Amazon Seeks Web Services Patent

theodp writes "CNET reports on Amazon.com's latest attempt to make inroads into consumers' wallets, a patent-pending online marketplace where consumers search and pay for Web services. The patent application describes a world in which Amazon collects fees from Web Service Providers who charge $500/month for AAA Street Maps, $200/month for driving directions, and $0.01/use for weather and human genome maps." From the article: "Amazon also notes its marketplace technology seeks to address the lack of easy-to-use methods for collecting consumers' Web services payments, as well as to provide Web services companies with ways to manage and monitor their offerings. In its role as an intermediary for the marketplace, Amazon would collect a fee from companies providing the service."

Comments

correction

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

Correction: This story incorrectly reported the status of Amazon's patent application. The application was published Thursday; it had been filed last year.

Nothing has changed

[Evro]

Jeff Bezos's Open Letter Re: Patents, March 9, 2000:

AN OPEN LETTER FROM JEFF BEZOS ON THE SUBJECT OF PATENTS

I've received several hundred e-mail messages on the subject of our 1-Click ordering patent. Ninety-nine percent of them were polite and helpful. To the other one percent -- thanks for the passion and color!

Before I go on, I'd like to thank Tim O'Reilly. Tim and I have had three long conversations about this issue, and they've been incredibly helpful to me as I've tried to clarify in my mind what is the right thing to do. I had previously known Tim as the publisher of the successful and excellent O'Reilly technical books. He off-handedly proved his narrative and editing skills when he took what was our first rambling hour-long conversation and somehow made sense of it all in a posting on his site. My thinking on the topic of business method and software patents has been strongly influenced by Tim's observations, and especially his ability to ask excellent questions. I also read the first four hundred or so responses to Tim's summary of our conversation -- these too were helpful.

Now, while we've gotten substantially less e-mail on this issue than we have over several other lightning-rod issues in the past, I've spent a lot more time thinking about this one. Why? Because the more I thought about it, the more important I came to realize this issue is. I now believe it's possible that the current rules governing business method and software patents could end up harming all of us -- including Amazon.com and its many shareholders, the folks to whom I have a strong responsibility, not only ethical, but legal and fiduciary as well.

Despite the call from many thoughtful folks for us to give up our patents unilaterally, I don't believe it would be right for us to do so. This is my belief even though the vast majority of our competitive advantage will continue to come not from patents, but from raising the bar on things like service, price, and selection -- and we will continue to raise that bar. We will also continue to be careful in how we use our patents. Unlike with trademark law, where you must continuously enforce your trademark or risk losing it, patent law allows you to enforce a patent on a case-by-case basis, only when there are important business reasons for doing so.

I also strongly doubt whether our giving up our patents would really, in the end, provide much of a stepping stone to solving the bigger problem.

But I do think we can help. As a company with some high-profile software patents, we're in a credible position to call for meaningful (perhaps even radical) patent reform. In fact, we may be uniquely positioned to do this.

Much (much, much, much) remains to be worked out, but here's an outline of what I have in mind:

1. That the patent laws should recognize that business method and software patents are fundamentally different than other kinds of patents.

2. That business method and software patents should have a much shorter lifespan than the current 17 years -- I would propose 3 to 5 years. This isn't like drug companies, which need long patent windows because of clinical testing, or like complicated physical processes, where you might have to tool up and build factories. Especially in the age of the Internet, a good software innovation can catch a lot of wind in 3 or 5 years.

3. That when the law changes, this new lifespan should take effect retroactively so that we don't have to wait 17 years for the current patents to enter the public domain.

4. That for business method and software patents there be a short (maybe 1 month?) public comment period before the patent number is issued. This would give the Internet community the opportunity to provide prior art references to the patent examiners at a time when it could really help. (Thanks to my friend Brewster Kahle for this suggestion.)

To this end, I've alrea

Re:It's the classic tactic...

[sharkb8]

Ford did get a patent on parts of the assemby line process. It expired decades ago. And manufacturers could ship goods produced on the assembly line process unless Ford got a patent on producing a particular good using the assembly line process.

Typical reactionary crap by someone who doesn't shit about the patent system.

Are patents for real?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I recently file a patent for some software work. (Yeah, yeah, before you have a go at me I'd like to point out I was under considerable contractual obligatation at the time...)

Anyway, when the final patent was written up I didn't really understand it. It was my algorithm, and solely mine, but much of the patent text made little sense to me. A big chunk was merely what I had written with legalese inserted. But other chunks were beyond me. In the claim section was a list of claims and each claim just looked like a paraphrase of the previous one. The patent office responded recently saying that they rejected a bunch of claims and accepted the rest. I checked out the claims: they were just paraphrases of all the other claims. There is no way they could have been singled out in a meaningful way as being different from the others - certainly not so different that they needed rejection instead of acceptance. It was bizarre.

Anyway, after my experience with the patent office I'm inclined to think the process is basically fake. Lawyers write a bunch of gobbledygook for high fees. Patent exmainers pretend they understand it for a low salary (but it's better than unemployment, right?). And then they roll dice to decide what to do with it.

Re:The Real Jeff Bezos?

[crabpeople]

Do you know how hard it is to close an account with amazon? I found out that they were tracking me on other websites, after my full name came up while browsing some store. Thats a very scary thing to see happen. I demanded that they delete all trace of me from their systems.

6 months later and they still are sending me junk email. This is after talking on the phone and email, being notified that my account was closed multiple times (they jsut flagged it the first few times aparently), and also trying to close it myself. Do you know what their website says when you try and close your account? theres no way to do it! they scare you into keeeping your account open, offer to delete your CC number from the account, etc. then after repeatedly telling them to just close the fucking account already, they prompt you to email someone. said email recipient tells you its closed, then a week later you are still able to logon and all your info is still there.

I mean come on. a button that says "close account" like every other god damn website out there. is that too much to ask? screw amazon. I dont trust them one bit.

Re:Web Services on eBay already

[MushMouth]

Amazon has enforced patents twice in it's history. One against BN.com after barnes and noble instead of trying to develop their own website completely copied amazon's design just before a christmas shopping season. They did this while in the middle of a back and forth of progressively ruder press releases by each company. In the end Amazon got the last laugh on that one. The Second time when Cedent tried to enforce one of their patents on Amazon. Amazon quickly reminded them that they are (as well as most all of the net, slashdot included) infringing on some of their patents. Cedent realized that Amazon would get much worse press for enforsing a patent than Cedent would even though Cedent shot first and Amazon was simply defending themselves.