Ninth Anniversary of Amazon 1-Click Injunction

theodp writes "Nine years ago Monday, Amazon kicked off the Holiday Season by slapping Barnes and Noble with a court injunction barring BN from using a checkout feature that Amazon said represented illegal copying of its patented 1-Click technology. 'We're pleased that Judge Pechman recognized the innovation underlying our 1-Click feature,' said Jeff Bezos in a press release. But an Appellate Court wasn't quite as impressed with Amazon's innovation. Nor were USPTO Examiners who were asked to take another look at the merits of Amazon's 1-Click patent claims. Still, 1-Click lives on, although Amazon's lawyers are currently fighting two separate rejections by USPTO Examiners, burying USPTO Examiners in paper, and employing canceling-and-refiling tactics that some may find reminiscent of Eddie Haskell's chess end-game strategy. So much for Amazon-led patent reform."

Comments

It isn't quite as simple as that

[Kupfernigk]

The 1-click patent is more complex than some people seem to appreciate; it is not just "buying something with one click of the mouse". And it raises an interesting point about business methods.

Checkout in shops has always been subject to innovation. Remember the overhead pneumatic tube system to avoid having lots of cash registers and to protect against thieves? Supermarket tills have been constantly improved with innovations like conveyor belts and laser barcode readers. All of these things are patentable. Now consider the back office. Business methods are not patentable, but you don't let the competition into the back office to see how well you have integrated all your systems.

Amazon's problem is that their ingenious checkout system is in software so it cannot be patented, but also it is seen by the user so it cannot be a secret clever backoffice system. They fall between two stalls. This will inevitably discourage people from developing innovative POS systems in software, because it is far cheaper to reinvent something already known.

Solution? Yes, I have a solution. Reasonably, if a large department store introduced a pneumatic system, their competitors could follow them in around a 1-2 year timescale. What's more, they were free to visit the first one installed and look at its advantages and disadvantages. So why not allow software patents and business method patents but give them only a 2 year life from filing and a 1 year life from first commercialisation, whichever results in the earliest expiry? A year of leadership is a long time in retail.

In fact, short terms for different classes of IP seems reasonable nowadays, when books are usually remaindered in a year or so and and popular music rarely lasts more than a few months. As a first shot, how about:

• No time at all for algorithms
• 1 year for business methods and software patents
• 5 years for books and recordings
• 10 years for medicines
• 20 years for heavy industry and advanced technology

At present, musicians get a ridiculously long copyright period even when they are just making derivative works, and this probably does more than anything else tobring the system into disrepute.