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USPTO Rejects Amazon's One-Click Patent
igdmlgd writes "A while ago I filed a reexamination request for the Amazon.com one-click patent and recently checked out the USPTO online file wrapper -it seems they have rejected all the claims I requested they look at and more!" And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer.
here is the printer friendly version of an article with some good info. about this over at the Register.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
So, recently we heard that the One-Click Rejection was rejected, which has now itself been rejected and now the one-click patent has been totally rejected?
I read that there was a rejection review during which the rejection examiner found prior art that was obvious. This however was not the case and so the rejection was rejected and now I hear this guy making claims that some of his obvious prior art is infact obvious and should be counted on so the patent is now invalid.
What I don't understand is What is a Wookie doing on Endor?
Can someone give me one thing I can click which will explain this whole thing?
liqbase
Did they reject the patent or your request to re-examine the patent?
Who's the most incompetent web developer? The people at myspace?
Sorry! An unexpected error has occurred.
This error has been forwarded to myspace's technical group.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
As much as I hate our sue-happy system, it's too bad that people who amazon extorted money out of these last few years can't sue Amazon. Perhaps that would make some people think twice when they attempt to patent the hammers and nails of the digital world.
There was a non-final rejection mailed on October 9. There is still at least one more round of prosecution before Amazon's lawyers decide to choose any number of paths to continue prosecution beyond a final rejection.
I'm not sure what claims 1 and 11 are though. Maybe someone else can ferret that out.
If this is all for real, now would be a good time for those who have been threatened or damaged by this patent to counter-sue - try and break the patent-troll business model..
You big snitch!
I am NEVER inviting you over for Xmas to show you my collection of Cuban cigars, black cable box, 120 Gigs of MP3s, hundreds of burnt DVDs, my ex-girlfriend buried in a shoebox in my backyard, nor my collection of tags I have cut off of mattresses over the years!
About freaking time.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer."
You know, I think it's unreasonable that patents can so greatly reduce people's freedom to create things, for fear that some of it may infringe upon some fairly trivial patent... Obvious or not, it places an unreasonable burden on developers, to use what they've learned except for those things they've learned about which are patented.
But was Amazon One-Click really "obvious" before they adopted it? I mean, the whole idea of
1: Storing user information (pretty obvious and common)
2: Launching a user order as soon as they click "buy it" (Not too challenging, except for the other issues that #3 solves)
3: Ensuring that situations where a user accidentally orders something can be readily corrected by the user (basically boils down to giving them the opportunity to back out)
It's easy to say the idea is obvious once someone else has thought of it and presented it to you - but was it "obvious" to people before Amazon did it? If so, then why was Amazon the first?
Bow-ties are cool.
igdmlgd writes:
"A while ago I filed a reexamination request for the Amazon.com one-click patent and recently checked out the USPTO online file wrapper -it seems they have rejected all the claims I requested they look at and more!" And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer.
Finally, some sanity is slowly creeping back into our patent system.
Stephen Colbert on race: "While skin and race are often synonymous, skin cleansing is good, race cleansing is bad."
.. with a single click. Muahaha, take that Amazon :P
This patent was for a result rather than a process or a design. The concept of "1-click" just means better performance. It would be like giving Car company a patent on a 70 MPG car, or Starbucks a patent on getting $5.00 bucks for a cup of coffee.
There goes one of the best examples of patent idiocy, no longer able to be used for illustrative purposes when describing to non-techies why we need patent reform.
:)
Too bad, in that sense, but it's about time that one of the most glaring examples of the prevalent idiocy was cleared up.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
This probably means that my intention to patent my shopping system of opening a 2nd checkout in busy periods will fail.
Child Continuity Data 09/151,617 filed on 09-11-1998 which is Patented claims the benefit of 08/928,951 09/318,447 filed on 05-25-1999 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951 10/194,602 filed on 07-12-2002 which is Patented claims the benefit of 08/928,951 11/410,998 filed on 04-25-2006 which is Abandoned claims the benefit of 08/928,951 11/610,619 filed on 12-14-2006 which is Abandoned claims the benefit of 08/928,951 11/618,452 filed on 12-29-2006 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951 11/751,483 filed on 05-21-2007 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951 90/007,946 filed on 02-16-2006 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951 PCT/US98/18926 filed on 09-10-1998 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951 The wonder that is CIPs (continuation in part).
That the patent office is now hiring people that can read?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I'm not too excited by this non-final rejection. A quick edit will revive claims 1 and 11. After that, every claim that depends on claims 1 and 11 will also be allowable. It'll only take a few hours of attorney time to make most of the claims allowable. I'm sure that they'll battle over the claims that remain rejectable though.
What was interesting, to me, is that there were so many 102 (novelty) rejections. In patents, novelty rejections mean "super obvious". Oh well, claim 1 got rejected on a 102 and will be put in allowable form easily enough.
I really liked that a Bezos patent was used for some of the obviousness rejections. That was cute.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
I'm pretty sure we haven't heard the last word on this one yet, guys. I bet there are still a few more avenues of appeal left for Amazon to pursue.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Amazon wasn't the first, that's why it got rejected. Someone else described the ideas before them.
And honestely, if you can't come up with a button-to-order-really-fast yourself, there is something wrong with you.
Why was Amazon the first to file such a patent? Because the internet online business wasn't big back then. That's all.
Child Continuity Data
09/151,617 filed on 09-11-1998 which is Patented claims the benefit of 08/928,951
09/318,447 filed on 05-25-1999 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
10/194,602 filed on 07-12-2002 which is Patented claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/410,998 filed on 04-25-2006 which is Abandoned claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/610,619 filed on 12-14-2006 which is Abandoned claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/618,452 filed on 12-29-2006 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/751,483 filed on 05-21-2007 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
90/007,946 filed on 02-16-2006 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
PCT/US98/18926 filed on 09-10-1998 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
I bolded the application the article you linked refers to. Also read about continuing patent applications which this history represents.
Amazon got started very, very early in the history of the Web. When I first started using Amazon, I was using Lynx. I am not sure whether Netscape 1.0 was even available yet; my recollection is that it was not, and that I tried and failed to get Mosaic to run.
When I first started using Amazon, I never even ordered books from them. I was too chicken. I had never ordered anything electronically before. I'm ashamed to say that I just used them as a handy online way to access Books In Print and look up ISBN numbers so that I could order them from a bookstore (at the time nobody would have bothered to say "brick-and-mortar bookstore").
I don't think I even need to say that it was a dialup connection, but perhaps I need to say that to the best of my recollection it was a 9600 bps connection, as 28K modems were new and expensive.
When I first ordered from Amazon, I certainly didn't give them my credit card electronically. I phoned them. Oh, wait, a phone is electronic, isn't it? Well, you know.
I give Amazon a lot of credit for virtually inventing online commerce as we know it. I remember admiring the "shopping cart" metaphor. I don't know if they were the first to use it, but they were among the first.
That doesn't mean that the shopping cart metaphor isn't obvious. It is obvious, but it is only obvious as the solution to a problem. Ditto one-click ordering.
Amazon was among the first companies to try to attack the problems of online commerce, so of course they were among the first to encounter some problems, and thus the first to see the nevertheless obvious solutions.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
In order for a process to be patentably eligible subject matter it has to produce a tangible result. What this really means in cases like Amazon's gets confusing as hell, because while reading 35 U.S.C. 101 and it's various court interpretations over the years it becomes obvious that computers operate in a way completely unimagined by those who drafted the Constitution.
Or would that be store credit ?
What else would a Wookie be doing on Endor?
It's an Ewok farm.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
It's still babble no matter how you format it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Hmm, come to think of it, maybe I'll check Groklaw later on when I have the chance.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
> And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer.
And this is a truly embarassing, sad development.
The fact remains that it was not obvious to sell a thing without a confirmation popup. Oh, now it is. Because of efforts like that.
But back then, no programmer would ever sell a thing with one click for fear the user accidently clicked the button. That this fear is, perhaps, unfounded, and in any case is a slightly different business model is the innovation that was not obvious .
I don't understand why it's so hard to "get" this.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I helped to start Amazon (I was the 2nd employee there). I've spoken out against the 1 click patent in the past. However, this comment "And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer" is not the reason why the patent should be permanently rejected. 1 click shopping was "new" at the time - if it was obvious, we would have done it right from the beginning on the web site. The issue with 1 click is not whether or not it was obvious to a web developer. It is whether or not business method patents that fundamentally simply map a practice in the non-online world ("put this on my account") to the online world ("1 click") should be permitted.
I don't believe that they should, and I am glad to see the patent struck down.
IMHO, the real test is "Could they use this technology without revealing how it worked?". The thing you get from the patent office should be an exchange. We give you this funny monopoly right, you tell everybody in plain English how it works. If there is no exchange, no monopoly right should be granted. Amazon's 1-click patent fails that test completely. There is no way they can use this technology at all without it becoming obvious to the world what's up.
Many things seem obvious after you learn about them, but you would never in a million years have thought of it. So obviousness is a very fuzzy criteria.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
That is probably the best summation of what can go wrong with software patents I've heard in a while. I find nothing wrong with a guy who invents a more efficent algorithim getting compensated, but most patent applications are not "a specific method to solve the travelling salesman problem that happens to be O(n)," but instead "the concept of solving the travelling salesman problem in O(n), an example of which is given."
Your ad here. Ask me how!
i'm not saying that it would have been an obvious solution at the time of invention. however just about everything seems obvious in hindsight.
thats the problem examiners have, particularly if they look at applications 5+ years after filing.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Fortunately it's not the Constitution that describes patent law.
BINGO!!!!
IANAPL (I am not a patent lawyer), but my understanding is that a patent is supposed to cover "how to do something", not "doing something".
In software, it's like the difference between requirements and design. Requirements is "what" -- the idea. Design is "how", the implementation. IIUC, patents are supposed to cover the "how" only.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
a. a sign of the apocalypse
or
b. a sign of the anti-apocalypse
either wsy i guess there is hope.. as long as it wastes time money and a year or two first.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
No free books for YOU, igdmlgd. Also please expect to have to click at least a million times next time you order something from Amazon. We know who you are.
Consider the Constitution being written in a time before guns. Suddenly guns come along. Do you write up new laws saying "Don't kill someone with a gun?" One would assume killing in general to be wrong.
What usually happens is legislating computers and their use is less about serving the public good and instead about propping up a businesses bottom line. Outside that, I see little to "legislate" computer use. Computer fraud is fraud, copyright infringement is still copyright infringement. I have a hard time seeing a distinction between using a computer to facilitate it or not, thus I see computer centric laws ridiculous.
No sig for you!!
It's a new millennium... Don't judge!
The whole concept of 1-click ordering is an idea, not a device.
I wouldn't care if Amazon's implementation of this got patented (they'd be better of with copyright anyway). But they managed to patent something like 'Transporting people between A and B really fast' (obvious) or 'Moving people from A to B in exactly 34592804723.2 seconds' (not obvious), an idea. This is the prime example of why so called software patents (I have yet to see one actually containing software) are bad.
You eat food with a fork and knife. A snickers chocolate bar is food. Was it obvious to eat a snickers with a fork and knife?
You try to sell things to your customers. Customers are happy when they dont have to do a lot of work to buy from you. Isnt it obvious to make them do the least amount of work to buy from you?
Take out the internet from the process and all you got is a customer phoning up a business and order something. and the customer just has to give his basic info if the customer has an account with the store, and doesnt even have to give payment info at the time of ordering.
This is a disaster for the software industry, it's not worth to invest in brillant ideas like this one.
Taking an existing device, and applying it to another is a legitimate device for patenting.
So "But THIS is using a computer"
is a perfectly valid.
However, 1-click is a business method, something that should not be patentable and is against the spirit of the patent law.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
http://clare-panton.blogspot.com/2007/09/1969-online-shopping.html
Click twice on the video on that page. You can't click just once because that would violate another patent.
I dunno, coming up with a solution to the Traveling Salesman problem that's O(n) would probably be difficult. Since we're already in the Computer Science Academia realm, I'd say it's more like a patent on a method for finding the Nth number in the Fibonacci sequence; ask a large group of CS students how to solve that problem, and most of them will probably come up with the same solution.
Nice. They should now reimburse licensors for the licensing fees they've unlawfully charged.
Bravo! Yep, I designed and implemented something like what this sounds like in an online store in 1998. User just clicked buy and that was all. Cookie was used to authenticate the user and approve the purchase. Risky? Yes. Convenient. More yes. So OK for a local-oriented store system like The Columbia Marketplace.
Expect Freedom.
I guess that means they won't approve my "One-Click to submit a comment" patent application ... :)
Bark less. Wag more.
What's to fear? Getting a cease-and desist in the mail that you infringed a patent? Calling the other party to negotiate terms? Seriously, Vonage just got a worst case "your whole business plan is based on stolen IP" verdict, and it's not the end of the world. They made a deal and the creator of Vonage goes on to make more money. Most patent awards are based on either REASONABLE royalties, the rest on lost profit. No big deal.
I think "fear of infringing a patent" is a BS excuse not to get to work and make something.
the fact that you get to chew 'baca is small consolation if you're his entree for lunch
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
HEY!
I'm an incompetent web developer and it wasn't obvious to me!
It might seem obvious, but I couldn't find the thing in Frontpage to do it. Even clippy was clueless.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
IMHO, fixing that would go a long way towards fixing the patent situation. If the patent holder had to pay back all licensing and attorney fees for a patent ruled invalid, the patent holders themselves would be far more careful in asserting rights for "inventions" that are not likely to stand up to scrutiny.
As much as I don't like patents, this would hurt small inventors more than anyone else.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Click on one of the links in the blog, and you'll discover a reference to a Newsweek article, published in 1995, describing exactly the 1-click process. This article was based on the Digicash system that the journalist was reporting on, but the idea of clicking once to order something, was imagined by the journalist who wrote the article. This article pre-dated the Amazon patent by two years.
So, let me ask you, if a journalist can come up with this same idea, in a field that he is not related to at all, then how the hell is it _not_ an obvious idea?!
The whole issue seems to be that measuring "obviousness" is not that obvious. It can be very subjective at times, but maybe there is a way to solve it. If it was me, I would take the problem in question, hand it to a group of people, and see how they solve it. If any of them come up with the same solution, then surely the solution is "obvious" (to a greater or lesser degree, judging by how many people came up with the same solution).
Maybe this is the method that the US patent office should adopt. They should hire a group of 30 or so problem solvers, fire problems at them, and if any one comes up with the same solution as on the patent application, immediate rejection. I think that would take out most idiotic patents.
I should probably patent the idea.
c. a sign of duke nukem forever
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