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.'"
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.
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
2) If you look at the "pledge" link, Bezos raises some ideas for patent reform and notes that if implemented it would cut the workload at the Patent Office. There's no "pledge" to send fewer boxes of paper in a reexamination. I don't usually notice who says what, but this "theodp" guy sticks in my head because all his (frequent) submissions are like this: obsessive complaining about Amazon, with multiple links that have little or nothing to do with he's claiming they're about.
Incidentally, it seems like the June 2nd submission that prompts this round is 15 lousy pages long, no?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
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'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.
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.
This is patently untrue. A patentee has a duty of candor under Rule 56 to disclose documents material to the patentability of the claims, and which are not redundant. This latest blizzard of references was prompted by the Patent Office has rejecting all but 5 of Amazon's claims. Amazon did not dump this paper to fulfill it's duty of candor; it did so to harass the Patent Office into granting the claims.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Sure, but Amazon can keep on using the technique regardless, so it's not like the way they run their site is at risk here. This doesn't impact Amazon's core business either way.
It's the (in)ability for OTHER sites to use the patented methods and tech that's at risk.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
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!
It is a good thing that it is not a Double Click patent.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!