Patent Reformers O'Reilly, Bezos Mum on 1-Click

theodp writes "Brought together 7 years ago by a threatened boycott over Amazon's 1-Click patent, Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Bezos vowed to reform the U.S. patent system. So in The Register's Open Season podcast (@12:25), Andrew Orlowski finds it very ironic that news of a victory by LOTR choreographer Peter Calveley against Bezos' 1-Click patent broke as O'Reilly was once again busy trotting out Amazon-tied speakers to headline a Web 2.0 conference, this one sponsored by Fenwick & West, the prestigious law firm bested by Calveley. Orlowski notes that O'Reilly, who now counts Bezos among his investors, was oddly silent for a self-described software patent protester, especially one who once vowed to torpedo 1-Click. Equally untalkative was Bezos, who deflected questions on the damage done by Calveley's DIY legal effort, telling a Wall Street analyst to 'refer to our public filings' (although nothing on the subject appears in the 8-K and 10-Q filings). One last dose of irony — in explaining the prior art he used to reject the 1-Click claims, a USPTO Examiner cited the very same TV remote control patent that was deemed to be unsuitable in a 1-Click prior art contest run by the O'Reilly and Bezos-bankrolled BountyQuest (just last year, Amazon testified to Congress that the contest failed to find prior art for Bezos' patent)."

Comments

Next question

[Anonymous Coward]

If this patent is invalidated by prior art, who should be liable if a company demonstrated it has suffered financially due to the presumed validity of said patent?

Re:Next question

[Anonymous Coward]

Then what incentive is there for either applicants or the USPTO to perform adequate prior art searches? The one click patent was but one ridiculous example of how pathetic the patent system has become. If the USPTO are not prepared to accept liability when they fail to do their jobs then all litigated patents should be presumed invalid by the court system.

"who now counts Bezos among his investors"

[fgaliegue]

Unfortunately, that seems to tell a lot.

Money and common sense (and/or ethics) just seem to be strangely opposed... Why am I (not) surprised?

Retracting your common sense/ethics arguments because you find yourself in "debt" to money-makers just looks cheap, doesn't it?

No problem.

[iknownuttin]

There are plenty of alternatives to both Amazon and O'Reilly, ....

O'Reilly isn't a problem for me. I've been moving into FOSS web development and I'm finding that O'Reilly's books aren't what they used to be. They used to be a great value, concise, full of information, and plenty of examples that made sense - like the Perl books - most of them, anyway.

Now, they're verbose, hard to follow, the authors go off on tangents, the editions come out too infrequently, and they are no longer a good value. The "cookbooks" are still pretty good, but the tutorials and generic references are just bulky crap. The worst: the Python books.

I find that I'm gravitating towards the newer publishers (Wrox, Sitepoint) and going back to the tried and true - Willey for one.

Amazon. If you get the "Super Saving" shipping (i.e. free) when eligible, they'll sit on your order for a several days. If I just buy the regular USPS shipping when he free one isn't available, they ship in a day. I find I'm shopping at other places more and more.

I'd be interested in an online bookstore that can meet or beat Amazon's prices and service.