head.

then, when another, or new, customer asked about something he could relay the experience ("Other users have recommended") based on the relevant demographics.

Since he already had a system, can he sue to increase his bottom line?

Yeah, it sounds silly, but it seems we're headed that way.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[VitaminB52]

After the BS around one-click shopping, Amazon gets exactly what they deserve.

If there is one party that deserves to be attacked by this kind of lawsuits, then it is the bunch of politicians who gave us these stupid patent laws.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[VitaminB52]

Well, patent the concept of frivolous lawsuits, then sue any party who starts a frivolous lawsuits.

Aahwwww, wait a moment - that means I would have to sue myself :( .

New patent

[Bull Hurley]

I plan to apply for a patent for a System and Method of patenting obvious Systems and Methods and filing frivolous lawsuits over them. Then again, I would guess there would be way too much prior art for that.

Re:Grr!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms are a bit hard to come by in the wild. Both elements like to buddy up into molecules of 2 atoms. So the original is correct (though 2 Hydrogen molecules and an oxygen molecule make 2 water molecules)

The Wretched Extreme

[HangingChad]

I think we've finally found the wretched extreme in retarded patents. It will be something like this before Congress will finally wake up and realize how stupid software patents really are.

Of course, in this country that might mean Congress extends them another 150 years, makes violating a patent a felony, tasks Homeland Security with enforcing patent rights, and invades Japan for threatening to duplicate one-click online shopping.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it the patent laws? Or is it the idiot who stupidly approved this patent? I mean what moron approves a patent for recommending products to people based on their previous purchases? How is that patentable?!?!?

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Java Pimp]

Seriously though, when are we going to overhaul these amazingly archaic patent laws?

Actually, I don't really beleive it's the laws that need overhauled but the patent system in general. Patents (or atleast the concept of) were at one time a good thing. However, these tools working in the patent system are clueless. They seem to be forgetting two very important terms when it comes to granting pattents. "Unique" and "non-obvious". (I'm sure we can slip 'not overly broad' in there somewhere too).

Recommending items to customers is definitely not something new and unique and has been done on and off the net for years. Hell... "would you like fries with that?" or "this coat would go great with that vest"...

Granted, I haven't read the complaint or the terms of the patent, and that 5 sentence article gives just enough information to raise everyone's blood pressure and not much else. The general "Recommending shit based on what others wanted" in itself isn't patentable. It's overly broad and obvious as hell. Now, if Cendant has patented "a unique method of storing user information and presenting recommendations to others" and Amazon is using "that exact same method" then they have a case.

One company may hold a patent on a particular mouse trap, but no-one can hold a patent on "trapping mice." If Cendant were able to obtain such a pattent, may [your respective deities] help us all...

Anyone have anymore information on the complaint?

I see some good out of this

[krunchyfrog]

At least I won't be nagged anymore when I do some online shopping.

When I shop online, I buy what I had in mind. Period.

Forget revenge and irony.

[buddhaseviltwin]

Enough of these sort of headlines, and they begin to grab the attention of people that can have the biggest political impact on patent reform: INVESTORS.

Stories like these send investors a clear message about investing money in the software industry:

RUNAWAY PATENT SYSTEM = LEGAL LIABILITY FOR THEIR INVESTMENTS = BIG RISK

Whether that could translate into patent reform that aims to protect the little guy as much as it protects the big guy is another story. I would hope investors would recognize that it was the lack of software patents and regulation that helped incubate an industry that created some of the best investment opportunities in history. I also hope they will eventually realize that while software patents have helped a number of companies dominate market share, it's impeded much of the industry from adding value to the industry and the economy as a whole.

If I wanted to send Wall St. a message it would be this:

A patent is not a deed to the monopoly of idea; it's a license to subject your competitors to huge financial risk, but if you get too creative and ambitious it's a great way to subject yourself to that same looming financial risk.

I can't imagine why anybody would volunteer to subject their investments to a volatile atmosphere of severe legal liability.

Re:Forget revenge and irony.

[L1TH10N]

Here, here... If only I had the mod points.

Re:Forget revenge and irony.

[JuggleGeek]

I also hope they will eventually realize that while software patents have helped a number of companies dominate market share, it's impeded much of the industry from adding value to the industry and the economy as a whole.

If software patents had been allowed then, either we would be running Visicalc and Wordstar, or every company making word processors and spreadsheets would have to license the "idea" from those companies.

I'm not big on our patent system in general, but I've never seen a software patent that makes sense. Copyright, yes - you own the code and should have those rights. But having a patent that says nobody else should be able to write a similar program just shuts down development, and attempting to develop in that environment just lines the pockets of the lawyers, judges, and politicians.

the patent trap

[j0e_average]

It occurs to me that many of these lawsuits could be avoided by giving the patent holder a reasonably short time in which to serve notice to the alleged infringers.

For example, the patent holders of MP3 audio compression legally filed for, and were granted a patent for the technology. About that time the technology was spreading like wildfire on the internet, becoming a proven and popular music format. Then, when manufacturers started releasing hardware that supported the format, here comes the patent holders, saying wait a minute, bub...you owe us $.75 in license fees for each device sold.

My argument against this practice would be that the patent holders should have taken a more aggressive stance in the beginning, not when they allowed the market to react positively based on false pretenses. The fact that they didn't vigorously defend their IP means that it should have slipped into the public domain.

The fact that Cendant waited so incredibly long to notify Amazon that it was infringing should nullify their claim.

If giving recomendations is patented...

[Incoming9000]

...what will happend to the natinal security advisors? I guess they are liable too right?

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[rainman_bc]

And the judges that create precedence. The judges are there to interpret the law, and prevent this kind of abuse from occurring. They need to start dealing out heavy punitive damages for these frivilous cases so that there's a strong disincentive.

I worked for a company in Canada called Velocity a number of years ago. There's a large telco in Canada called Telus that wanted the Velocity trademark for their DSL packages, and forced this company's hand out of their name. They had spend many thousands marketing their trade mark, and lost it by the sheer power of the telco. You have a choice -> bankruptcy through litigation, or change your name. Of course they changed their name to Voyus, and their brand recognition was obliterated.

A simple cost/benefit analysis indicates that big business wins every time. Either change your name or be litigated into oblivion. Really, Telus had a net worth more than 10,000 times Volocity. Telus should have funded Velocity's defence as well.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[shawn(at)fsu]

This is the second time I've heard of the Patent Wars on /. and each time I hear it I think about the machine wars or something from terminator.

I picture indestructable lawyers crushing the creativity bones of people all over the world. Lawyers who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

The system will not be fixed until more large corporations - which are almost inherently patent bullies - are severely hurt by smaller companies' patent suits. It's only after they feel some major pain that their money will swing from one side of the lobby to the other.

I would still object to this kind of patent.

[abb3w]

On the other hand, I don't object to this kind of patent lawsuit, given the Amazon v. B&N case: it's called "Karma", and I don't mean the warm-and-fuzzy Slashdot kind.

collaborative filtering

[krokodil]

The technique they are trying to patent is called "collaborative filtering" and existed well before they introduced it. I think University Of Minnesota have GroupLense project doing this. Some more info about it here:

http://notbrainsurgery.livejournal.com/7586.html

web app

[hipparchus]

You ought to go talk to amazon, especially if you have proof (even if it is affadavits from friends who saw it).
I'm sure they'd be happy to hear from you.

Re:By Clicking On This Link: +1, Patriotic

[juan2074]

Certainly Robert Mugabe is also dangerous AND inarticulate.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[VitaminB52]

Everybody is equal to the law - and rich people / companies are just a little bit more equal than poor people / companies.

And the politicians don't care, because it are the more equal people / companies who donate the most to their election campaigns.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Tired and Emotional]

I prefer "He who rides the tiger can never dismount".

I think you can be pretty sure that if Amazon thought they could get a patent on this they would have been there first. The fact that its only just been issued suggests they had plenty of time to do that.

So I will be surprised if this suit is not thrown out pretty quickly.

What we need is to change the law so the loser pays costs, like on the rest of the planet. That will get rid of most frivolous lawsuits of all kinds real fast and would remove the financial incentive for applying for dubious patents.

Fixing the patent system would certainly be a good thing too, but its not the root cause of these problems.

Patent idea! What this country needs!

[csoto]

1-Click Litigation. Search for someone you want to sue, click a button and sue!

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[radio_babylon]

an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

nah, it just makes it really hard for the whole world to hit a baseball ;)

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean GANDHI. It's a proper noun. Do pay attention.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Even if AMZ hadn't done the 1-click patent, they would still have been hit here. It's more like "Live any way you want, Die by the sword" Stick to your "ordinarily" response before opening your mouth.

Was in public domain along time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently researching the whole are of E-Commerce recommendation systems and i can tell you the Amzon uses a system based on the ideas of automated collaborative filtering.

Tis technology was first invented by the group lens research team way back like 7 years ago.

http://www.grouplens.org/

Im currently in the process of doing one my self for final degree piece of work hard work but not innotavie so amazon deserve whats happening just surprised that it waasnt grouplens doing this.

I know they have sold their systems to many companies including GUS (Great Universal Stores).

Why did they need a new law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did they need a new law?

Easy.. deception!

Congress would have seen a patent-overhaul coming -- that would require modifying the Constitution, right?

By cloaking the law in digital mumbo-jumbo, most Congresspeople (who have others print their email for them) get glazed over eyes, and don't read what they vote for.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[back_pages]

Actually, I don't really beleive it's the laws that need overhauled but the public in general. The public (or atleast the concept of) were at one time expected to know what they were talking about. However, these tools are clueless. They seem to be forgetting two very important terms when it comes to voicing a respectable opinion. "Having" and "the slightest idea what they're babbling about". (I'm sure we can slip 'not overly broad' in there somewhere too).

You are such a tool. There is NO LEGAL BASIS FOR THE IDEA OF "UNIQUE" IN PATENT LAW. The term is "novel" and in the context of patent law, it does not mean "unique". Further, the concept of "non-obvious" does not mean what you think it means when dealing with corporate patent attorneys.

An no, you cannot slip "overly broad" in there, because this concept has NO BASIS IN LAW. That a patent should not be "overly broad" is a fantasy of public mediocrity. The Constitution, as it regards patents, was specifically written so that an inventor could have the broadest patent protection he can attain - a patent that is honestly "too broad" will be easily defeated in court. Also, see my above comments about having a clue.

Granted, I haven't read the complaint or the terms of the patent

...or the laws that define what a patent is, or the case law that clarify what can or cannot be patented. I also strongly suspect you haven't read too much in the way of "informative stuff about patents", because you seem to be regurgitating untruths that I'm guessing you heard from someone else - who didn't have a clue. By the way, patents do not have "terms". See my previous comment about having a clue.

Anyone have anymore information on the complaint?

Yes, I do. I got it by READING THE PATENT, which is legally required to by published. It is accessible through the internet by a method similar to Google - I'll spare you the details. The patent has three independent claims, all of which are directed toward a method that requires a tangible embodiment on a computer. Nothing you have uttered forth has addressed that one glaring difference between the patent and "recommending items to customers" in general - and expresses a stark inadequacy in your understanding of the patent system.

I'm not saying that this invention sounds like it'll change the world, but unless you show up at the doctor's office and tell him he's a clueless tool for not curing your cold (in which case you would be a dipshit in general), I think you have an ethical obligation to know what you're talking about before publicly declaring things like "these tools working in the patent system are clueless".

I'm sure you're a fine person and competent at your job, but YOU look like a complete tool when you make comments like that and clearly don't know the first thing about the topic.

This could be a good thing.

[1locs]

Maybe Cendant will go after all those annoying spyware ads that claim to provide "relevent" advertisements. Of course, Cendant's patent doesn't apply to providing recomending goods or services based on a user's internet history, but there's got to be one that does.

The sixth point in the patent..

[Neoncow]

...of the patent is rather suspicious.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you care?

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[j-pimp]

I don't wish for this type of misfortune on my worst enemies, as if found legal, will still be a precedent for evil.

You miss the point. See, companies have had portfolios of questionable patents for years. However they were defensive patents. Every company patented every stupid thing they could so if DEC decided to sue IBM over violating there "method for acronyming corporation with three letters" patent, IBM could jsut counter sue based on another patent. This lead to a cold war senario where corporations don't sue each other out of fear of a zero sum senario.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

if you are paying $100,000 for lawyers, you should be able to pay that for the other side as well

The Justice Department is actually all about Law and ORDER. A legal fight is a PROXY for a society damaging physical battle (you know ... guns, death, REAL battle).

One last try at communication: If you can't afford the battle, you are SUPPOSED TO LOSE - that IS the system.

I didn't say whether or not I agree with it or not. The problem with trying to improve the current situation is the Law of Unintendend Consequences.

If you think the problems in society are easy to solve then you have CONTEMPT for those who struggled before you. The fact is that solving the problems of Western Civilization without making things worse is NOT trivial from the point of view of any actual participant in the political process.

gold box

[torrents]

looks like there's a law suit in someone's gold box...

History of this application

[servoled]

The history of this application can be found here.

A couple of interesting points:
- This case was rejected 4 times prior to being allowed.
- This case was originally allowed after the second rejection, but the allowance was withdrawn.
- After the fourth rejection, this case was sent to the board of appeals, where the examiner was partially affirmed.
- After the boards decision, a final amendment was made and the case was allowed.
- Four years past from the time the case was first looked at by an examiner until the case was finally allowed.

They're not patenting recommendations

[hng_rval]

What they are patenting is the method they used to determine the recommendations based on previous purchases.

Example, Recommendations = f(Previous_Purchases)
They're not patenting the idea of providing recommendations based on previous purchases. They are patenting the function f, which Amazon may or many not be infringing.

You can't just point to a system where people recommend products and claim prior art - they have to be using the same process!

Correction

[mrmike37]

Wouldn't it be: If you infringe this patent you may also *want to* infringe...

I don't really expect to get modded up. Yours was much more original.

Re:Amazon's technology is cited in the application

[yppiz]

Amazon has many different product recommendation systems, each based on different data and each running a different algorithm.

See my profile for my credentials :)

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

Simply Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

This has to be the lowest point of the patent submariners. It is so ludicrous as to be un-freakin-believable.

It is time for Congress to take their heads out of their collective asses and fix the fucking patent system, or drop it altogether until the USPTO is willing to do their fucking jobs properly.

Re:Cendant only have 3 patents. so far.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cendant may be one to keep your eye on.

They do intend to patent more such things in the future.

Look for similar methods such as recommendations and offering of goods and services based on lifetime financial and purchasing history. (please somebody do a "prior art" on this one!)

These guys have their fingers in everything, particularly in information, including "consumer intelligence" with a monster database on individuals and their financial, credit and tax histories.

Example:
Cendant bought Credentials Services, once spun off from TRW Credit Services, and secretly killed it off, leaving the Credentials customers without paid-for services and in the dark while taking the financial, tax and credit records the customers maintained with Credentials.

They did not intend to keep Credentials going, despite their promise to do so. They only wanted the financial information.

Re:By Clicking On This Link: +1, Patriotic

[Anonymous Coward]

no shit. teenagers like the gp wouldn't know real opression in any from -- they have whined themselvs into no idea. what fags.

Re:Hm... have a time limit on suing for infringeme

[Builder]

The patent was only granted on August 24 2004, so they are suing quite quickly after receiving it.

The fact that amazon has been doing this for ages doesn't really mean anything, as without the patent, you have no basis for suit.

Also, the patent was applied for in 1997, so Amazon may not be able to claim prior art to date of filing.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/i conochasms.php 10, 15 and 32. not that smart at all eh?

I'm going to patent having sex to make babies

[theolein]

And sue every single motherfucker from George Bush across to Bill Gates through to Chairman Mao.

Jesus fucking Christ, where will this fucking bullshit end? When some dickwad patents methods of political manipulation and then sues whichever party is in power as owing him money?

I think I'm going to test the fucking patent system. I'm going to patent taking a dump and see if it goes through. Given the current level of crap, it might very well do so.

PRIOR ART, WITH FRIES

[tod_miller]

I walked into my local gyros shop, and after my usually geeky rss sync of his menu, and then hand coding a remot procedure call over a serial cable to his antiquainted register (which i had to write my own assembly language for) I successfully ordered a nice nourishing treat to feed my brain.

Of course, he wasn;t allowed to ask me 'the usual' which I have ordered 23590285094 times in my life at that place, because some people are using anticompetative measures to throw companies off with patents.

I have no money by myself to sue the US patent office for fraud, or all fruadulent patent holders, but I bet the computing community as a whole should feel obliugated to stop this shenanegans right now

Despite opening up an amazon package last night, I am totally pissed off with thier patent portfolio, but they might feel it is necessary to have dud patents to conteract other dud patents.

can we stop this madness soon

Anyone thinking of a new startup had better forget it, it is impossible to do anything now, because virtually everything we do on the internet is in violation of a patent or other.

JOIN ME SUE THE US PATENT OFFICE TODAY

Better yet, find some us patent people who downloaded MP3's, and some RIAA people downloading movies, and a movie industry giant writing software that infringes SCO (giggle) patents - THEN they can all sue themselves into insanity, and all the lawyers will die of heart attacks from eating too much from being so stinking rich, or yachting accidents, or ferrari accidents, and then the world shall be ok again.

Re:Amazon's technology is cited in the application

[doghouse41]

The technology that Amazon use to make product recommendations is based on a process known as "collaborative filtering".

This was first developed at the University of Minnesota in the early/mid 90's as a way of recommending newsgroup articles that students might be interested in. It was found that the same methods could be used to usefully recommend movies and other products that customers might recommend.

The essence of collaborative filtering is "Customer A brought products X and Y and other customers who brought X and Y also brought Z, therfore recommend product Z to customer A". The hard part of collaborative filtering is developing algorithms that turn what my be hundreds of millions of lines of purchase history into useful set of rules, and doing it quickly enough to be usable inthe real world.

The technology from the U of Minnesota was developed by John Reidl and others through a company called Net Perceptions inthe mid 90's (www.netpercetpions.com). They developed the product called Grouplens. One of the first customers for this product was Amazon. Amazon actually brought a source code licence to Grouplens, and while they continued to be a Net Perceptions customer through into about 2001 they actually further developed the original Grouplens code internally. What Amazon currently use is probably quite different from the original NetP product, but would presumably be still covered by the source code license from NetP, which would also cover the patents held by NetP on collaborative filtering .

Since Netp was effectively wound up last year, their patent portfolio has been sold to Thalveg Data Flow LLC (see http://biz.yahoo.com/e/040401/netp.pk8-k.html)

I seriously doubt that Cendant have much to offer in terms of original work in this area. Certainly NetP had/has prior art going back into the ealy 90's. I can't see how the Cendant Patent can stand (and I can't see how it doesn't conflict with NetP patents either.)

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[JuggleGeek]

No no, let the patent wars commence!

Businesses will lose millions more than patents will bring in. When that happens, patents will disappear quicker than a lobbyist can count to $100,000.

Except the laws are made by lawyers, and the money that the businesses spend arguing about all of this goes, in large part, to lawyers. The lawyers don't care if the businesses are losing millions over it - as long as the lawywers are getting a good cut of that.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[JuggleGeek]

You sound like a patent lawywer who gets rich off the current system and hates the idea that rules such as "non obvious" and "novel" should be applied. Your entire argument was based around "You didn't use the correct legal term" or "The term you used has a different legal meaning" or somesuch.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Java Pimp]

You are such a tool... Also, see my above comments about having a clue... See my previous comment about having a clue... YOU look like a complete tool

How insightful! Way to drive home your argument!

If you are going to refute my argument how about providing facts or counter examples instead of trying to attack my character.

Loser.

Infringes existing patent

[DuncMan]

See HEY - I have SO got this sorted., posted 17 minutes earlier than your post.

Didn't you do *any* research?

poetic justice

[Anonymous Coward]

what comes around goes around. remember one click ordering?

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Java Pimp]

You know... I feel I must apologize for my previous post. I don't usually fly off the handle like that. However, it seems like every time I comment on patents, I end up in a pissing match with someone, and your attacks on character are not cool.

So, I am at work and do not have time to study patent law or this patent or the claims of this case in general. I thought I made that clear when I acknowledged that Granted, I haven't read the complaint or the terms of the patent... and then presented my opinion and solicited for more information.

Now, I will rebut your counter-claims that were not attacks on my character. I am not going to dust off any patent law books or hire a patent lawyer. I am just going to use what I find on the USPTO website.

The term is "novel" and in the context of patent law, it does not mean "unique".

Please show me where this is stated in patent law. In all the dictionary/thesarus references I've seen, these two words are synonyms.

From USPTO:

The subject matter sought to be patented must be sufficiently different from what has been used or described before...

unique? novel? original? Note that the term "novel" is only mentioned 3 times on this entire page and it seems to mean what a dictionary would define it as.

the concept of "non-obvious" does not mean what you think it means...

Continuing the last sentence:

...that it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention.

And the previous sentance:

Even if the subject matter sought to be patented is not exactly shown by the prior art, and involves one or more differences over the most nearly similar thing already known, a patent may still be refused if the differences would be obvious.

That's pretty much what I thought it meant.

From the same page:

...and abstract ideas are not patentable...

An "abstract idea" like, say, mouse traps vs. a specific implementation of a mouse trap.

So substitue "novel" and "abstract ideas" for "unique" and "overly broad" and my original argument stands.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Java Pimp]

a patent that is honestly "too broad" will be easily defeated in court.

Maybe I missed something but, I thought it was the USPTO that was supposed to decide what was patentable and not the courts. Not, allow anything through and let the courts figure it out later.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

His name is spelled Gandhi, not Ghandi.

Re:Good! Bittter sweet irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

I realized that later. If the editors can edit the headlines, why can't we edit our comments?

Re:Grr!

[paradizelost]

You obviousely haven't taken science classes, it's called H2O because 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen atom makes it up. with only 3 atoms, there is no way to have 2 water molecules

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[back_pages]

I appreciate your post, and especially your ability to understand why I might have posted with the attitude I had. While I understand that there is a lot of misunderstanding about the patent system, I don't think that ought to justify the wildly inaccurate comments about the intelligence and abilities of people at the USPTO which are so popular around Slashdot.

Please show me where this is stated in patent law.

35 USC 102 forms the legal basis for the concept of "novelty". While many dictionaries may state "novel" and "unique" are synonyms - and they certainly are in everyday language - the Patent system lives in a parallel universe of legal speak. For example, you might read 35 USC 102 regarding novelty and draw some conclusions about whether or not a patent should be issued - but you will very likely be incorrect.

While 35 USC 102 is short and written in rather plain language for a Federal law, unfortunately knowledge of the law is insufficient to apply the law. That's why we have judges; their job is to interpret 35 USC 102 and produce case law. This case law is what defines the concepts of "novelty". Believe you me, you would be surprised by how specifically this concept is defined by case law, and also surprised by how different this concept is from the standard dictionary definition.

35 USC 103 forms the basis for rejecting an "obvious" patent. Again, reading and understanding this law is insufficient to form an opinion about a particular situation. There is a good amount of 102 case law, there are mountains of 103 case law. Once again, the concept of "non-obvious" is NOT what you will find in the dictionary, rather it is defined by decades of case law. While the USPTO often uses the language "a person of ordinary skill in the art", again there are piles of case law defining what this means. According to the examiners at the USPTO, a person of ordinary skill in the art has common sense and is reasonably intelligent. To the attorneys, it's debatable whether a person of ordinary skill can tie his own shoes. This conflict comes to a head in the language of 35 USC 102, which declares that "a person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." meaning that a person cannot be denied a patent unless they willfully give up (abandon the application) or a judge affirms that the USPTO's rejection is lawful.

What many people do not understand is that these laws, 35 USC 102 and 103, do NOT tell you WHAT can or cannot be patented, rather they establish the concepts of WHY a patent should or should not be issued. On Slashdot, people like to rant and rave about something being "obvious" - fact is, that doesn't mean anything. Hell, there is case law that declares "If prior art could have performed the claimed function, even though the claimed function is not disclosed, the difference is a naming convention and the claimed invention is not patentable." Proof positive that any tangible embodiment of a Turing machine teaches all software claims - a Turing machine could be configured to compute anything that is computable. However, that stance would conflict with the spirit and intention of 35 USC 101 which is intended to advance technology for the nation - surely we can agree that SOME things using software are novel and non-obvious. Finite element simulation was impossible before computers, as was nuclear simulation, flight control for the F-117A, and processing SETI data.

How does this get resolved? Case law. As it currently stands, software is non-statutory under 35 USC 101 for being an abstract algorithm. However, the flight control for the F-117A is truly a complicated invention that advanced technology. Current case law has established that a software process must be claimed in conjunction with a tangible embodiment, cannot be claimed without function (meaning it cannot be claimed as merely data

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[back_pages]

Maybe I missed something but, I thought it was the USPTO that was supposed to decide what was patentable and not the courts. Not, allow anything through and let the courts figure it out later.

Sorry, I meant to respond to this also. Like I said in my other post, the USPTO cannot deny giving someone a patent unless the case goes before a judge - every other failed patent application is abandoned by the applicant. As I said, case law is the result of previous patent applications going to a judge and they define what can be patented. Sometimes, the USPTO has no choice but to issue a patent and let the courts sort it out.

Also, at least 19 out of 20 cases are absolutely ridiculous and that USPTO received 350,000 applications per year. People do make mistakes, but even in the worst case, an infringement lawsuit will put the patent under intense scrutiny in a courtroom - the fastest way to invalidate your weak patent is to use it.

Re:Amazon's technology is cited in the application

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually worked for NetPerceptions the company
that commercialized GroupLens. They were moderatly
successful, selling both to B&N as well as
Amazon.

The product is really powerful, and expen$ive, but
it worked great! It was pretty hard to sell it to
people, since the premise of a recomendation
engine seemed to simple (it isn't), and the other
features were complex to take advantage of.

Now NetPerceptions is all but out of business,
and other people are doing a similar simpler
bit of work, probably much cheaper.

Re:Ordinarily I would object to this kind of paten

[Java Pimp]

Thank you for that well thought out response. This was a real education for me. While I knew things are not as cut and dry as everyone on here (including myself) feels they should be, the logical, black-and-white software engineer in me keeps me focused only on what the law states, ignoring any case interpretation of that law. I suppose to the logical mind of the average Slashdot geek, and I find myself falling into the same trap, there is no room for interpretation. Black and white. It either is or is not novel. It either is or is not obvious. There is no middle ground to a geek. The law states "X" so it either meets "X" or it does not.

I think that's probably the source of contention on here. We see some patents granted on things that aren't very novel or unique like the "One Click" patent or the ludicrous "the method of swinging sideways on a swing..." and we wonder if the USPTO is doing its job. It's a common belief that the job of the USPTO is to accept or reject a patent application based on cut and dry criteria. Based on what you've explained to me, this is a huge over simplification of what really happens.

This of course leads to the crys for reform as there are a lot of people, myself included, that feel more should be done within the USPTO itself and the majority of the disputes left out of the courts. The USPTO employs the subject matter experts that are reviewing the applications and really should be making the final decisions. Basing decisions on case law made by a judge who probably isn't an expert in the topic of controversy probably isn't the best way to go. An uninformed judge is alot easier to sway than an more knowledgable patent examiner.