The Grinch Who Patented Christmas

theodp writes "The USPTO has reversed its earlier rejection and notified Amazon that the patent application for CEO Jeff Bezos' invention, Coordinating Delivery of a Gift, has been examined and is allowed for issuance as a patent. BTW, Amazon was represented before the USPTO by Perkins Coie, who also supplied Bezos with legal muscle in his personal fight against zoning laws that threatened to curb the size of his Medina mansion (reg.) before the City of Medina eventually gave up on regulating the size of homes (reg.)."

Comments

Next up...

[Anonymous Coward]

A patent on coordinating the erection of a tree for holiday purposes...

Re:Next up...

[Elektroschock]

The time is not to make fun of the patent system in general. It is the right time to call for reform in the United States. There are currently US patent reform discussions initiated by Microsofts while myriads of stupid MS lobbyists walk on the floors of the European parliament to lobby for Software patents:

* Hugo Lueders, CompTIA or Initiative for Software Choice
* Jonathan Zuck, ACT
* Simon Gentry, Campaign for Creativity
* Pleon
* DCI Group
and so on. And the more professional guys, which are also partially paid by Microsoft.

* Francisco Mingorance, Business Software Alliance
* Mark McGann, EICTA

So I recommend you to act now.

1. Help to save Europe, participate in our webdemo

2. Subscribe to the US FFII List

We do not have to complain about the US patent system, we can change it.

Re:Next up...

[FLEB]

The time is not to make fun of the patent system in general. It is the right time to call for reform in the United States.

Can't we do both?

The zoning laws

[Popageorgio]

were actually about his Santa-killing spiked chimney.

Isn't this obvious

[oo_waratah]

The concept of taking an order and then figuring out the address has been common in business practices for years. It is called get the cash then figure out how to meet the delivery. I ring them to get working on a major order, I then call back to confirm delivery instructions. I do this with hardware, or computer gear, or flowers. Flowers are typically a gift, so that would cover the prior art idea.

Most computer systems have the ability to modify the delivery address after the original input. Wouldn't this be prior art?

Re:Isn't this obvious

[servoled]

Can you prove that this has been done for years? Unfortunatley the courts have set the burden of proving obviousness so high that it becomes difficult to reject something as being obvious.

If you would like to take a crack at doing it here is basically what would be required:

1) a dated publication or with a date prior to 9/12/1997 which discloses at least part of the claimed invention.

2) one or more dated publications with dates prior to 9/12/1997 which disclose the features that are not disclosed in the first dated publication and disclose motivation to add these missing features into the system of the first publication (i.e. simply because the features may exist individuallly does not mean that it would be obvious to combine them into a single system according to the courts).

Re:Isn't this obvious

[servoled]

The courts have visited this issue, see here:

In re Venner, 262 F.2d 91, 95, 120 USPQ 193, 194 (CCPA 1958) (Appellant argued that claims to a permanent mold casting apparatus for molding trunk pistons were allowable over the prior art because the claimed invention combined "old permanent-mold structures together with a timer and solenoid which automatically actuates the known pressure valve system to release the inner core after a predetermined time has elapsed." The court held that broadly providing an automatic or mechanical means to replace a manual activity which accomplished the same result is not sufficient to distinguish over the prior art.).

The question then becomes whether or not automatically generating an e-mail to the recipient instead of calling the recipient is "broadly providing an automatic or mechanical means to replace a manual activity which accomplished the same result" according to the courts. Having not read the decision I really can't comment on that.

Entrapment

[Anonymous Coward]

Seller: "Where's it going?"

Undercover patent police: "Melbourne"

Seller: "That's in Australia isn't it?"

UPP: "I'm really not sure..."

Seller: "Okay, I'll just check on the map..."

UPP: "Got you, you evil evil patent infringer."

Re:Entrapment

[ViX44]

...and out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I grabed my binoculars to see what's the matter.
A bunch of gov agents, dressed in blue and in white,
Wrangled that criminal and locked him up tight.
"What's happinging to me, what wrong did I do?"
In IP-law America, patents file you!

Patent raising children

[Weezul]

It would be cool for a group of developmental psychologists to get together, do a really brilliant job organizing what they already know about the best techniques for raising children and training day care personnel, and then set up a company to patent them all Once their research eventually made it to the front page of nature, people would want to use it, but discover that they could only do it if they made their day care into a franchise. It might help get people's attention, especially if the day care patents are far more legally sound then this garbage, plus it might make some developmental psychologists and their financial backers very rich.

Prior Art published Feb 1, 2002 (or 1995)??

[originalhack]

From here.

Make sure you have a good address. If there's any doubt, call the customer or look up the address in an on-line or CD directory.

So, when will we stop issuing patents for using a computer to do EXACTLY the same thing that was previously done without it?

Now, if we'll let Jeff patent using a computer for exactly what was done without it, the 1995 publication of doing exaclty the same thing in the electronic world should act as prior art. From rfc1801

22.4 Bad Addresses If there is a bad address, it is desirable to do a directory search to find alternatives. This is a helpful user service and may be supported. This function is invoked after address checking has failed, and where this is no user supplied alternate recipient. This function would be an MTA-chosen alternative to administratively assigned alternate recipient.

VERY innovative Jeff

why pick on Amazon?

[CoughDropAddict]

I hate the patent crazyness as much as anyone. But why so many stories about Amazon's patents in particular? Amazon is a relative lightweight in the patent scene. IBM walks to the patent office with a stack of patents every single week. I'm sure you can find plenty to pick on in their applications.

Not to mention that Amazon is often on the receiving end of patent aggression. If you look at Amazon's most recent 10Q, you'll see that Amazon is currently the defendent in five patent infringement lawsuits.

Pinpoint, inc. is suing Amazon for patent infringement related to site personalization.

Soverain Software is suing Amazon for patent infringement of four of their patents, including a "Digital Sales System" and "Digital Active Advertising."

IPXL holdings is suing Amazon for infringement of a patent titled "Electronic Fund Transfer or Transaction System."

BTG International is suing Amazon for infringement of a patent titled "Attaching Navigational History Information to Universal Resource Locator Links on a World Wide Web Page."

Cendant Publishing is suing Amazon for infringement of a patent related to recommendations.

If you despise patent aggression, Amazon is not your poster child for patent abuse. Not even close. Amazon is taking a lot more than it's dishing out.

Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but of course do not speak for them.

Re:why pick on Amazon?

[cgenman]

A: Amazon arguably started the rediculousness with patenting 1-click shopping. It became a poster child for everything that was wrong with the patent system. From then, people realized that basically anything was patentable.

B: Amazon (or at least it's founders) were involved in a failed orginazation that offered rewards to root out bad patents.

C: Amazon continues to get rediculous patents.

In other words, Amazon has put itself squarely in the middle of the stupid patent debate, by A: being the first and B: publically and flagrantly playing both sides.

Maybe it doesn't look that way from the inside, but from the outside Amazon has become a rediculous symbol, and this patent isn't helping.

Very Appropriate Sig

[PetoskeyGuy]

At the bottom of this article, nicely sums up my view of things. :)

What we need is either less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.

Call to action

[pieterh]

I've also been walking the floors of the EP the last few weeks and have had the pleasure of speaking at various conferences where the likes of Francisco Mignorance (who both drafted part of the proposed legislation and now lobbies for it on behalf of the BSA), and Simon Gentry (who's C4C pretends to be on behalf of "creative people" but is actually a pure PR play) also took part.

The pro-patent lobby in Europe is very well funded, organised, and appears to control much of the legislative process itself.

For example, at the last SME roundtable discussion there were three representatives of real technology SMEs, a handful of MEP's assistants, and over 12 lobbyists, claiming to be small firms, but after the meeting, leaving together with Gentry. One of those occasions when I wish I'd had a camera phone.

I've uploaded a short statement that is aimed at MEPs and their assistants. We'll be distributing this to assistants. Anyone who wants to help (early Monday morning, Brussels) please drop me a line.

We've also made a satirical site that attacks the big business interests behind the push for software patents.

Finally, there is a demo in Strasbourg on Tuesday morning, and the FFII is organising busses from most of Europe.

If you can spare the time, put on a suit and tie and get yourself to Strasbourg for 8.00am on Tuesday.

A large and visible demo will help focus MEP's minds. They will probably vote on Wednesday and unless a near-miracle happens, by the end of the week we will be facing the US situation in Europe.

Re:Here, let me put a clearer reasoning

[servoled]

5) The courts decides that to overrule the patent officers judgement you need that high level of proof of X Y Z.

The same test of X Y Z used by the courts to overrule a patent is used by the patent examiners when they try to reject patents. If you want court cases try any of the follwoing:

In re Royka, 490 F.2d 981, 180 USPQ 580 (CCPA 1974)
In re Wilson, 424 F.2d 1382, 1385, 165 USPQ 494, 496 (CCPA 1970)
Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966)
Verdegaal Bros. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 814 F.2d 628, 631, 2 USPQ2d 1051, 1053 (Fed. Cir. 1987)
Richardson v. Suzuki Motor Co., 868 F.2d 1226, 1236, 9 USPQ2d 1913, 1920 (Fed. Cir. 1989)
In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 15 USPQ2d 1566 (Fed. Cir. 1990)

or any number of other cases where an examiner was reversed because the rejection made did not live up to the requirements which the courts have set.

Part of the trouble is that the laws are written such that a patent applicant is entitled to a patent unless it can be shown that he/she is not, similar to the concept of innocent until proven guilty. Therefore, unless it can be proven by the standards layed out by the courts that the patent appplication is either non-novel or obvious, the patent must be granted. The patent office is not allowed to simply call something obvious or say that it has been done before to reject the patent. They must come up with solid evidence which proves that it has been done or is obvious. If the courts do not agree with the evidence given or do not agree with the methodology used in the proof they will reverse the examiner and require the patent to be issued unless new evidence can be shown.

If you want to know the exact requirements and read about the numerous court cases which have layed out these requirements I suggest reading the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure Chapter 2100.