Slashdot Mirror
Bezos Buries Patent Office in Paper
theodp writes "On June 2nd, almost two-and-half years after the USPTO initiated a reexamination of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click Patent, Amazon dumped another load of documents on the USPTO Examiner assigned to the case, asking for consideration of the 185 or so listed references and 'favorable action.' Peter Calveley, the LOTR actor whose do-it-yourself legal effort prompted the reexam, notes that he was cc'ed on 20 kg of documents that Amazon sent earlier to the USPTO as it tried to stave off last October's nonfinal rejection of all but 5 of Amazon's 26 1-Click patent claims. So much for Bezos' 2000 pledge of 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office.'"
Because the Patent Office subscribed to Amazon Prime.
Let the guy buy an island for himself already and retire ! Isn't he rich enough yet ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Apply a seven year ban on people and companies who do these shotgun patent claims. I'm sure we'd see far less work at the patent office then.
Under USC 382.6, article 12, subsection J, this seems to be unlawful interference. Of course, patent law isn't my specialty... can any other lawyers confirm?
This is the same guy who submits these anti-Amazon stories every other week, right? At least this time the links seem vaguely related to his grievance, although I have no idea what that Flickr picture is supposed to show.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
In school, I learned that an idea/concept was garbage if you couldn't convincingly explain it in 4 pages or less.
In civil cases where there is a propensity for information to be buried like a needle in a haystack, it makes sense for the prosecution to be legally required to supply the haystack because it should be the defenses burden to find the needle.
In the patent office though? They should be held to a reasonable limit (100-200 pages?). In this case, the vastness of their "supporting documentation" should be enough evidence to throw away the claim.
Of course, the alternative for the patent examiners (if it was a logical world where reason prevails) is to find an instance where the mountains of documentation is internally inconsistent and then toss the claim out the window because of Amazon's arrogance to submit contradictory claims in regards to their potential patent.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
Let me be clear. I think "Business Methods" patents are a stupid idea. However, that's the reality of things and NOTHING in this world, especially law, moves quickly or changes radically with ease. The best way, in my opinion, is to do what he is suggestions.
We SHOULD recognize that Business method patents are different from other patents. (Don't get me into software patents). There should be types of patents and each patent should have a time limit. However, there is not a SINGLE patent type I can think of that should be 17 years long. 10 years MAYBE... and that's an extreme.
I understand that companies invest a lot of time and money in research for "things". Pharmaceuticals, Engineering etc... but none of them take 17 years to fruition. It's one thing to protect a return on an investment, it's another to exploit it.
Additionally the patent system should be built to specifically fight those who would exploit it's system in a method that is SELF policing. His comment about creating a prior art database where people on the internet would be able to comment on prior art of a patent before it is approved is a TERRIFIC IDEA!
This would be like a wikipedia for patents and prior art making the jobs of the patent reviewers a thousand times easier at finding prior art. Once they are alerted of it, they can then investigate that specific instance and make an informed recommendation.
It's a start and a reasonably easy one to implement.
I think that amazon just wants to sell more kindles to UPSTO. I bet that amount of CC-ed documents was selected according to what one kindle can hold.
Einstein's theory of general relativity runs to many more pages than four. Garbage? I think not. Darwin's The Origin of the Species? More that four.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I saw no pledge of less work for the Patent Office in that open letter. I saw instead a prediction of less work, should his recommendations for patent reform be realized.
The One Click patent is certainly a lightning rod for patent reform, but we should be more sure of what we're accusing our enemies of.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
I say we name this the Bezos effect. It's kinda like a slashdot effect but analog. :P
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Maybe Amazon is just trying to convince the Patent Office to buy Kindles instead of getting box after box of paperwork dropped on them.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
I'm fine mocking the guy over his hypocrisy, but if I'm not mistaken, Amazon is a publicly traded company. Amazon != Bezos anymore. He can't just shrug and not defend the company's IP (even if it's not really IP) because he owes it to the shareholders to protect the value and perceived value of the company and its properties. The company has to be seen doing due diligence in this case so that the shareholders will be confident that they will do it when it matters.
When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. --Al Einstein
And what about the Bible, Qur'an, or L. Ron Hubbard's work.
But on a serious note. The parent only said 4 pages, not the size of the pages or the font size. I think you can put a lot of information on 4 A0 pages using a 6pt font (using both sides).
One Click to Rule them All, and in the PTO Bind them!
The office sets the rules, if you are going to play, play hard.
Whoops.
(See post topic)
Well.. that's crap isn't it?
The original post said the idea/concept should only take four pages.
I think the general ideas (at a high level and basically understandable) of relativity and evolution can be summed up in less than 4 pages. The supporting work to explain in depth, provide supporting evidence, etc should take more than 4 pages.
They may not take 17 years to reach fruition, but the amount of time that it takes to reach profitability can be many years. A lot of focus is placed on blockbuster drugs like Viagra which made back their research costs in only a couple of years. However, there are many drugs that are for much smaller markets which may take a decade or more to reach their first profits. Because there is a time lag between patent and FDA approval, it's very possible that the time between approval and patent lapse could be three to five years less than the actual patent duration, which can affect a decision on whether to pursue a drug in the first place.
I think 17 years is a good number for patents.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
But you can explain them to a reasonably intelligent person in less than four pages. That's what the OP (and Richard Feynman, who first said it) meant.
He was one of the actors who provided motions that were fed into the computer to generate orcs and elves during CGI battle sequences.
Five seconds with Google would have told you the same.
He was not an actor but the weaponry and fight choreographer.
whats interesting to me is that the FSF ended their boycott years ago. Talk about lack of principles.
General relativity can be derived much more succinctly assuming supporting lemmas. Those lemmas can also be derived in less than 4 pages each.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
I think the Amazon 1-click patent is crap. But, if you think that 20 kilograms of documents is a big deal you don't have a clue. That's nothing. NOTHING in any serious legal action, much less a PTO action. This reminds me of a Barbie doll saying "Math is hard.!" Wake up kids, law is hard. Deal with it.
Steven
The patent seems to be about saving CC info so you can order one item with one click. If I send everything to a shopping cart and click "buy now", even if they remember my credit card information, that seems not to be covered under the patent. Or I can "1-Click" every purchase, and amazon has to either queue those somehow in order to ship them to me all at once (effectively having the "shopping cart" function on the back end which shouldn't be covered either), or sending me one item per box and increasing either cost to them or cost to me.
I'm struggling to really understand the benefit of this patent - it seems truly useful if I want to buy one single item. But it only saves time if I frequently buy a single item. A one-time use of the one-click method saves no time because you have to save your CC info instead of just entering it on-demand. And buying multiple items at once in order to save on shipping works very well with a shopping cart/checkout model.
Can anyone help me out here?
And don't forget your ad blocker!
Given the following:
the heart of Einstein's theory is E=mc^2
Be good to each other and don't disobey my rules
4 pages should be enough for explaining a concept. Beyond that, you may need supporting documentation (many mathematical proofs require reams of paper). But the heart of the application, the summary, yes should easily be under 4 pages. And this is why E=mc^2 is beautiful and people quote the bible. Without the background info they're meaningless, but given the background, the core concepts expressed are sufficient.
This doesn't get the ggp anywhere, since they've only shown that the summary of an application must be brief. There's still the potential for supporting documentation. However, 20kg's of paper (4000pages) is crazy.
Actually, I'd like to know why they need to submit hard-copy for an application at all. Sure you'd want hard-copy on file if you _win_ your patent, but if you're just applying, why not e-file?
What size font are you using?
E=mc^2
The poster didn't say proof, he said "idea/concept". Slight difference.
It is a good thing that it is not a Double Click patent.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Patents on prescription pharmaceuticals last 5 years. After 5 years, other companies are allowed to duplicate it, thus it becomes generic.
Einstein is an interesting example to bring up, as his fame was due a great deal to his ability to summarize and simplify his explanations. It was interesting in my modern physics book, the excerpts of letters from Einstein to others teaching the material on the value of different pedagogical methods -- the use of "rest mass" or "relativistic mass", for instance. But we oddly didn't jump straight into special relativity, virtual particles, and probability density equations on the first day of class. We talked about big ideas, instead.
And that's the point. Einstein argued, derived, and defended the special theory of relativity in more than four pages. But he could say what that large mass meant and the importance of it in fewer than four.
(And, if you've ever had to write a thesis or an article in a peer-reviewed journal, you're likely already aware that it's not uncommon for 50% or more of the material to be a 'review of relevant material'. This is the same deal that tends to bloat patent applications -- there is an obligation to say "here is what was done before, I'm not a dumbass, I did my homework, and here's why what I did is different")
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
If the Patent Office can delete all Amazon claims with "1-Click", then they can show that they have this system first, so all Amazon claims to "1-Click" concepts are invalid. Done.
IANALY, but AMEN. I'm getting to where I absolutely can't stand Slashdot anymore. The ignorance is appalling.
No, you can't. If you think "traits of a species changes over time" is sufficient explanation to describe evolution, you really need to read up. Having *read* The Origin of Species I would have a great deal of trouble summarizing the book in 4 pages, or even doing the theory justice in that space. What you *can* get is an overly-simplified view, which while appropriate for the layman, is completely inappropriate for what is supposed to be an in-depth investigation.
Sounds a lot like a denial of service attack. From the intent to the method.
for free at Patent Retriever - http://www.patentretriever.com/