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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."

1 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Obviousness by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Just a thought I had the other day for patent reform and to get rid of the horrors of 'one click shopping' patents. For every patent, there needs to be a clear statement of the problem that is solved. Although in invention one of the hardest parts is to identify the problem, the problem (i.e., problem area) is in itself not patentable. At least not officially.

    Then, the examiner invites 5 people skilled in the art that are unaffiliated to the patent seeker. They are confronted with the problem description and come up with a solution to tackle that particular problem. If some of the five come up with something substantially similar to the invention that the patent is sought for, the patent doesn't get granted due to obviousness. Even if the engineers don't come up with the actual answer but with alternative solutions there will be a win, as a legal circumvention of the patent will be on record.

    Such a system would have killed Bezos' original patent right of. Problem: "I want to be able to allow my customers to buy things with a single click". The patented solution would have been proposed by 5 out of 5 people skilled in the art. Similar questions as "I want to be able to stream live video to a computer", "I want to show a picture of the product I'm selling " will be shot down.

    One of the big dangers of software patents currently is locking out entire problem domains, by patenting the questions, not the answers. If the question contains the answer, it should not be patentable.

    Note that with this scheme the question "How does one exercise a cat" would most likely allow for this patent.