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.

Comments

Register Article

[stoolpigeon]

here is the printer friendly version of an article with some good info. about this over at the Register.

Re:Register Article

[PatentMagus]

When a previous patent is used for a 102 (novelty) rejection it does not mean that the invention was already patented, only that it was disclosed. It is patented only if it is claimed by the prior patent. Usually, the rejection is based on the prior patent's specification but not it's claims. Sorry, haven't researched deeply enough to see what was claimed in the prior art for one-click.

Also, "copyright attaches when pen goes to paper". What you meant was that a good way to keep the obvious from being patented is is to have an expression of the idea published published first. The prior art has to be published and available. It also helps if the published work is a printed one. I'm currently trying to get some videos admitted as prior art, but am not sure how it will go.

Huh?

[LiquidCoooled]

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?

Re:Huh?

[faloi]

Can someone give me one thing I can click which will explain this whole thing?

I could, but I'd have to get your promise that you'd click twice to get to it...at least until this whole thing blows over.

Re:Huh?

[PlatyPaul]

Here you go. It's a decent summary of the situation, albeit not the most in-depth.

You can take a look at the original patent, too, but that would require a second click.

Not quite...

[theantipop]

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.

Obvious...

[Tetsujin]

"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?

Re:Obvious...

[Waffle Iron]

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?

People trot out this same argument every time a bogus patent gets discussed. The main reason in this case was that Amazon was one of the first businesses that was involved in Internet transactions. Nobody did it before because nobody needed to solve that exact problem. That still doesn't mean that the solution wasn't obvious; it just means that the problem didn't exist. You don't deserve a monopoly just because you're one of the first people in a new market.

IMO, the laws for patentability ought to be changed to fix this problem anyway. I say that if something is obvious, even in hindsight, then it shouldn't be patentable. There are plenty of patent claims that I understand after seeing, but which certainly can't be called obvious, even in hindsight. That should be where the bar is set.

Re:Obvious...

[MartinG]

but was it "obvious" to people before Amazon did it? If so, then why was Amazon the first?

Someone is first to do everything, and that includes obvious things.

Re:Counter sue?

[jcr]

Chances are that anyone who's paid up for a license from Amazon is SOL, since the contract would almost certainly include a provision that they can't sue even if the patent ends up getting spiked. Anyone who hasn't executed a contract with Amazon, but has incurred expenses in defending themselves might be able to recover some damages.

-jcr

well yes and errr, no

[paulbd]

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.

Re:Apple gets a refund ?

[zsouthboy]

AFAIK, diddly squat.

The company that liscensed the patent goes "It's all the PTO's fault!!11 one", and there's not much anyone can do. If the liscence involved a per-device fee, you can stop paying that, but anything you've already paid is gone.

IANAL

Re:Whine enuf and you win

[IBitOBear]

Actually it was extremely obvious. It was also considered an extremely bad idea. Anybody who has ever mis-clicked anything will know why it is a bad idea if they take a moment to generalize their knowledge.

Its a bad idea for exactly the same reason that most erase features of most operating systems erase to a clipboard or a trash folder of some sort.

See, people click on and mis-operate all sorts of things in all sorts of circumstances.

Amazon is simply big and slow enough to be able to afford to do a ship-and-return or a block-that-order action when the customer screws up. It was also well-funded enough that it could operate at a loss for something like three years from startup and not die outright.

Smaller, more responsive, less funded business would have gone bankrupt long ago. And such businesses could never have survived under the onslaught of "I didn't order this $3,000.00 flat screen so you credit back my card immediately and I'll get this back to you once you send me a shipping label" type calls.

One Click Shopping is bad business in most uses, so people didn't design their web pages that way till the "big players" came in with a lot of financial ballast.

"Do it in fewer steps" (e.g. in one step, e.g. without asking "are you sure") is _always_ obvious and is almost _never_ implemented because people screw up. And when it is implemented someone usually gets fired because its hard to teach people that they _should_ slow down and double check before they do something (a) expensive, (b) irreversible, or (c) embarrassing.

Consider: Didn't you think to double-check that order before you just (a) fired the nuke, (b) ordered a whole shipping container of toilet paper for a one-stall bathroom, (c) sold off the entire calculator division of HP, (d) fired everyone in human resources. (etc.)

Re:Apple gets a refund ?

[bstone]

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.