Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Pursues Plogging Patent
theodp writes "When it unveiled a beta of Plogs (personalized blogs), a nonpublication request Amazon had in effect prevented the USPTO from disclosing that Plogs were patent-pending. But now you can check out Amazon's patent application for the Personalized selection and display of user-supplied content to enhance browsing of electronic catalogs, which describes how 'blurbs' can be made available in a blog format for viewing by others."
Aren't all blogs personalised?
It seems Slashdot will soon owe royalties to Amazon..
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
My first thought is no way, this is so obvious. But then I got thinking--if the process of selecting individualized blogs is the true patent (basically selecting items for different individuals based upon viewing past history, etc.) then I might see this being upheld. Usually when you do have a process though you will see the word "process" somewhere. It will be interesting if they leave the patent like this or seek to further clarify.
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There basically patenting showing other users favorite for similar things on a search page at a shopping site. they are not patenting blogging.
Pogs?
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Well I'm not sure if the patent will be approved as is but I must admit that I like to idea behind the service. Most notably I enjoy the RSS feed integration, that's something that more people really need to start using. As for the patent, seems alittle broad to me but that's why you need to get these things approved.
It sounds like they are talking out of their blurb authoring pipeline
So this is the age when we change a letter of an already annoying idea, patent it, and sue everyone who infringes? Soon I will patent this new idea I had called pife -- it's when you are born, live and grow up, become a productive member of society -- but it's different than life because it's more personal and it's branded with my own special logo, and ongoing product placement using cranial implants.
Soon you will all bow to me!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
No entry found for plogging.
,
.
Did you mean plugging?
yes these new words annoys me , but what annoys me more is companys trying to get stupid patents
"According to a note on Amazon.com, the Plog is a diary-type feature of the users' shopping experience. "]It will help] you discover products that have just been released, track changes to your orders, and many other things. Just like a blog, your Plog is sorted in reverse chronological order. When we think we have something interesting or important to tell you, we'll post it to your Plog.""
So its an information system based on your previous purchases, Im sure many catlog order companys have been doing this for years , with target special offers etc
Plus im sure several advertising companys have with tracking cookies and other forms of spyware , been doing the same thing to provide ads that may intrest the customer/victim
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
...Plog?
I hope this word doesn't catch on... otherwise it'll cause almost as much confusion as spelling out orally the slashdot URL.
We are seing articles about patent applications at least once a week. /etc/hosts file:
We have another potencial litigious bastard here, but, what do we gain by saying the same stuff each time we see such a story? (and beleive me, you will se a lot more in the future)
Just add this to your
127.0.0.1 www.amazon.com
127.0.0.1 amazon.com
Don't buy anything from them, don't recommend amazon to friends, don't keep a wishlist, don't even go to the frkn site, don't click on banners, etc,etc.
It's the only way we can fight them.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Amazon is really pushing its APIs to open-source developers and is trying very hard to become part of the open-source community. Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly sat side by side at OSCON to tout how small developers could use Amazon's API to make lots of money. This worries me.
Amazon combines Plogs, Reviews, and One-Click and gets a patent on Prick.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
They are patenting concepts. They are not even patenting theories or ways to implement concepts, they are patenting concepts. It's like patenting the very concept of a flying car itself, instead of patenting an implementation of the concept.
There couldn't have been a nonpublication request for two reasons:
1. Obviously the patent application is published...we're all looking at it. The filing date is August 2004 and the publication date is February 2005. That's 18 months, which is exactly the the correct schedule for publication of an applications.
2. Anyone who submits a nonpublication request with a patent application has to certify that they don't intend to file the application outside the United States. Certainly, Amazon wants to protect their "invention" world-wide. Thus they would never file a nonpublication request.
I hereby nominate that article title for "tongue twister of the day"
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
I think its more fair... Medicines for one, a Lab should be able to patent a process to achieve certain compound. But not be able to patent the compound formula... if some poor country find a way to produce the medicine, the Lab would not be alowed to charge for royalities... unless they're using the patented process to make the medicines.
Take a look at the HIV case here at Brasil, the governament tried to produce generic medicines, to distribute among the population for FREE, but the Labs couldnt allow that, and sued the governament. When the Labs were about to LOOSE the case, they lowered the price of the meds to a fraction of the original cost, so would be cheaper for the governament to buy the meds, instead of produce them!!!
What I mean is, patents doesnt suck. What is wrong is the way theyre used nowdays.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
I am the leader of an open-source (GPL) effort to create a truly multi-user and multi-blog blogging tool built on PHP and called pLog. Even though it's an ugly name, it stands "PHP Log" and has nothing to do with Amazon's patent whatsoever. But the question is... Should we start worrying about this now? I mean, can we expect Amazon's lawyers coming after us because our project name and the name of their patent sound too similar? We've been in Sourceforge since June 2003 (if that counts)
We'd like to keep our name because it's been our identity for almost 2 years now but we cannot affort legal litigation (being a free community effort, etc)
I'd like to announce that I've patented the following technologies, and everybody who makes use of such concepts must now pay me an annual fee starting ar $500,000 per year.
WLOG (TM)
A whining blog. Log in, bitch all day about traffic/technology/your boyfriend/your tatoo/your parents/your friends/school. Under this new concept, users will be able to whine more fast and more effectivelly than ever, thanks to our Instant-Whine(TM) technology that allows for up-to-the-second bitching about the upcoming issues.
SLOG (TM)
The server blog. With this breakthrough concept, now servers (and other applications) themselves can write blogs about what's happening to them. We find this kind of blog will be most interesting to system administrators and aficcionados alike. You'll fully understand the advantages of this system when you read your server's SLOG (TM) and find entries such as "I'm feeling bored today. I took 10.6231 seconds to process the last data backup. I had to rewrite 12731312kb of old files in the process. Those people can't create new files or what?".
DLOG (TM)
The dead blog. Create once, never post anymore. We think we can make big bucks with this tech, as most blogs effectively become a DLOG sooner or later. With our post lock feature, you can force your own blog to become a DLOG (TM) and never be able to post on it anymore.
SPLOG (TM)
The spam fest blog. This is actually an improved version of DLOG (TM); it not only makes your blog dead, but also leave comments open for comment spammers so they can build up their google rankings. Enjoy having thousands of posts about free onl1ne poker, v1agra and pen1s enlargement on your 6-words "I'm feeling bored" post.
This is just a preview of the many technologies we're creating that enable YOU - the user - to blog more effectively than ever. Stay tooned for several new exciting releases in the future.
'plogging'?? This is the sort of gratuseless neologism that's making modern webontent so incomprusing. Why can't they use ordular, regdinary words that we've all heard of? Why must they inventorate these mad brandologues, taking the initialet of a well-known verbagos and sticking it haprandom onto a pointuculous wundragubbin?
This frumblotionary addlepoopery is threatening to grurmstipth crumbobblious fremd eebree zorn frell completely and utterly INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
This has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've seen an application for. It's bad enough they patent "one click" shopping...but now this? This is way too broad and seems like it would impact all forms of portal-like applications. Wiki, Blogs, etc.
Amazon is in the business of Selling Things.
"Sell" is a verb.
"Things" are nouns.
Verbs and nouns. Amazon is in the Verbs and Nouns business.
Conclusion: Amazon should simply patent "Verbs" and "Nouns". That would cut to the heart of the matter, eh?
-kgj
-kgj
Comment removed based on user account deletion
applications and descriptive test be in english, it's a lod of CRAP.
Since when do process patents cover style?
Copyright the code, sure. But patent a combination of cuffs, collars, sleeves, etc that results in zoot suits? The fashion industry would kill for patents like this...
Plogs - (P)atented b(log)
I designed a system called MyNet for users to send email to a system that would add entries to a personal diary page. circa 1995. This was not in production though I made a proof of concept and manually updated a blog (web nikki or diary) in 1995 online for a designer named hachiya, who designed sony's pink bear.
David Blair's waxweb system (also about the same time) also should break parts of this as it included an advanced system allowing users to add annotations to a movie that is broken up into scenes, and edit the movie.
I think if you take apart the patent line by line you will find lots of things that beat it piece by piece, and some which have more than one piece. I don't buy it that these guys invented blogging.
For example Wiki's are based circa 1994 on work from the 80's.
It looks more like the patent describes some things that have been around a while, and some already established techniques to extend them. Maybe some good development in there but not the originality as far as I can see from Amazon to be worth a patent. Not if it is circa 2003.
Anyway, I'm against software patents in general since they seem to act opposite from the way patents are supposed to act, but the main thing here is that if there is going to be such a thing as a software patent it better be something more revolutionary and less obvious to experts in the field at the time, than what they have. I'm tired of seeing "software patents" for things that ought to be laughed out of the patent office if they were based on the physical world. And then you get more into mathematical / algorithmic discoveries which are not patentable for even better (similar) reasons. I wish Amazon would fuck off. They have enough of the fucking pie.
...is that IT'S ALREADY A WORD.
Plog is short for "plastic clog" (as in shoe). You'll see them quite often in hospitals because they're comfortable for standing and very easy to disinfect.
no doubt you'll get accused of passing off if you have any sort of popularity with this project even tho you were doing it long before this became public and despite any relavency to the amazon stuff, "but your honour, it's BRAND confusion, and people are stupid!! where's our money?" :(
How many of us do something other than discuss it on slashdot, and dont bother communicating with the people who can actually change it? It's not as though many people (if any) here are running for office that could change things like this: so who is?
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
How is it possible that the Patent Office can hide the fact that something is patent pending, is this an attempt to deliberately submarine a patent?
as opposed to..........?
If you give a million baboons a million mice, will one of them end up clicking on Amazon?
...of why software and other ephemeral patents are a bad idea and should only ever be granted with a much more jaundiced eye than anything like a new kind of machine. I agree with adding Amazon to the dead loopback section of the hosts file. More and more and more we need patent reform.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
But this doesn't strike me as a huge issue like it does to so many here.
Amazon is not talking about patenting the idea of a Blog. What they are looking to patent is the idea of attaching "blurbs" from users and other blog sites to specific items in their online catalog. Sort of like comments attached to a story here on Slashdot, or an RSS feed from another site. It even refers to blogs as an external concept it is trying to mimic in the patent itself.
They're combining the power of blogs with their search and customer behavior analysis systems to tie in even more relevant information to any given product they're browsing. This is a step towards having a one-stop site for all retail needs. Think of it as a commercial wiki, where everything related to a shopping item is displayed on a side bar. You like scary movies? Well, there's this cool survival horror video game coming out... Oh, and there's a new one hitting theaters, here are the show times near you. Maybe you'd like to read these related thriller novels. And here's a link to our halloween costume section. Here's what everyone says regarding this item too.
You now have every bit of relevant information to a given product you could ever ask for. This is something that to the best of my knowledge hasn't been done before. They're trying to patent the idea of leveraging these external technologies and concepts and integrating them into their proprietary search and analysis systems to present a new and much deeper experience.
They're not trying to patent Blogs or RSS feeds. You can all take the tinfoil hats off now.
The way things evolve, other people might have to use the parent post as prior art
The Raven
FUNNY -- Mod parent up!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
hosting up huge pictures but showing them in thumbnail size so that everyone has to download the whole picture when you could have scaled it before posting it.
Plogging is plugging your blog. Like Roland Piquwhatever, the guy who spams for his blog on Slashdot.
In the early 1900s, a guy named Selmer? patented the Road Steamer, IIRC, which covered everything about the automobile. It was so comprehensive that no one could compete in the car industry without Selmer?'s license. Ford couldn't get one, so he manufactured anyway and fought the patent. In the end, he won and the USPTO withdrew the patent.
Note: I searched for the patent once and couldn't find it.
These terrorists must be stopped.
Comb Over!
Patenting linking to peoples blogs is like patenting the comb-over.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Unfortunately for Amazon, the USPTO wouldn't have to look far for prior instances of pricks.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Do you rmemeber when Kodak (actually Wang Labs at the time, but Kodak bought Wang) sued Microsoft over a patent. Wang aid Microsoft OLE violated their patent. Microsoft lost.
Kodak sued Sun over Java infringing their same patent even though Sun provided tons of prior art to the court, but the jury was very biased. The court case was in Rochester where Kodak is a big employer there.
All Amazon has to do is sue you in the same district that Amazon is and the jury will most likely be sympathetic towards Amazon even though they are wrong.
Moreover, even if you have a lot of prior art, you still may loose depending on how the jury and judge (or judge is prejudice in my opionion) towards your side.
Remeber Eloas and Microsoft. Even though there was prior art, the judege did not allow it because he did not want to "prejudice" the jury.
Sounds like to me the judge did not want the truth to be heard.
USPTO: 06-21-2004 Rescind Nonpublication Request for Pre Grant Publication
I, for one, will immediately register a complaint with Amazon for naming their new feature after an existing project.
Also, haven't countless Content Management Systems , Groupware, and Portals had personal log features forever? I know my previous employers intra-net has has this feature for years. (PHP Nuke must for sure!)
http://www.opensourcecms.com/
After looking at all the Web site management systems out there, you can't tell me that this is not already a well known feature. Some people call it "Sticky notes", "Personal notepad" "Frequent actions" etc...
How does a person point out Prior art to a patent examiner?
Well played.
I am so tired of companies filing for patents on other peoples' inventions. I built a system almost identical to Amazon's circa 1996 when I was working for an e-commerce company.
We had incorporated all sorts of personalization features into our website. The website was a bit clunky, as they all were then, but the basic concept was the same. I'll have to research the process for challenging a patent, because this one looks to be total bullshit to me.
I've seen worse though. A couple of years ago, some pricks (I mean lawyers) claimed they had patented the idea of transmitting an audio file across a network, in 2001. Odd, because I remember downloading (small) audio files from BBS systems when I was a teenager, and that was in the mid-1980s (anybody remember Fidonet?)
They really need to abolish software patents. This isn't helping anybody except the corporations that can afford full-time attorneys.
Hey! Yet another slope-browed A/C idiot! I thought they were all offline and hanging around a hospice in Florida this week!