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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?"
When will this stupidity end?
When you manage to coerce your elected representatives into.. I dunno... representing you?
Perhaps it will end when the rest of the world decides that UPSTO has lost all credability and stops honouring its patents?
#include "std_employer_disclaimer.hpp" "Smoke me a kipper... I'll be back for breakfast"-Ace Rimmer
To play the devil's advocate... keep in mind that amazon.com is only acting to protect its interests. If they don't patent all these obvious-sounding business processes, lots of little unknown startups will (1) patent them and then (2) sue deep pocketed firms such as Amazon. It already happens a lot; some nothing company sues Microsoft over some ridiculous patent having to do with hyperlinks in a browser, for example. The best defense is offense in this case. If you were in amazon.com's shoes, you'd probably conclude however relucantly that these actions are absolutely necessary.
The obvious place to end the "madness" is to fix the source of the problem, which is the Patent Office's recognition of business processes as a patentable thing, especially where implemented by software. Patenting a behavior is logically flawed; how long before someone patents making a profit? Where do you draw the line?
Originality of a product idea is one thing; for example, developing a machine which automatically flushes the toilet and does so in a unique and creative way (I'd rather not develop the details actually)--this is probably a reasonable thing to patent. But patenting abstractions like GUI-based book ordering--that's absurd and bound to fail a prior art test, but will encourage lots of frivolous lawsuits and the wasting of the PTO's precious time and resources.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.