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Amazon's Patent-Pending Price Checks
theodp writes "On Thursday, the USPTO revealed that Amazon is back at the patent trough, this time for a System and method for obtaining information relating to an item of commerce using a portable imaging device. Sounds an awful lot like ScoutPal, which drew raves from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, doesn't it?"
System and method for obtaining information relating to an item of commerce using a portable imaging device.
;-)
So... they took a picture?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The next thing you know, Slashdot will patent "the reporting of stories about patents no one cares to hear about on their front page".
What about those handheld barcode scanners that have been used in stores for ages?
STOCK BOY: "No problem...I'll just go scan one of the other cans."
Amazon.com stormtroopers burst from the ceiling tiles and decapitate our poor hero.
Once again those with deep pockets go forth and argue a case for something that has existed under another name or description, but not functionality. I think that is where the Patent Office falls down: the wording of applied patents.
It is in the practical examples and application of the descriptions that make "prior art." With sufficiently trained researchers (and sufficient numbers of said people... or bots??!!?) these types of applications and patents will be minimised at the door, and eventually even less will be brought in since it will be known that thorough checking will be done.
For every present, there is a past
They mention barcodes in the first line.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Between you all get upset, please note that this is an application, as in Amazon drafted it and sent it to the USPTO but they havent looked at it yet. It's not the same as a granted patent.
You can send in an application for "...a method of wiping your arse comprising the step of utilizing paper in a back and forth rubbing motion" and that application would also be published.
I assume it's mostly meant to retrieve data on the current special offers for the particular item. Usually, scanning the barcode will give you price information, even without hitting some "3rd party" database. But if store X has a special on item Y, then it might be worth it to travel across town and buy it from there.
It seems like the logical evolution of systems like Froogle. Only this one would be much more personal and probably more local, not to mention tied to brick and mortar storefronts rather than online storefronts.
It does seem awfully like the thing mentioned in the news article for finding used book prices, though. Someone ought to look into that.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
I was going to say that sounds like CueCat.
Fun and useful information here:
http://malfeasance.50megs.com/
I'm sorry, but that site is pathetic. Company XYZ has a class action suit against them? Shocker! (Like that never happens.) Some bigwig donated money to politicians? Say it ain't so!
Just put this sign inside your shop, simple...;-)
"Mobiles With Bar Code Scanners Not Allowed"
Next Slashdot Headline: Amazon Patents Patents, Sues Apple Over Patent Violations
Dashboard Widgets
The title is broadly descriptive of the technology. The claims, especially the independent claims, tell you what Amazon are actually seeking protection for.
I also note it is pending, so any criticism of the USPTO should be withheld until it is granted and it can be determined what prior art was considered in examination and what scope of protection (if any) has been granted.
Weren't there some stupid dots in the name of this thing?
C:ue: C:a:t
Or something???
Hey, the shopping carts in the supermarket have this for several years already!
Oh, I see, Amazon.com is just expecting the patent reform to go through, which makes prior art not relevant, but which just works on a first come, first served basis.
4 step pla to get quick rich in new patent system:
1. Wait in front of patent office on Amazon.com lawyer
2. Steal suitcase with patents from lawyer
3. Submit Amazon patents as own patents
4. Sue Amazon=> profit!
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I bet these guys are kicking themselves in the pants for not patenting...
Anyone who boycotts a company based on your calling them a "traitor" is an idiot.
I've built a system for a retail shop that enables users to get price, availability information etc. from a server to a hand held device through WLAN. The same device can also be equipped with an GPRS adapter so users could go to another shop to check the prices against their own. This would not require a modification of the software, since the software doesn't care (in fact, does not even know) if the network is WLAN or GPRS.
So the whole patent boils down to the idea of doing it. There is IMO no technical invention behind that.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
while they're at it, why don't they just fscking patent "having customers" or "profit!"!
Customers go to the local book store, ask the clerks there for advice, read a few pages in the samples - and then, using the devices described in the patent application, order online from Amazon.
IMO this is unfair business against the local store. Granted, some customers do that anyway, but in my eyes it's bad business manners on the side of Amazon to promote such behaviour. I hope someone "invents" a browser extension that allows users to browse through Amazon's website, read the recommendations, reviews and excerpts - and then do a one-click price check against competing shops and order at the cheapest shop.
Prior Art: Delicious Library
chown -R us ~you/base
So, first people in academia do this. Then, there are several shareware applications, some using bar code readers, some using cell phone cameras. Then a company like ScoutPal figures it out. And finally, Bezos sees it and patents it.
Well, let them waste their money: that patent is worthless. It's a testament to technological incompetence at Amazon. It is also something that will become a generic features of cell phones anyway.
Yes, the patent would be a pain to defeat against in court if it ever came to that. But the prior art is clear; in fact, it's better than one-click: one-click was so trivial that nobody had bothered writing it up academically, but this application has been published multiple times.
Some well-funded players have an interest in just outright owning everything. I think they would very much like for us all to get tired of hearing about it.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
How about a reverse /. effect, in which not one of its subscribers ever uses Amazon? I wonder how much that would effect their servers/business, especially if it got picked up by the popular press. These people need to be stopped. I sure don't order books from them anymore.
We could call it Zero Click Ordering, and apply for a patent...
Go patent yourself, Mr. Bezos. Go patent yourself.
Is the road to wealth really to just watch sience fiction movies and read SF books and patent every gadget that looks cool? Even if you dont have the faintest idea about how to produce it you can get a patent and you can reap the benefits as soon as someone manages to make a product out of the idea, even if the idea is a century old. Even worse is that if you take an old idea and stick it onto another old idea you magically have a patent, even if you just combined two things like a catalouge and a ordering form in the back pages. I dont see how you could patent that. Still, in the online world you could patent something jsut like that.
I really honestly cant see how a patent system like this can help the US in the long run. The incentive to produce is substantially lowered and replaced with people who just litigate and patents obvious ideas. Theese people dont contribute a dime to the community since all the money they touch is fictional for a fictional service in a highly abstract market.
HTTP/1.1 400
Here's what he's talking about: http://www.delicious-monster.com/ Looks interesting.
> System and method for obtaining information relating to an item of commerce using a portable imaging device.
So now if you want to browse around a store with those portable imaging devices in your head you will have to pay Amazon for the priviledge!
What next? An organic pump like system for circulating a nutrient and oxygen transpoting liquid in a living organism
Did Amazon's lawyers even bother to look at the prior art here?
http://www.neom.com/Neomedia Technologies has just about every patent you could think of related to taking pictures of bar codes and getting information sent back to your phone.
Their http://paperclick.com/demo.jspPaperclick demo shows just a fraction of what they've got patented.
They enforce their patents too. In the past few months both http://www.neom.com/press_releases/2005/20050629.j spVirgin and http://www.neom.com/press_releases/2005/20050712.j spAirClic have settled by doing licensing deals. That doesn't happen with weak patents. Further, Neomedia has protection in something like 15 other countries besides http://www.neom.com/press_releases/2005/20050524.j sp.
I would be really surprised if Amazon gets anything here, though just recently (as in the last day or so) a higher court upheld a lower court's verdict http://www.mobilecents.net/juryaward.asp of $128 million to the company that holds the patent for prepaid wireless cards! (as if that wasn't obvious).
It makes you wonder if the same people that let me get through the airport security with a five inch metal corkscrew (accidentally)- the TSA - are also pulling shifts at the USPTO.
-Stitch
"there is no "I" in B-O-R-G"
There is no "I" in B-O-R-G.
Funny I was checking this patent yesterday. Aka ScanZoom. How is this different?
check out CheapestBookPrice.com
I think Booxter is what you mean - it has been around a while.
Flamebait? What the hell? Look, go down to the purchasing department, get a blank P.O., look up the part number in the Office Depot catalog and requisition yourself a goddamn sense of humor.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
"I liked the idea so much, that I stole it!"
After reading the parent, the abstract made so much sense. Here's why:
- portable imaging device = eye balls
- first entity = cashier
- second entitiy = clerk's helper (stock boy in parent)
Here's the scenario. I walk up to a cashier at a local Stop-n-Rob. I look at a pack of condoms, the cashier sees them, as does the helper. No pointing, no talking, just scanning and capturing the image. Since there's no tag on the items, the helper goes to the back and checks the price for the condoms. The cashier then rings them up and offers cigarettes (as a pop-up ad). Next time I stop by, this time with my girl-friend, I bring up a soda, along with other snacks, to the counter. The cashier rings it up, and offers condoms, only because of the previous transaction. At the same time, the Feds jump me for DMCA violations. The Stop-n-Rob is closed down and made into an Starbucks where people could browse Amazon via Wi-Fi.They both look like potential prior art. I was just linking to the program that the original poster mentioned.
...a freakin' patent on rubber bands, baloney sandwiches, or a circular rotary conveyance apparatus (aka "wheel"). I heard a rumor that the PO rejected a patent recently but this is unsubstantiated as yet.
Funny amazon picture
This makes every store in America a brick and mortar storefront for Amazon for anyone with a camera phone. Not to mention everyone's homes and workplaces. Imagine this: You are at a friends house. They give you a glowing recommendation of a book they just read that is sitting on their coffee table. You take out your camera phone and take a picture of the barcode. A second later, pricing information from Amazon comes up, and you can order it right there with your phone. This is really a pretty sweet technology.
For one of my previuous employers we hooked up a mobile phone to an RFID reader back in 1997 to do things like this. We also built barcode readers that you connect to mobile phones and provided for example price comparsions of books in stores with online books from Amazon (sic). That was in 1999. We did the same thing with the first camera enabled Nokia phones running on Symbian. Our company were at one point aquired by AirClic, who still sells those readers. There are lots of granted patents that goes back quite many years that cover the entire ground, so I have a hard time believing that Amazon will get this application accepted.
Big companies seem to do patent-cybersquatting. They just register whatever they could think of hoping that someone someday will fall under their vague patent.
... someone should patent patenting.
... I will eat a potato chip that I bought from a supermarket that has probably been using almost exactly this technology for years to do its inventory.
Or else the definition of obviousness is screwed up beyond belief.
This thing looks like nothing more than a portable device with a bar code reader or other means of identifying the product, a wireless network, and a display on the portable.
If anybody skilled in the art of computer technology can't come up with this half asleep, they are clueless.
I believe this is defeated by Denso's QR Code which was developed in 1997. It is a 2D barcode that is typically scanned by taking a photo with your cellphone or similar handheld device, and pushing a single button. The photo is decoded by the scanner into presumably an URL, and the resulting page is accessed and displayed. Alternatively you can store arbitrary data in it to the size of the symbol, i.e. a serial number or manufacturing date. It was created in 1997 it seems. In Japan it is now common in most phones and is often seen in magazines and on billboards. I don't see how Bezos can help but be embarrassed by this sort of thing. When he started out he used to be a straightforward kind of guy..
I keep what's in my pockets from contributing anything to what's in their pockets. I have yet to purchase a single item from Amazon. I don't care about the alleged convenience, because I can usually find what I need for for about the same price or less somewhere else anyway.
symbol has patents that faaar precede both Amazon and scoutpal on linking scanners (various kinds including red laser based) and displays with all kinds of wireless technologies including cellphones/wifi/... DUH. back to your corners, you both lose.
> System and method for obtaining information relating to an item of commerce using a portable imaging device.
What, they patented taking pictures of stuff that's for sale?
I guess eBay is sunk, now.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
At least people won't be inclined to modify their free Radio Shack cell phones to just take pictures without sending the barcodes to paperclip. I think.
John
The applications reach as far as your imagination: price comparison shopping in a retail shop
Amazon could have lifted that straight from their web page and placed it in their patent claim. However, it's always a question of "who got there first." Since Amazon filed their patent application in 2003, and neomedia filed theirs in 2004, neomedia might not be in the driver's seat any more. Hmm...neomedia's patent refers to a previous patent of theirs dated June 6, 2003. Amazon's patent wasn't filed until December 31, 2003.
Sounds like a legal quagmire to me. However, if neomedia can successfullly sue Amazon for a violation of a really stupid patent, I believe the karmic balance of the universe can be restored.
John
The guy who owns the website just keeps repeating himself, doesnt have all the facts in each case(like SBC's patent was not for the concept of a weblink..read the lawsuit sometime), like part of those companies dont outsource anymore, that and how many of those class action lawsuits were dismissed..i would say at least 15%. Oh and instead of listening just to Lou Dobbs, he should try pulling his head out of the sand
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
Can someone please point out where besides the original poster we are getting Amazon into this. I have checked through the published application and see nothing that directly references the assignment of this application to Amazon.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
To the leagues of us programmers annoyed as hell at software patents, this is quite obvious enough.
What in the world isn't obvious about it? It's just a slight twist on procedures humans have long used, like almost every other software patent.
Yes, let me repeat that: almost every software patent is obvious. The very few which are not obvious to most programmers are things like RSA -- and these are all purely mathematical algorithms.
I.e. The only software patents which pass the "non-obviousness" test (for someone with actual programming experience and a small bit of imagination) are mathematical algorithms. Notwithstanding the fact that this Amazon patent doesn't fall in that non-obvious category, should math really be patentable?
... makes any software patent granting and use obsolute acts of fraud.
This isn't a statement of opinion, but proveable fact.
And it says a lot about those involved...
NeoMedia has sued more than one company for "infringing" on their patents and this patent sounds like the same obvious, but unfortunately patented, idea that NeoMedia is so lawyer-happy over. NeoMedia's patent is for scanning a physical object to retrieve information about that object over the internet. Somehow that is supposed to be different from every single previously existing barcode scanner system because it was across the internet instead of a private network (like your grocery store or department store's private network).
I hope NeoMedia does sue, so Amazon can be the first case to actually make it to court. I can't imagine this patent would hold up if any of the defendants decided to pay their lawyers for a case instead of taking the cheaper way out and settling.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
where you add some low priced, low weight, small item, then pay 55$ for shipping when a 55 cents stamp is all it costs to ship.
And yeah, it's exactly like , except for the camera aspect. ScoutPal requires you to key in the ISBN or UPC code on a web-enabled phone or PDA, which is similar but very different approach.
And yeah, it's exactly like ScoutPal, except for the camera aspect. ScoutPal requires you to key in the ISBN or UPC code on a web-enabled phone or PDA, which is similar but very different approach.
Look here. BTW, Amazon originally filed a non-disclosure request on this one with the USPTO, which has to be waived when filing internationally.
For the time being, this tech is useless for camera phones. The phones don't have the optics to handle close up pictures nor the resolution to read a barcode from far away. Most don't have an easy method to light the barcode evenly (some have a flash). They don't have the processing power to handle even natively written apps in a decent amount of time. The only easy way to support a lot of phones is to use Java, but Java is too slow on a cell phone for any half decent image processing. GPRS connections take too long and have limited bandwidth. Most phones can't display the resulting pages very well either, they don't have the cpu power.
It's going to be at least a few more years until this technology is feasible.
NDA? I thought the whole point of patents was that they had to be disclosed.
How can you patent something with a NDA, to promote the progress of science and useful arts?
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
Since this is the only difference, er, enhancement over Scoutpal...
Tag lost or not installed.