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USPTO Increases Scope Of Amazon's 1-Click Patent
An anonymous reader writes "While the patent office had rejected earlier attempts by Amazon to get a continuation patent on its infamous "1-click" patent, it appears that an impatient USPTO examiner has approved the continuation, apparently because of the failure of BountyQuest to come up with prior art. This continuation adds claims like contacting the recipient of an order via e-mail or a phone call to obtain additional info."
...on average, what percentage of a patent examiner's net worth is actually wages, and what percent is some form of bribes and hush money.
It just seems an inherently corruption-friendly system that allows any examiner of proper rank to step in and hand monopolies out to companies at a moment's notice.
Ryan Fenton
I bet it was theodp
link to evidence.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
... not just because of the problems they cause, but more importantly because of the blatant stupidity of the USPTO staff. Maybe we could sue them as individuals because of the bad effects of their obvious mistakes? Let's start naming names of the PTO officials who do stupid things, embarrass them in public.
The whole patent rant is an assumed thing here on /. The whole list of possible solutions or fixes to the patent system has also been beaten to death, and requires no addressing. We don't need to name companies which use immoral tactics, we all know the names. We don't need to cry about all of the projects which have been destroyed. We all know it's commonplace and might as well get used to it.
No sir-ree, there is noting to see here, just the USPTO doing their jobs just as well as ever.
...soon we'll pay Amazon for the privilege of choosing between uniformly corrupt leaders with narrowly deviating opinions.
Oh well, Plato warned us about this. We're in the age of oligarchy and timarchy. Next stop: authoritarianism, then third-world insignificance. But my PS/3 is so cool it makes it worth it, I swear!
Anti-Globalism
there is only one solution to this madness and that is to use evil plan #236, yes that one- where the entirety of slashdot bands together and does some of our own patent trolling. slaghter this system with its own sword- call it patent slashdotting.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Somebody claims to own something kinda cool, so somebody invents something cooler.
It's not *fundamental*, so watch it become worthless.
I love that sensual, sand through the fingers, feeling.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
or organization that watchdogs this information. For example, a webpage that lists the patent examiner's name, followed by names of senators supported by the company applying for the patent... Sure, there maybe a ton of patents to slog through but eventually a pattern will emerge. Silence = acceptance.
Congress didn't buy Amazon's argument that the failure of a defunct Jeff Bezos-funded company to award a $10,000 bounty offered by Tim O'Reilly for prior art that could bust Bezos' 1-Click patent was proof of 1-Click's novelty. The Commissioner for Patents, on the other hand, was duly impressed. As was one of his patent Examiners, who broke ranks from a less-impressed fellow Examiner and re-Examiner, to push through last week's issuance of U.S. patent no. 7,222,087, a 'continuation' of 1-Click which adds innovative claims like contacting the recipient of an order via e-mail or a phone call to obtain additional info.
I already boycott Amazon because of their stupid patent nonsense; I wish there was a way I could boycott the USPTO, now that would be fun. . . .
:-)
-ScottMy other sig is a Glock
This patent stuff is madness, but I have a solution! I need your help. Come to my website and join the cause. All you have to do is click the link. Just one click, that's all. Just..um..one click..oh shoot, an Amazon lawyer is on the phone. Gotta go.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Go ahead and mod me flamebait or troll, but my point is that this isn't just about the 1 click patent. There's a company that has the patent on the breast cancer gene. Thats right, you can't try to cure a prevalent form of cancer without paying a frickin' royalty for something that wasn't even invented. At best you could say that they discovered it.
We need to keep trying to stop this insanity.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
using a Skilsaw to cut a piece of plywood. One-click is a trivial application of features built into a tool set that envisioned it in it's inception. It is worst of two stupid patent paradigms, the software patent and the business method patent. When will this sort of thing be recognized as the malignant lawyer-driven racket it is?
It is obvious that corporate entities are patenting things that should never be patentable in the first place. It is also obvious that patents can't be eliminated completely. The Patent Reform Act of 2005/2007 is a step in the wrong direction! Sensible patent reform now!
Meh.
If anyone ever tries to patent "Stupidity", the USPTO can itself show plenty of prior art.
Or as one poster suggested, "Corruption". This sham has been going on for years. Why haven't the fatcats in Congress done anything about it? Could corporate donations have anything to do it? Patents work in established big businesses favor. Witness Balmer's recent threats to us MS Patents to go after Linux customers. If big business whined about patents, you can bet their Congressmen on a string would change the law quick smart (as they did for the Mickey Mouse^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HCopyright Extension act for Disney).
Do patents work in small businesses favor? In theory they can. "In theory". By the very act of writing software (which has an absurd number of stupid patents) Microsoft daily must infringe hundreds of patents every day. Not just big business with patent exchange agreements, but smaller ones without. When was the last time a small business took Microsoft to the cleaners over such a patent? Eolas came close... kind of. No one else by a long shot.
The problem isn't USPTO incompetence. It's Congressional Sloth and Greed. What can we do other than crying to the converted on Slashdot?
Yeah, first time I read it I had uge déjà vu, but it wasn't as strait up cut and paste as I thought.
Wait...they have a patent on contacting somebody via email? WTF?
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
every single internet anything sends an email are they out of their minds?
This is what the future will look like: you are living in the slums in the worst designed house (all good designs are copyrighted and you cant pay), with the worse job (you cannot afford the licenses for your buinsess practices, such as say, keeping a running total, or an electronic till with anything close to useful interfaces)(although you could become an enforcer of infractions of those laws and make enough for a a daily drink), if you want to send a letter, you will be too poor to afford anything but large sum, poorly handled, lost and stolen mail (i assume that the post office is patented out of exsistance)(ditto for phone calls), so you are alone, poor and working all the time. Rich people will trade eachother money and laugh but they will be very very few.
This is what will happen if you dont elect RON PAUL and fix your fucking country
please type the word in this image: suffer
It wasn't vague, bizarre and obvious enough! Glad the government came in to clear things up.
On a related note, will someone please wake me up, or yell April Fools, or give me the red pill or something to let me know that reality isn't some kind of joke?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Ummm, if filing patent applications was free you might have a case. Alternatively, searching for prior art is free (other than your time) and you have an army of people who might potentially be interested. Granted, someone would still likely have to go to court to challenge it, but I'd wager there are quite a few companies who would love to see these patents go away, and would gladly take the opportunity
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
... but if prior art is there, greasing the right palms might still get a patent granted.
(IANAL)
Incredible, that you can get a patent on a simple flowchart. Every 3-year old can see that that is nothing innovative or new!?
I need to dig up my work did at school. I think there are a few patents waiting to be registred.
This is really pretty easy stuff guys. The examiner searches for prior art, and if he finds it, or an obvious combination of it, badda-bing, lovely rejection. If not, he is bound by statute to allow the patent, period. 35 USC s. 102 ("A person shall be entitled to a patent unless" there exists invalidating art). We all know you hate the law and the standards, but give this poor examiner a break, will you? He HAS to allow the patent UNLESS he comes up with a case to reject it. He HAS to do it. He HAS to. Suggesting bad faith or corruption as the cause of the examiner's allowance is obnoxious and naive.
The examiner did his research, and gave it his best shot. By amendment and argument, Amazon shot down his case. Nobody came to the rescue with any new art, and the examiner didn't find any. Indeed, despite the FAMOUSNESS of this battle, NOBODY has come up with any art to defeat the new claims or the old ones.
There are better battles to pitch than this one.
Henceforth, the Amazon patent shall no longer be known as the "1-click patent", but the "1-click and lots of hassle patent".
I know a lot of your guys are Americans, but this will help you.
All I can say is, if you're thinking of setting up an online store, for God's sake, do it outside the US. Their patent laws are fucking ridiculous, and only when massive amount of business are driven to a country that doesn't implement US-style patent law (European countries, for example) may the adminisatration be forced to fix it. Until then, boycott the US. Sorry to say it, but otherwise, fuckwits like Amazon and the USPTO will remain complicit in this kind of 'idea prohibition'.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Yeah, first time I read it I had uge déjà vu, but it wasn't as strait up cut and paste as I thought.
Hey, just give up on the accents. Anyway, we don't need them, we speak English! Seriously, Anglicization of words can legitimately mean dropping accents. I hate the things. Say 'deja vu', and 'cafe'.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
...Plato?
Think about his theory that ideas exist in their own plane.
Thing as simple as cicle & square to as complex as telephone and diesel engine and everything else is possible, have a live of their own and just wait to be discovered/rediscovered.
For plato the patent system and the claim of 'invention' is alien.
No way. Disuse of those characters might encourage lazy programmers to become complacent and forget charset and localization issues completely. There's already enough stupid problems as it is.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
This mess reflects the real problem with the patent system - it is an abused system, but for a "little fish" to defend himself against abuse by the "bigger fish" he has to perpetuate the further abuse of the system! Insanity!
Real-world example: I'm working with someone one a great idea that has the potential to be huge in a particular industry. Its implementation is Intenet-based. Now the guy who is driving the idea wants to get a patent to protect his idea, since there are many big players in the industry already close to implemeting the idea, but none quite-so-close as we could be, based on his variation on the process.
So here's my situation... I personally think business method patents and software patents are ridiculous. However, because the bigger players in the industry will happily see our idea, patent it out from under us, then sue us out of the opportunity our only defense is to prepare and file our own software/business method patents. This is WRECKING our innovation and oppotunity on the project because we are in a catch-22: We need the patent to protect us before we take the idea to VC. We need VC to get money to complete and launch the product. We need to get the product launched to hit the window of opportunity, so VC gets a solid investment. We need VC and/or revenue to complete the patent filing. The whole need for a defensive patent is slowing down the time to market, and sucking resources that could be going to deployment! How is the patent system helping innovation again???
I seriously feel like Wyld Stallions: We need a triumphant video to get Eddie VanHalen because we can't play/don't have decent instruments to make a triumphant video.
Ironically, the I'm-not-a-script image for this posting is "atrocity"
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
Or it could encourage a character accent arms race, as people throw in all manner of whackiness just to force an upgrade.
Or maybe Amazon's patent shall have grown to consume any physical contact that triggers an exchange of information, so we'll all be safe in the bosom of Bezos.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
> Try and organize a revolution.
1. I thought that was what Slashdot is for?
2. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
3. Ok, but only if I get a T-shirt like Che.
"Sometimes I think the world is going mad. Then I think, 'Ahh, Who Cares?' Then I think, 'Hey, I wonder what's for Dinner?'" - Jack Handey
"which adds innovative claims like contacting the recipient of an order via e-mail or a phone call [flickr.com] to obtain additional info."
I for one see those new claims as astounding innovations. I know that we were all thinking that we would have had to send a runner to get the info. I know, I know, some of you more advanced types may have been thinking "pony express" or even postal mail, but come on, you know most of you were thinking "send a runner" like me. Naturally, cavemen were thinking of going themselves...
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
It's a bit naive solution but please enlighten me if such think would work?
Can't you just open your internet stores in Europe and allow shipping to US or just forward the order to US-based warehouse? In EU we can do [0-9]+clicks, why can't you just move the business to Europe ?
I remember a teacher telling me years ago...if you every decide you want to patent something write or print all necessary documents, put them in an tamper proof envelope and mail them to yourself. You'll have an official date stamped on the envelope when it gets back to you. I don't know if this would stand up to an army of lawyers but it seems like one of the best ways to prove that date of your "idea".
If, according to the USPTO, phoning up a customer to get more information is innovative and non-obvious, then going to the toilet to piss and shit is equally innovative and non-obvious. And all USPTO patent examiners are in breach of my patent for this, unless instead they choose to piss and shit themselves at their desk.
Additional limitations on an already issued patent are no big deal. Amazon already has the 1-click patent. All this does is keep someone from patenting on top of amazon, it doesn't really give them anything more.
Here's how it works...
Amazon patent A: (1 click)
Amazon patent B: (1 click) + (other stuff)
Anyone infringing B also infringes A. All Amazon has done is prevented someone else from patenting this particular flavor of (1 click)+(other stuff). They don't get anything extra because patent A already covers the stuff patent B covers.
So, the only people who should be upset by this are patent trolls who want to patent the nuances around 1 click and then sue Amazon and other etailors.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
... can be found in Babylonian cuneiform tablets. That part of the prior art is the "open account".
Customer walks into store, points to item, and says "I want that and put it on my tab." Store clerk recognizes the customer, provides the item, and puts it on the customer's tab. In ancient Babylonia the customer accounts were kept on cuneiform tablets. Later they were kept in other ways, such as on ink on paper.
The other part of the prior art is how the customer is recognized electronically. That method used the cookie, which was an obvious use within the scope of the recent Supreme Court decision on obviousness.
Unfortunately, the USPTO doesn't search Babylonian cuneiform for prior art on business methods that are thousands of years old.
Adding claims generally DECREASES the scope of your patent, it does not increase it. The claims that discuss contacting a user make the patent more limited in its legal coverage. It is often the case that as prosecution continues on an application, claims are added or modified to decrease the scope of your claims and allow your patent to become allowable.
"If the examiner finds that the claimed invention lacks novelty or differs only in an obvious manner from what is found in the prior art, the claims may also be rejected"
And
"Even if the subject matter sought to be patented is not exactly shown by the prior art, and involves one or more differences over the most nearly similar thing already known, a patent may still be refused if the differences would be obvious."
"Obvious" in the context the patent office means is not "Hey I could have thought of that!"
It's "Hey that is to similar to another patented item."
For fuck sake, why can't anybody on slashdot bother to educate themselves about something before going on and on?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's about money.
They can patent calling a customer to check up on an order? That's great! I'm filing a patent tomorrow for "Calling one's mother on mothers' day", and "Just calling to say I Love You" I'm going to make a mint. Actually - I should probably try to patent "Calling people to market products they don't want", and do some public good.
A first to file system generally reduces uncertainty, especially for licencees and consumers. It encourages companies to file promptly, and doesn't introduce unnecessary delays in the grant of a patent. For example, the delay of 7 years in granting the RSA patent wouldn't happen under first-to-file; instead it would have been granted to the first filer back in 1777, and left to the courts to decide who received the benefit of the patent. (Of course, first-to-file doesn't affect the principles used to determine whether an invention is patentable in the first place.)
THIS IS ALL BULLSHIT. You guys are so hard on patents, examiners, the pto when ignorance is the actual problem.
a simple perusal of indep claim1 shows that there are at least five simple ways that every ecomm site could easily get around this latest issued 1click...the patent is easily avoided and commerce and innovation arent hindered. what follows are a multitude,or a plurality if you will, of simple ways around it:
1. A computer-implemented method for ordering an item using a client system, the method comprising:
(I) displaying information identifying the item at the client computer system;
(II) receiving from a user an indication of a recipient to whom the ordered item is to be delivered;
[
#default to preset login acct address and you dont infringe.
]
(III) displaying an indication of an action that is to be performed by the user to order the item; and
[
#make the action of clicking be the action of ordering, do not display indication of an act other than ordering; rather than "click here to order" and separate button, merely have "order" button. Construction wise: an action ordering if used in same limitation and yet be refering to different acts...112, 2 definiteness, ordinary meaning controls.
#
]
(IV) in response to the indicated action being performed, sending to a server system an indication that the item is to be ordered and the indication of the recipient to whom the ordered item is to be delivered whereby when the server system does not have sufficient information for the indicated recipient to deliver the ordered item, the server system
[
#Don't send indication of recipient: if auto using server side save of pre-entered default user login accnt address then no indication need be sent to server of the recipient.
#
]
[
#again, the indicated action ordering, if the only action the user took was to click the order button, ordering is complete at that point, it has already been sent. Sending is responsive to a different action being performed.
]
(V)automatically obtains additional information from one or more external information sources other than the user that is sufficient to deliver the ordered item to the indicated recipient.
[
Non automatic, ask user if ok to get from external; or
have data sources "internal" to server, no need to obtain; or
ask user for a token bit of information; or
don't indicate recipient (default to the user);
]
ANY of the bracket suggestions will result in a method which is less than the method of 1click. As one click "comprises" those steps, it must at least be those steps. So the public domain has ample alternatives.
Further if you were to make substantial material additions to the process that might not infringe.
Still further, you could license the tech from Amazon.
Yet further you could infringe and simpky pay reasonable royalties.
Or you could develop a patent portfolio to cross license w amazon to get 1 xlick rights.
Or you could patent block them.
Or you can get it cancelled in reexam, reissue.
Or the jury can nullify tne claims,
Supreme court or cafc could ksr it as obvious 103wise,
The ecomm site could simply be located outside us,
With this much argument the file folder is heavily laden w file history estoppel...
either way... it is introduced in commerce, we are reaping the benefits of 1click..it is published in an open manner...
so is it really the end of the world?
plus, how much revenue has the us doc and the law firm wrenched from amazon and trickled back down into the fed gov and stream of commerce?
Lastly hasnt this ip protection enabled a startup company to get in the market and compete? driving down prices and providing jobs? america rocks! pto rocks! the 1952 patent law which made america a great place rocks! If u arent gonna root for the home team get the hell out of the stadium.