Slashdot Mirror
Bezos Patents Information Exchange
theodp writes "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was handed a patent Tuesday for Information exchange between users of different web pages. Tough to tell what exactly it might cover ('various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention'), although RSS Newsreaders, TrackBacks, and Google News come to mind. Elements of Bezos' invention may evoke a sense of deja vu in those who used Third Voice or the Annotation Engine."
ABSTRACT OF THE PATENT:
A method and system for allowing users of different web pages to exchange information. The information exchange system identifies groups of related web pages and maintains a database of user-supplied information for each group of related web pages. When a user accesses a web page, the information exchange often displays in a separate area the information associated with the group of related web pages. Also, the information exchange system allows the user to enter information that will be displayed to other users who access related web pages.
Note the prevalence of 'user-supplied'. From my interpretation, it's just a system that allows users to provide information about a category of 'related' web pages, and for that to show up.
Sounds suspiciously like Wikipedia to me.
Can you patent the concept of getting idiotic and vague patents on computer concepts?
Oh wait, too much prior art.
I patent kicking Jeff Bezos in the nuts.. oh no, wait, I'd want anyone to be free to do that in an unrestricted, royalty free fashion....
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
I followed Bezos freshmen year for an research writing class since I was researching Tech Patent law. I can safely say that Bezos is just a pure PR whore when it comes to patents, his current patents have various issues and are very over-generalized. I've yet to fully read through this one but it appears no different. When he originally took heat he started a group to "revolutionize" the tech patent industry, where people who find prior art to bad patents would be rewarded. Of course he put up Amazons patents up for prize money, and when people started to come in with information as prior art, he claimed that they were "too different" and shut down completely. The contact information and phone number has been obsolete/cut off for years.
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Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has been granted a patent on the transfer of an object from one person to another (with or without a gap in time during which the object is in the possession of neither person).
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Cyclist Lance Armstrong has been granted three (3) patents:
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Transportation of a human being via self-propelled vehicle with multiple circular suspension devices
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Winning the Tour de France
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Raising money by selling inexpensive but unique items of adornment
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Mohatma Gandhi has been granted a patent for thwarting the plans of far-flung empires and changing the course of history by doing nothing
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The editors of Slashdot have been granted a patent on the use of web site to disseminate the same information several times a week
(Sorry about that last one).Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
You know the patent is complete bullshit when they start adding in things like:
... then fine.
various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention
Especially when the patent itself is already vague. If you were the first to design and build a piston-driven internal combustion engine, and you want to cover different sized pistons, different numbers of pistons, and different piston formations (V, I, radial, etc)
But when your patent is already vague, ie 'a different method for doing something that tons of people already do' and then you add 'various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention' you're basically asking the patent office to give you the right to rip everyone else off.
You know what I think the patent office needs to do? Suspend granting any more software patents until they can get their ass in shape. Maybe _no_ software patents is the answer, maybe _some_ software patents is the answer, I don't know. All I know is that the current system is complete bullshit, rubbish, etc and needs to be put on hiatus until we can properly figure out what the hell is going on and what constitutes ingenuity in software.
Reading Patents 101:
There are 3 independent claims, 1, 9 and 16. They are reproduced below. Forget about all of the flowery language in the description. The claims are what determines what the patent holder can prevent others from doing. If Bezos & Co. decides to enforce this patent, they would have to prove that the accused infringer is practicing EVERY ELEMENT of at least one of the claims. I will leave it to others to comment on how difficult that would be.
The claims are:
1. A method in a computer system for exchanging information between users of web sites, the method comprising:
providing a mapping between a first web site and a second web site;
when a first user accesses the first web site,
providing a web page of the first web site;
receiving information from the first user; and
storing the received information based on the provided mapping; and
when a second user accesses the second web site,
providing a web page of the second web site;
retrieving the stored information based on the provided mapping; and
providing a display of the retrieved information so that the first and second users can exchange information.
9. A method in a computer system for controlling the exchange of information between users of web pages, the method comprising:
receiving an indication of a web page from a first user computer;
retrieving the web page from a first web server;
sending the retrieved web page to the first user computer;
retrieving information associated with the web page, the retrieved information having been previously received from second user computer when accessing a web page of a second web server; and
sending the retrieved information to the first user computer.
16. A method in a computer system for accessing information associated with a web page, the method comprising:
sending a request for a first web page; and
in response to sending the request,
receiving the first web page; and
receiving information associated with the first web page, the information being previously entered by a user when accessing a second web page, the information having been entered separately from the second web page.
To an extent, the people locked in the game are almost, but not quite, the victims. You can't reasonably say fsckit I'm not playing the patent game any longer - the others would be onto you like a pack of hungry street dogs attacking a weakened comrade. The USPTO loves the fact that they're processing heaps of patents and generating nice revenue. It makes them look powerful and important. Like the arms race, the only people that won out of it were the arms suppliers - not the recers themselves.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Just an aside:
I took a two hour patent tutorial today on Patent Prosecution. One thing I didn't realize is that the burden of proof is on the Examiner to prove why an application shouldn't be a patent - not on the inventor to prove why it should be a patent. The laws govening why something shouldn't be a patent are actually quite simple - however interpretation of these laws have kept patent lawyers happy for many years.