Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon Patents Including a String at End of a URL

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the why-didn't-i-think-of-that-oh-wait dept.

theodp writes "On Tuesday, Amazon search subsidiary A9.com was awarded U.S. patent no. 7,287,042 for 'including a search string at the end of a URL without any special formatting.' In the Summary of the Invention, it's explained that 'a user wishing to search for 'San Francisco Hotels' may do by simply accessing the URL www.domain_name/San Francisco Hotels, where domain_name is a domain name associated with the web site system.' Here's the flowchart that helped cinch the deal."

21 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Wha? by shinma · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not sure they even LOOK at patent applications anymore.

    --
    Shinma
    1. Re:Wha? by KevMar · · Score: 5, Informative

      yep, I have never ever seen this one before.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SomeStupidRandomSearchTerm

      --
      Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
    2. Re:Wha? by AmaDaden · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It makes me wonder if someone can just patent filing a patent and just make the system grind to a halt.

    3. Re:Wha? by eln · · Score: 5, Funny

      How in the world was this ever even submitted?!

      I think the flowchart makes that obvious.

      During the course of the business day, most people will jot down notes about various things discussed during meetings or at informal cubicle conversations or whatever. Usually, these notes are kept for some period of time until they become no longer relevant, at which time they're either thrown out or shredded.

      At my office, we throw such notes into little blue bins under our desks. The contents of these bins are then taken by a company who shreds them. In Amazon's case, the contents of the blue bins are apparently sent to the patent office.

      So there you have it.

    4. Re:Wha? by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 4, Funny

      the contents of the blue bins are apparently sent to the patent office.

      Then I guess if I worked for Amazon they'd be submitting a patent application for "An old newpaper with mustard and grease stains." They'd probably get it too.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  2. STOP POSTING NOW! by twoboxen · · Score: 4, Funny

    I have patented putting characters in an ordered sequence. I'm calling it a SENT-ENCE. I'd ask for your thoughts on it, but I will of course need royalties.

    --
    TODO - Insert Creative/Witty Signature
    1. Re:STOP POSTING NOW! by KingSkippus · · Score: 5, Funny

      I have patented putting characters in an ordered sequence. I'm calling it a SENT-ENCE. I'd ask for your thoughts on it, but I will of course need royalties.
      atht edia scuks.
  3. Prior art? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The php website has done this for ages when searching functions. I am sure they have been doing it before 2004.

    eg.

    http://www.php.net/stupid%20patents

  4. Can you say mod_rewrite? by Se7enLC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How is this not an obvious use of apache mod_rewrite??

  5. Re:My patent by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Funny

    I would have checked my spelling, but someone patented that already.

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
  6. Prior art example #5294190 by matlhDam · · Score: 5, Informative

    This slide from a talk delivered in January 2003 describes the same idea of searching by URL content (listed under "Interesting Uses"). I don't remember being particularly surprised by the idea at the time, so I'm sure there's considerably older prior art, but this was the first thing that sprang to mind.

    (Ignore the date on the top right, which always shows today -- the talk's date of January 22, 2003 is listed on the PHP talk index.)

  7. Well almost like wikipedia by marcello_dl · · Score: 4, Informative

    Only, wikipedia search for the string in the URL is an option that is one click away.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't%20it%20true

    If you ask me I'd use the wikipedia way, or the good old search box.
    Because if you're typing into the address box in a browser, you're likely to have autocompletion. That means you're likely to start a search whenever you want to get back at the site, bad for the search engine.
    Also your searches are accessible through your browsing history - as for all searches through get requests I think.

    Having said that, this patent differs from the prior art of wikipedia by simply doing an additional step automatically. Where's the innovation, USPTO guys?

    --
    ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  8. That's mod_rewrite! by Sandb · · Score: 5, Informative

    Did they just patented mod_rewrite??? Tue Aug 24 06:55:44 1999 UTC (8 years, 2 months ago) baby! http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/httpd/httpd/trunk/modules/mappers/mod_rewrite.c?revision=83751&view=markup&pathrev=573831

  9. Patent Filed Date by Loether · · Score: 5, Informative

    Filed: August 23, 2004 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,287,042.PN.&OS=PN/7,287,042&RS=PN/7,287,042

    --
    TODO create witty sig.
    1. Re:Patent Filed Date by jc42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Filed: August 23, 2004

      Umm, that was more than a decade after the published HTTP standards included the PATH_INFO environment variable, which gives the program everything past the file pathname portion of a URL. This was essentially defined as a string that the invoked CGI program would interpret however it wishes. If this doesn't qualify as "prior art", what would? Note that the last-updated timestamps on these specs are in 1995 and 1996.

      So Amazon is merely patenting a part of NCSA's published HTTP CGI-invocation standard.

      This mostly shows that the patent examiners are totally ignorant of HTML and related Web standards, and are thus unqualified to say anything about the patent application.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    2. Re:Patent Filed Date by Merk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Primary Examiner: Kim; Chong H

      I recommend that Kim, Chong H be fired.

    3. Re:Patent Filed Date by bitrot42 · · Score: 5, Funny


      http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,287,042.PN.&OS=PN/7,287,042&RS=PN/7,287,042

      That's quite a URL. If only they'd licensed a search string at the end of a URL without any special formatting.

      --
      FIXME: Add a sig here
  10. Flowcharts by stu42j · · Score: 4, Funny

    Flowcharts can be very useful and convincing.

  11. Watch out by Inoshiro · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't click that URL, it violates a patent!!!

    --
    --
    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
  12. Use RFC 2606! by EnvyRAM · · Score: 4, Informative

    "URL of the form www.domain_name/search_string, where domain_name is a domain name of the web server system" Jassy, et al. needs to read the RFCs! There are nice, reserved domains for uses such as this: example.com, example.net, and example.org. This is very handy when writing documents of this type and everyone should use it. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt

  13. Wrong approach by tamtaradei · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You cannot fix procedural problems by simply blaming the unfortunate person who was executing the procedure. The entire patent system is flawed - it is not a random failure, it is just an outcome of an incorrect system.

    Unless it was supposed to work that way - but then why pay anyone for examining the patents before they are filed? Maybe the Patent Office should just be a kind of notary who only records when someone came up with the idea, just to give him or her the legal basis for later defending his or her rights, but does not examine whether the idea is original.