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Amazon Patents User Viewing Histories
Chris Cleveland writes "Yet another astounding patent from the USPTO. I was browsing the patent database, and discovered that Amazon received a patent today on using customer viewing histories to generate recommendations. If a customer views product A, and then later views product B, and you use that to infer a relationship between A and B, then you've infringed on this patent. This patent is a continuation of an earlier patent (#6,317,722) on using shopping carts to generate recommendations. When will this stupidity end?"
The problem is that the algorithm is obvious to anyone who understands the process, and the process is too well known to be subject to a patent. (Even so, that patent would have expired sometime well before the USPTO was created.)
I suppose if Amazon can't put well run stores out of business by taking all their customers away, they can patent the concept of good retail instead...
-JMP
"When will this stupidity end?"
Never..
this has been going on for years. These same ideas are used in amaroK, on Audioscrobbler, all over the place. How can they patent something that's been in use for a long time and is probably already patented?
I am sure there is prior art all over the place. For example, most online retailers have blurbs saying "customers who bought this product also bought these..." and give a list. This is the exact same thing done in aggregate, and I am sure someone will use it to invalidate this dumb patent.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
What happened to prior art?
LordBodak's journal.
When you realise that democracy is just a veneer over a system where big business writes the rules and calls the shots.
When this knowledge makes you get out of your complacent "everything for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds" attitude and makes you start organising.
When the revolution comes.
Patents are usually discussed in the context of someone "stealing" an idea from the long suffering lone inventor that devoted his life to creating this one brilliant idea, blah blah blah.
But in the majority of cases in software, patents effect independent invention. Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement.
Why should society reward that? What benefit does it bring? It doesn't help bring more, better, or cheaper products to market. Those all come from competition, not arbitrary monopolies. The programmer that filed the patent didn't work any harder because a patent might be available, solving the problem was his job and he had to do it anyway. Getting a patent is uncorrelated to any positive attributes, and just serves to allow either money or wasted effort to be extorted from generally unsuspecting and innocent people or companies.
Yes, it is a legal tool that may help you against your competitors, but I'll have no part of it. Its basically mugging someone.
- JC
and I am sure someone will use it to invalidate this dumb patent.
How optimistic of you. While you are making predictions, care to predict who exactly is going to do this? I have a prediction of my own: this patent will stand and the other uses of the concept (like audioscrobbler) will be sued into submission. Or maybe just disappear even before getting sued. I think a well-drafted warning letter will suffice.
For example, most online retailers have blurbs saying "customers who bought this product also bought these..." and give a list.
Prior art is based on the date of the application, not the date the patent is granted. You will have to dig a bit deeper than that.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
You are, of course, right...
But let me pose this question.
Why should a business practice that has been around for thousands of years be deserving of a patent simply because the retailer in question operates a different type of store? Mom & Pop shops have been making suggestions to customers based on past shopping habits forever.
Why does attaching the word "Internet" suddenly make this a new and novel idea?
It may seem stupid from a programmer's point of view. This is technology that several people currently use, and it's someone a half-decent programmer can easily implement.
However, look at it from Amazon's point of view. They're trying to make their business as unique as possible, and if it takes a few of these patents for them to keep their edge over their competitors, why not?
A lot of school's don't teach this side of technology to their students. Sure we learn how to implement ideas, but rarely do we realize that something we've developed can be patented and protected. I'm not defending them or anything, but just giving their point of view. They're smart for doing it, but it's damn annoying that we have to put up with it.
No, it will not ever be over. Stupidity will always exist. As long as there has been patents and as long as there will be patents there will be stupidity. Stupidity will always be in any human endeavor.
I would think that once patent lawyers stop making more money than the patent holders, both on creating and defending/enforcing unreasonable patents, these types of scenarios would be greatly diminished.
I've done the math, I know the odds, but I'm still disappointed when I don't win the lottery.
Because the process is the same whether a computer or a person does it. If everyone is buying Gucci shoes, and you tell a customer that Gucci shoes are popular, why is involving a computer in the process "novel" when the process is exactly the same? Gucci_counter++; if Gucci_counter>popularity_threshhold then say "Gucci is popular, buy now!"
If the computer did something DIFFERENT then clearly something novel would be taking place. But because everyone who buys a PSP later buys a memory stick, you tell your next customer that most people buy a memory stick with their PSP, and they should too. But should a computer tell them this, based on the EXACT SAME PROCESS, they better be shelling out the big bucks to Amazon!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
When the corporate takeover of the government ends. The USPTO is acting in the interest of the technology industry, not the public. Same with the FDA. The FDA sees pharmaceutical companies as clients -- it doesn't even know it's supposed to be a regulatory agency. OSHA is basically asleep. Until public campaigns are financed by public dollars, the situation will only get worse.
I'm sorry but YOU'RE dead wrong.
I know that the rules read that way on paper, but it doesn't take too much intelligence to look at the patents that they've been granting lately to realize that "the rules" mean very, very little to a patent examiner.
Did Henry Ford or James Watt patent their ideas, which, even today, are far more innovative than one-click or customer history?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
What's really funny is that some web engineer probably got a $10 check and a certificate of appreciation for engineering the site that led to the patent - and he's probably scratching his head saying "huh?".
Mine is Good
Why all the fuss? Maybe because people like my mother (totally computer illiterate) came up with the same concept merely by wishing it existed, and because it's a relatively trivial concept (which should cause it to fail the obvious test, which I mention again later on).
Without even looking at the patent, I imagine it covers this basic idea:
Person A looks at Product 1, Product 2, and Product 3.
Person B looks at Product 2, Product 3, and Product 4.
Person C looks at Product 2 and Product 3.
Along comes Person D, who looks at Product 3. The program then goes and dredges up the viewing history of everyone that looked at Product 3 and noticed that (in this contrived example) all of them also looked at Product 2. It therefore offers Product 2 as a suggestion.
Now obviously with a much larger dataset some statistical analysis will need to be done to try to determine relavence, but that of course would be unpatentable since it's plain old math.
Seriously, this concept is ridiculous in its simplicity and obviousness, and when laid out this way, it should be crystal clear that it is in fact not a new concept at all, but has been in use, either consciously or subconsciously, for probably about as long as the concept of commerce has been around.
So what are they actually left with to patent? An idea that has been around for as long as commerce? Obviously not. Math? Again, obviously not. What exactly was patented? The idea that a machine can do that for us? How is that not obvious given the past 20-30 years, and the rapid push to have computers do everything for us?
On the one hand, some number of the tech-savy get (justifiably) upset over Amazon patenting the trivial. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos is a Web 2.0 darling, and Amazon Web APIs and so Hot and Cool and Hip and Now, so many of these same geeks cannot act as if Amazon can do no wrong.
The original Amazon patent and boycott uproar clearly had *nil* effect, and I expect there to now be a deafening silence from most of those who really should know better.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Prior art, as defined by the patent office, is previous patents. Oh and obvious things like rocks and wheels. So if it hasn't been patented yet, and the examiner doesn't use one in his daily life, you can patent.
That's great for physical things, but it doens't really work for intangibles like software and business practices.
It also doesn't work where you're starting the patenting process after you start the technology process. I'm sure, back in the 1700s when they created patents, someone tried to patent attaching a horse to a buggy, but the examiners understood horses and buggies enough to disallow that.
Until 10 years ago or so, software or business practices weren't patented. Software was copyrighted and business practices were trade secrets. The examiners understand neither software nor business practices, but we're letting them rule on the right to patent them.
-markr If one just keeps walking, everything will be all right. - Kierkegaard
So, Amazon is basically saving their customer's viewing/browsing tendencies as data. Now, they've patented the usage of this data to generate more sales.
And this is reasonable?
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
This should be modded funny right? Apparently you and the people who modded this up do not understand patents.
If you are amazon and you start doing something, then some company comes along after the fact and patents that... tough tarts, all amazon has to do is claim prior art and that company can sit and spin. No need to get your own patent on it.
And if it wasn't after the fact, if this nameless company had already patented what amazon was doing, then guess what? Amazon's patent is invalid and they need to license this thing from this nameless company who owns the patent.
This patent was filed so amazon could prevent competition from using this "technology". It's got nothing to do with protecting itself from lawsuits and everything to do with amazon reserving the right to sue others.
Think of the legal system as like Professional Wrestling.
When the bell rings, the big company lawyer steps in to shake hands, grapple, and decide if he's facing another professional heavyweight.
If so, they go seventeen rounds, make money, and provide entertainment.
When you go to work for a company and they hand you a contract full of boilerplate taking ownership of any idea you have now or ever afterward, it's one of those events.
When a company gets one of these obvious patents, it's another of those events.
IF NOBODY FIGHTS BACK, the big company wins by default.
THAT is our legal system. They claim whatever they can imagine -- and wait to see if there is a comparably entertaining and well paid legal team on the other side.
If you sign their first draft employment agreement, you lose.
If you don't fight their patent, you lose.
What y'all are missing is the fact that the referee does NOT work to protect you in this kind of event.
The referee is there to keep the entertainment going.
The big companies expect to win some of their absurd essays in taking everything, because nobody objects.
The Patent Examiner is part of the show, folks, part of the illusion that keeps people watching the show instead of saying, hey, this is just a big bully stomping people. Oh, no, it's a refereed match.
They'll stop linking to amazon.com when amazon stops paying them everytime someone buy book through said link.
I'm sorry, but if it was so obvious then why wasn't it on some other site before? It's just silly to say that something is obvious after the fact. The truely innovative thing about Amazon's mechanism for recommending things is that they show you items that people who bought the item you are currently looking at also bought. Again, that's obvious, but no-one else did it before Amazon did and as soon as Amazon starting doing it everyone else starting copying it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
If it's really an altruistic goal and they simply want to protect themselves, why not then release the patent in some way (I'm not sure if it's possible to release, but I'm sure it's possible to donate it to some non-profit organization).
Mod parent AC insightful!
Even though GP was only playing devil's advocate that's not how patents work.. These are not defense tactics but an offensive.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Your enemy gets the stupid patents, you ignore them, then they sue the crap out of you and your business goes under. (Or, incurs millions of dollars in costs in a multi-year legal battle to prove the patent(s) are invalid).
It's a lose-lose situation. The best thing we can do is organize and fight for reform of the patent system. Software patents fuck everything up and have no useful characteristics for society whatsoever. All they do is give huge corporations an anti-competitive weapon. They do nothing whatsoever to promote progress or innovation.
It's a ridiculous, petty thing to patent. I don't see how making an offer based on what a customer asks for is considered innovation, we salespeople have done it forever. So now that software is the "salesman", suddenly this is a patentable innovation? I don't f-ing think so!
First off, patents are not innately evil. Whether we like or not, there is a sound economic argument defending the purpose of patents; to promote R&D and innovation by offering financial protection and rewards for the investment of time and resources necessary to innovate.
Remember, on the one hand, patents can discourage competition when large companies patent items that prevent small companies from legitimately competing with them, and this is bad. But on the other hand, small companies can both enter and capture a new market and sustain themselves against assault from larger companies with exponentially greater resources, merely because of owning an innovative patent; this is good. Without protecting their intellectual property through the all-important barriers-to-entry of owning a patent, most small companies would never make it out of the gate.
Also, as much as most forward-thinking companies would like to change the way of the world, the fact generally remains that they still need to play by the same rules of the game as everyone else (i.e. the competition) while they are still the rules. If they fail to do so, they probably won't last long waiting for another company to come in, receive the relevant patent, and sue the pants off the new-world company. This might not be the idealistic approach, but it seems to be fairly realistic.
Nevertheless, the crux of the issue still remains; the USPTO needs to undergo substantial reform to focus their issuance of new patents on appropriate items.
Lawsuits are expensive, even if they're dismissed on prior art grounds. Many companies patent every random bit of technology as a deterrent, so that they can say "If you sue us, we'll find something that you're infringing and sue you back to the stone age." It's like mutually-assured-destruction from the cold war days. Saves on legal bills for everyone.
If a method/action has been used in real life for hundreds of years then you are free to patent that method/action in the context of computing with purely theoretical speculation. So for example:
"A method of encoding information or data into structurally organised units, visually represented by a set of symbols which can be laid out to form a mentally recognisable concept. Such a method would is not limited to one set of symbols or organisational rules. Storage of encoded information can be achieved through the use of look-up tables to produce a short binary code for each symbol. In addition to the aforementioned method of symbol layout or 'text', the use of space between symbols will denote separation of symbol units henceforth known as 'words' and additional symbols to support the separation of related 'words' into logically coherent blocks or 'sentences'. Symbols or 'characters' will be given phonetic properties to aid audible transmission."
I think you should all be aware that my patent passed this morning, please cease and desist.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The original purpose of patents was to protect inventions and thus provide incentives to innovate. This would improve productivity, as what is the point of working if someone is going to steal your idea? Patents were a good idea at the time, and for many things still are a good idea.
... I accept some and not others). The actual idea, however? Has K-Mart patented the layout of their shelves? No! And they'd probably be laughed at if they even tried. So what's with this "business methods" nonsense? Just another way for businesses to be inefficient.
Software patents are an example of the protectionist mentality that seems to abound in many first-world countries. Business: "We can't compete with country X, we're going to have to fire people." Government: "Uh oh, can't have that, here's lots of money." or "We'll tax the imports so much that you can charge more and get away with it." Such behaviour is the opposite of the original purpose of patents. Further, it's bad for the consumer as (for example) US sugar is a lot more expensive than Australian sugar. If we were truly productive we wouldn't need a Free Trade Agreement - international competition would be the norm. Most of our primary industries would probably relocate to third-world countries, I don't deny that, but there are plenty of tertiary (services) industry jobs out there and that is where the first world should focus. Instead, we protect our "rights" to be inefficient and to take money from our own pockets to put into the pockets of the corporations. It's crazy!
I can actually understand this patent, though. There are worse ones out there (and don't even get me started on the extension of copyright). In this case, Amazon has come up with a way to encourage you to buy more stuff, by basically doing targeted advertising. It's really rather clever, and the algorithm they use probably should be patented (assuming you accept the idea of software patents
Rather than having to resort to monopoly practices to maintain their dominance, they can simply patent their future competitors out of the race before they even exist.
For smaller parties, patenting is a costly process. The cost of developing and filing a patent tempers the rate at which an individual or small business is capable of taking them out. I'd expect that, although the cost would not be irrelevent to a corporation, it is far less of a concern. To my mind, it gives an unfair advantage to corporations and large companies that was never intended by the spirit of a patent system.
In the Information Age, there should be some acknowledgement that the basic manipulation of that ever increasing body of information is not, in and of itself, patentable.
I do not know what the terminology might be, if it exists, but I would call most of these patents 0th or 1st order manipulations. Either looking directly and collected data (0th), or creating direct relationships between that collected data (1st). These are just too obvious, regardless of whether the application is new, to be considered novel.
This assumes that the other company actually produces software or services. However, from what I've understood, patent parasites simply buy patents and sue others. They don't have a product, and therefore can't infringe on anyone else's patents.
Sad but true: current software patent situation punishes producing and rewards parasiting. Free market does its job and sends money to where greatest profits can be made; but in this situation, this works against the overall wealth of the society and not for it.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
That's just stupid.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
great, they just patented data mining.