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New Amazon Patent Cites Bezos Patent Reform

Posted by timothy on from the give-an-inch-they'll-charge-you-a-mile dept.

theodp writes "In seeking yet another patent related to 'single-action ordering of items,' Amazon asked the USPTO to consider a number of documents, including Doonesbury cartoons, which Amazon earlier claimed vindicated its 1-Click patent. Ironically, much of this material was collected and edited by BountyQuest, which reportedly received $1+ million from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in the name of patent reform. A USPTO examiner dutifully considered the material, and on Tuesday U.S. Patent No. 6,907,315 was issued to Amazon."

3 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Text of granted patent by B2382F29 · · Score: 3, Informative

    A method and system for placing an order to purchase an item via the Internet. The order is placed by a purchaser at a client system and received by a server system. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system then assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the assigned client identifier with the received purchaser information. The server system sends to the client system the assigned client identifier and an HTML document identifying the item and including an order button. The client system receives and stores the assigned client identifier and receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item. The server system receives the request and combines the purchaser information associated with the client identifier of the client system to generate an order to purchase the item in accordance with the billing and shipment information whereby the purchaser effects the ordering of the product by selection of the order button.

    --
    Move Sig. For great justice.
  2. Re:The patent-overview dissected by bovinewasteproduct · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ignore the abstract and the summary (they are either the same or very close to their 1999 patent).

    The claims are what matters and they do NOT match up with the abstract/summary. The claims talk about a system that will combine orders shipping to the same addresses from same customer.

    BWP

  3. This is due to a legal requirement by Edmund+Blackadder · · Score: 4, Informative

    The patent law requires any applicant to submit to the patent office all material information he/she has that may make the patent invalid. If that requirement is not complied with the patent may be invalidated even if it would have otherwise been valid.

    So in order to be safe patent lawyers (especially those with rich clients) submit everything that they can get their hands on which could possibly affect the validity of the patent. And because this particular patent was so often criticized, the attorneys decided to be safe and submit all the criticisms, because one of them may possibly have material information about a piece of prior art.

    So there is nothing especially nefarious about the fact that all these materials were submitted.

    I am still amazed that the patent was granted though.