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Amazon One-Click Patent to be Re-Examined
timrichardson writes "A New Zealand actor, frustrated by a poor shopping experience, has successfully requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review the correctness of Amazon's infamous One-Click patent. An examiner for the agency ruled that the re-examination requested by Peter Calveley had raised a 'substantial new question of patentability' affecting Amazon's patent, according to a document outlining the agency's decision."
I hope this is a precendent: maybe the patent system, broken as it is, will slowly get fixed over time by constant vigilant review of bogus patents.
Now we just need them to quit issuing the crappy ones in the first place.
steampunk web design
first post! (patent pending)
OK, so maybe there was a prior patent, but why is there any patent on a "single clisk to buy it" business process? That's just stupid in the extreme.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
they guy is gettiong revenge because a book took too long - he doesn't even have any real interest in this "tech". Still, I really dislike the "one click" idea anyway because you cna end up buying things without realising thinking that you would actaully get to confirm and review the purchase - I think what amazon forced on it's competitor is better than what they use.
Further, this makes me wonder how on earth this actually got made into a patent anyway it is far too general and doesn't have any novelty to it; also, it's not really a "tech" is it, it's a button - and they've existed for ages
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Dang - is that all it took? I'd be willing to throw some ad-click revenue toward getting some of these other ridiculous patents "reexamined"...
(Irritating, but predictable, that someone has to pay, and the USPTO can't take the initiative to reexamine extremely controversial patents otherwise.)
<grrr
Can I patent the one-push power button?
If so, noone will be able to even turn their computers ON without my consent. Muahhahahahaaaa!
What other useless patents can we come up with?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
But the reason why it was granted and why they want to defend it to the end is because it buffers against buyer's regret. How many times have you added a book to your shopping cart, only to think about it, and then remove it. With One-Click, the item is already purchased at the first click, and it would take much more effort to go and cancel the order once thought about. Ingenious idea, and probably defendable under current patent law, unless of course the entire concept of patenting buisness models is done away with.
As the article points out, Peter raised the money necessary to pay the reexamination fee through donations. I don't know what his chances are of being successful, but it certainly shows that blogs can be useful in allowing more people to participate in processes that were previously mainly used by businesses. Maybe they'll raise the reexamination fee to keep up with technical progress. ;-)
Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith issued the following response Thursday: "Amazon.com remains confident in the validity of its 1-Click patent, which enables customers to shop conveniently without having to enter their shipping and billing information each time they purchase. We look forward to working with the examiners in the Patent and Trademark Office, and we welcome the opportunity to revalidate what we believe is an important innovation in e-commerce."
Who couldn't think of this stuff? There is no innovation in it all. While the current patent foolishness is problematic I think it will sort itself out in the end, because there are competitive business interests (read money) fighting over various positions on patents. Copyrights seem to be a far more dangerous issue to liberty focused individuals (read geeks) because all the cards seem stacked into the hands of the major copyright holders. The people never seem to get a fair shake anymore unless their interests coincide with that of a large corporate block.
- vphl
This was definitely one of the more stupid patents, how on earth does it make sense that you can patent an amount of clicks? So, can I go patent two-click purchases? And three-click purchases? Right on up to 1,000,000-click purchases? So that nobody can buy anything without my piece of the pie coming my way? Freakin' ridiculous.
If this patent is wiped out, will Amazon have to reimburse companies like Apple who have licensed the "technology"?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
In the early-to-mid 90's I attended an "Institute of Technology" where, among other things, I took the level 1 databases course. In that course we had various projects to do, one of which was to implement an "online shopping site".
At that time, our design presumed that you'd set up your account with the retailer over the phone (mostly because we didn't want to get bogged down with the form handling, but also because the UI design was a minor part of this one assignment).
So, we did what was obvious (and what several other people came up with) -- have someone login (no cookies back then) and use the HTTP basic authentication link the session to the customer record in the database. Next to each item, there was a button that said "put it on my tab" and did just that, stuck an entry in the database saying you wanted it. There was a script that could run on a periodic basis and rolled up a list of what was on who's tab and built an order from it.
It seems to me that if a biology student taking a database class thought it was obvious then (to be fair, I had a partner who was an engineer), then it was obvious to anyone that did that sort of thing for a living. Do I have a record of the assignment? No. It never occurred to me to hold onto my old homework for more than a decade.
People seem to be spending a lot of time concentrating on this guy's motivation.
I really don't understand why. Why should I care what his motivation is? The point is that he got the USPTO to re-examine a dumb patent. If it did it for the publicity or to hawk his blog or because he thinks it'll speed up the Second Coming of Jesus, I don't really care. Hooray for him, in any case; the point is that the action he took was good, irrespective of the motive.
I'm not going to fault him because he was doing it for publicity. Maybe if a few more people did what he's doing -- for publicity or whatever reason -- we'd have a few less shitty patents floating around.
In fact, if you want to hurt a company these days, you're better spent going after their patents than trying to take them to court directly, especially small-claims. So if there's a company you don't like, and you can get the dough together to force a re-examination of their patents, by all means please do so. I won't question why you're doing it, the point is that it gets done.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
There needs to be some risk for a company in getting a patent. Especially over-simplified ones like this. For instance, if it is later found out that a company received a patent on an obvious technology, business method, etc., then that company needs to pay a fine! It is obvious that they knew what they were doing.
Likewise, and especially, extortionist who obtain patents on obvious tech solely for the purpose of suing others need to pay fines, even bigger ones. Then they need to pay damages to any of the companies on which they committed this extortion on successfully.
Let's face it, fines and penalties are the only things that *might* scare large companies like this into thinking twice about getting that obvious patent, regardless of prior art or simplicity.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
I work for a small startup company, we've been in existence 1 year and have only 15 people. Inspite of us working overtime everyday, we spend hours with our patent attorneys, filing patents for every small thing we do.
Reason: we might find ourselves suddenly sued by someone over infringement
We need to clean out this whole system, else all people will do is file patents and file lawsuits. Lets hope the Amazon re-examination is a precursor to bigger things.
With the endless lawsuits flying around for patent infringement, challenges to existing patents, breach of contact and other "IP theft", it seems to me I'm in the wrong line of work.
Instead of writing code (the pay and benefits for which I can't complain), maybe I should probably add a law degree, sell my soul and get into the tech litigation biz. I can make tons upon tons of cash - far, far more than I am making now - and don't have to write anything (except the occasional briefs and motions). But I guess I better claim patent on the process of doing this, or I'LL get sued.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Seems to be gaining momentum on the "vigilant review" front - two re-exams granted just recently:
8 2a rchannel
Test.com: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_05.php#0046
Clear Channel: http://www.eff.org/patent/wanted/patent.php?p=cle
God, I'm glad these guys do what they do.
http://www.eff.org/patent/
Pi Ran Out
I hope you all remember Dogbert's no-click patent...
Actually, the reason the US gives out so many ridiculous patents is because they get money for each patent.