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Amazon 1-Click Lawyers Make USPTO Work Xmas Eve
theodp writes "In a move that would do pre-makeover Ebenezer proud, Amazon.com's 1-Click lawyers put the USPTO to work on Christmas Eve. On Dec. 24th, the USPTO acknowledged receipt of yet another round of paperwork submitted by Amazon's high-priced legal muscle, the latest salvo in Amazon's 3-year battle to fend off a patent reexamination triggered by the do-it-yourself legal effort of actor Peter Calveley. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent is also under attack on another front — on Dec. 23rd, the USPTO received $810 from Amazon's attorneys together with a request that the agency invalidate Patent Examiner Mark A. Fadok's final rejection of 1-Click patent claims on the grounds of obviousness. On the bright side, patent clerks — unlike Bob Cratchit — get the day after Christmas off!"
I'm working now.
Pushing this absurd patent is costing Amazon more in negative PR than the patent could possibly be worth.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm atheist you insensitive clod.
Amazon works on a business day, film at a 11.
Or did you think the internet's largest retailer takes off the days before Christmas?
What the hell kind of framing is this? Oh right, theodp is a Sand Hill sockpuppet.
Who ever said that practicing "law" or anything to do with it is a gentleman's game?
On contrary... You got a way to put that extra pound of pressure on your opponent, you use it.
As long as it is legal and/or you don't get caught.
Heck... If duels were legal you can bet your ass that lawyers would start hiring people as proxies to challenge the members of opposing legal team prior to trial.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
No.
Honestly. There are signs of a slight expression coming. World won't end. And we shouldn't give away our basic rights as employees (such as not having to work on Christmas) just because media tries to scare us shitless with the depression. If we give them up they will be really hard to get back five years from now when the depression is over. (And yes, atleast here in Finland this shows signs of becoming to resemble the depression of 1990-1993)
Honestly, few companies will weight the issue "We will either make them work on christmas or fire 1000 people". The economy isn't about such small rights lowering productivity.
I'm glad that IT is (as are all other areas of work) so strongly unionized here in Finland that companies won't be able to scare the people with "Give up your rights or we are less productive and will have to fire people" stick.
Is there an assumption that USPTO has to somehow reply to this latest submission by midnight on same day?
The story seems silly. There is no life or death situation. I would expect no action from USPTO for 3 month or more.
It just shows how little some people know about the patent system. A request for continued examination can be filed with the electronic system on Dec 23rd, and very few humans would see it, if any, until the docket clerk looks at it. The examiner won't be looking at it for quite some time, so they aren't working overtime for Bezos. Further, they aren't asking for an invalidation of the final rejection, they are asking for reconsideration on the merits, and a withdrawal of the rejection (very different things). If you know about the system, the summary the submitter put forward was good for a laugh, but nothing else.
Loosely translated means they filed the paperwork online and the whole thing was accepted automatically. So if anything, it was Amazon being Ebenezer making its lawyers work Xmas eve, the USPTO didn't have to do anything.
Way back in the day, nobody could even figure out how to do credit card processing, much less buy anything online. I have a vague recollection of one of the backbone providers in the Northeast or Midwest trying to prohibit commerical traffic over their network.
One-click buying was pretty radical. Even buying stuff online was pretty unbelievable. I mean, think about this: some company you never heard of would store your credit card number and other information so you could buy stuff without entering in all the supporting info. This was back in the day when the big debate was PPP vs SLIP, and you couldn't get a commercial PPP account (except via netcom, I think).
Now all this stuff is pretty obvious. Back in the day, just buying stuff online was pretty wild. One-click, from the engineering side, was really original. The fact that it sounds so quotidian shows how far things have come since then.
Move to Canada where Boxing day is a holiday.
Personally, I'm taking 2, maybe 3 weeks off. What ever I decide. I deserve it.
What's REALLY needed is a law which prohibits the storing of people's credit card numbers. The only people who need access to your credit card info are you and your bank.
That would moot this stupid patent, but who cares.
No sig today...
Sockpuppet?
More like cockpuppet.
As far as I can tell this patent fails the Bilski test. It is neither tied to a particular apparatus or machine, nor does perform a unique transformation.
IANAL, but the test outlined in Bilski seems to make this patent NULL. Anyone can implement a one-click system on any machine connected to the internet.
The obviousness test is also valid in this case - at the time Amazon was pushing this through the USPTO... Well, my boss was handing me work from different clients that wanted a sign-in and one-click ordering system for their commerce sites. I had to tell him it was legally impossible each time.
So failing the "obviousness" test - it was a clearly obvious step to take. To both the people writing the code for commerce sites and to the people paying to have them written... And also seeming, to me (and I repeat - IANAL), failing the tests outlined in the Bilski case... Amazon can fight as much as they want, but this patent is a dud.
I work at a Datacenter. It's staffed 24/7. Even on Christmas; some jerkface is breaking a server or a T1 goes down due to rain here in SoCal? Unions are great! I wish IT had one. However, critical services need to be open for the public's safety. Here in America; we work till we drop. And when we do; there's a new replacement. Profit is everything and people don't mean squat! So how're the chicks in Finland? Would they dig and American boyfriend IT Weenie come move in with them?
Why you'll never hear hippies bitch about Christmas
... the only one working xmas eve.
You should patent "a system and method for storing people's credit card numbers as part of an E-commerce system" and then demand insane license fees. Please do.
Actually, Microsoft is to be applauded in that regard: they patent many stupid, customer-hostile ideas and thereby save the world from other companies actually implementing that trash. If only Microsoft enforced its patents (and copyrights) more vigorously.
Lots of people had to work Christmas Eve - including my wife (an accountant). So what? Christmas Eve isn't a holiday.
Like DerekLyons, I know lots of people that work Christmas Eve. I had to take it off. I don't get what the huge crime is, and I AM a Christian and celebrate Christmas.
Civilized? Your post suggests you have no idea what the word means other than as a cynical prop to justify your own worldview.
Is this about workers rights or is this about celebrating a religious holiday? I'm honestly curious about WHY you think the world owes you a day off? Is it to celebrate mass?
To be fair, I agree with your point but you offer no justification, and you just come off like a er,...well, a raging ass.
Mail ordering stuff was quite common way before this online stuff came around. Also an "unknown" company taking my credit card info and keeping information.
I know I was buying computer stuff by mail order in 1982 for my TI-99/4A. It was nearly "1-click". I could call, keep them a couple pieces of information to verify myself and they would look up my account and away we went without me having to give my credit card info again or address, etc.
One wonders why Amazon bothers spending money on lawyers to defend a patent that's irrelevant now. All loss of the patent means is that competitors can create 1-click features on their sites, something that's far from a selling point in Amazon's favour now. Back in the day when ecommerce was the realm of pornographers, it was a slick feature to offer, but nowadays it would seem almost quaint to tout that as a reason to use one site over another.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
If they license (and sue people for) a patent that hasn't been granted yet, make them refund all licensing fees and legal expenses when patent is denied. Simple. A lot less crap would be patented in the first place unless it's truly non-obvious and innovative, and those filing patents would be scared shitless of licensing them to anyone before they're granted, let alone starting a patent lawsuit.
I've been buying stuff from Amazon ever since 1886 or whenever it was that they started selling stuff. And ever since about that time, I've been ignoring their plea to sign up for "1 Click ordering". It sounds like maybe I would just click on some button and it would order stuff for me. Would it be stuff I wanted? I dunno, but I've always been afraid to turn it on. Besides, I like to think about what I'm buying, and going through a bunch of steps makes it harder for me to order stuff I don't really want, or order stuff by mistake. So what does the one click thing do anyway, and why would I want it? It must be mighty keen for them to want to fight so hard to patent it.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Unions are great!
Aside from the usual mismanagement, unions are also one of the biggest reasons US car companies can not compete with foreign auto makers.
Unions do serve an important function in many industries but they are also destroying many of those same industries. In the end, we all pay much, much higher prices for US goods which prices many of them right out to extinction. Simply put, if unions ONLY did their job to ensuring a safe/healthy work environment with fair wages, then there would be nothing but goodness. Unfortunately, unions work as well as the government, which means they are self destructive and ineffective in the end. It is to the union's own benefit to destroy a company with over paid wages. After all, higher wages means far higher salaries, benefits, and perks for those running the unions.
Do you really believe a worker who wields a paint gun should be paid $50/hr? Sure, a nice respirator and air exchange unit makes sense, but since when should we pay a worker $50/hr, $75/hr for overtime, $100/hr for holiday pay, and $175/hr for holiday with overtime for an inferior job compared to what a robot can do, which costs far, far, less in the long run. And let's not forget the health and retirement benefits many of the workers also earn - which can add up to an extra $50/hr for each worker. Being generous of what some unions actually provide, that works out to be over ***$225/hr*** for what should be a $50-65/hr worker - including all benefits, overtime, and holiday pay. Many doctors and/or lawyers don't make that kind of money and those are highly skilled professions.
Frankly, $15/hr + benefits + respirator, air exchange unit, painter's suit, is more than fair given the type of unskilled labor involved. The price difference adds thousands and thousands of dollars per vehicle - often resulting in a lower quality product to boot.
Now consider someone who moves a paint gun. That person can be fired despite the fact not moving the paint gun caused an entire assembly line to shut down. How about a better example. Someone missteps causing a piece of pipe, which was leaned against a corner, to fall onto the assembly line. Now let's assume it's either a holiday or a weekend where plumbers are all off. The assembly line is now shutdown costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour. If anyone moves the pipe they can be terminated - so the pipe doesn't get moved. Someone now calls a plumber. The plumber lives an hour away. The plumber already maxed out his hours. The plumber shows up, moves the pipe, and goes home. For that simple feat, the plumber is paid a minimum of four hours. But wait, that's over time. And since it was a holiday, that's holiday pay plus overtime. That plumber is paid $60/hr. He drives home having "earned" $840.00 and cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Frankly, these days unions do far, more damage than they help. Who wants to pay a premium for an inferior product? That, by in large, is why US auto manufacturers are failing.
The curious thing about the 1-click patent is that I don't know anyone that does or would even consider using the feature. I would never use the feature. Like most people, I want to see a summary of my order before the final click to satisfy myself that I *really* need/want to spend the money.
Rich people like Sam Walton would never use it either. The only people using it must those credit card wielding yuppies from teen movies with an infinite supply of someone else's money. I thought people like that only existed in movies - but apparently they are a major profit center for Amazon.
Aside from the usual mismanagement, unions are also one of the biggest reasons US car companies can not compete with foreign auto makers.
You realize how much a sack of crap that is, right? The biggest worker expenditure difference between auto workers in US auto maker plants versus foreign auto makers comes from the pension past workers have built up from... you know... manufacturing here for the better past of a decade. (Whereas foreign auto maker plants haven't been here long enough to build up a worker pension pool yet.)
...and of course, when it comes right down to it, worker salary and pension and all that rigmarole amounts to less than 10% of what the companies expend in general, so... Just MAYBE there are other places they need to tighten ship as well?
Subtract that bullshit additional claim to the "BOO HOO TEH UNIONS!!!" shouting, and what's the difference...? About $4 an hour, or under-a-10% salary delta. But that doesn't doesn't make waves and just MIIIIGHT get people saying "whatever, dudes, make better cars and better market decisions on your lineup," so therefore they had to trot out out that asinine $70+ figure.
Certainly some unions can cause problems, but is the auto worker union making the US car manufacturers fail? Not even close. Pension aside, the "total hourly compensation" comes to something like $52 versus $48, and while it's true UAW has been able to lobby for more valuable pensions as well, the difference is simply that of size and time. US auto manufacturers have a pension pool that's been built up by MANY more workers in MANY more plants that have been in operation since the dawn of the 20th century. (Or, I suppose, when and how they started providing pensions.)
The "competition gap" would certainly make a couple percent different all told in the long run, but that's in no way why they've all gone belly-up and are in need of bailing out now.
When they have a case with little or no merits, lawyers will often attempt to make the process so unpleasant that the other party will just give up and settle. I.e. xmas-eve depositions / due dates, asking for 65,000 pages of documents in hard copy, comically long discovery processes, etc.
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Gah. It 's a lot more complected then that.
Over seas auto workers have a lot of services that us citizens do not. Health care, guaranteed wage form the government, just to name two.
You also don't realize the damage an untrained person can cause move or using equipment can cause.
You obviously have no clue about government, unions, or any practical matters regarding comparative difference in the life between the citizens of different countries.
so STFU until you do.
Then you don't even compare salaries between management and union, or consider the enourmous cost of bonuses.
You can not look at one aspect and put the blame there, you need to look at the bigger pictures. I suggest you read up on the pre-union industrial age to find out what happens to people and the environment.
You know why there is a minimum? to make people think before having some work done. None of this calling you in on your time off to do 20 minutes of work unless it's important.
US automobiles have made a huge comeback in terms of quality. Sadly, in the auto industry it take 5 years min. before public perception catches up to reality.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No one does pensions anymore (except state/federal government) and you'd be stupid as a business to offer a pension. It's a black hole you have to keep feeding, as you don't know what your costs are going to be. 401ks (defined contribution) are the way to go, as you know what your costs are going to be upfront.
My sister worked for a closing GM plant - and just got laid off. Worked there for over 20 years and her job is union-classified as skilled. Her particular job is being bandied about in the media as paying $71/hour. She gets a bit over a third of that, GROSS, not net. Her pension funding is going south - because they fund more by contingency than by trust accounting, I suppose (I am not an expert).
Now her friends and neighbors are giving her the same $71/hour shit.
You can pontificate about unions all you want - and you do - but you have no idea what you're talking about.
It's not the unions that destroyed the auto industry - it's that the entire industry, like so many others in the world today (and the US especially) are really run by the accountants and/or driven by accounting practices, with "professional" managers or promoted salesmen believing that they know crap about the ramifications of their decisions.
By the way - if any company you've worked for bills your time at less than a multiple of about 2.5 on your salary, then they're losing money.
Yes, pensions, 401ks, insurance, employer's portion of social security, compliance with unemployment and disability laws - those all come for free in your world, as do power, etc, etc. And if you think for one minute that those things aren't being "creatively" managed on the books and they aren't added into inflated labor reports - in short, if you think you know thing one about accountancy in the auto industry you're delusional.
That's just my friendly opinion.
You are correct in much of the over-specialization and waste that are union-caused. But that was the insane result of insane management forcing people (under threat of firing) of doing dangerous jobs requiring skill. It may not excuse what the union response was, but the simple fact is that what goes around, comes around.
And I close by criticizing your decision that a painter should get $15/hour. I don't know if you got that number along with the flying monkeys or not, but frankly - that amount does nothing to compete against a lot of jobs whose end products are in lower demand and carry lower costs than automobiles.
Take a course in economics and work in the real world for a while. You clearly have some idea of auto-manufacturing ops - but little else in what you postulate is even close to reality.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
What if the Amazon/O'Reilly patent reforms that was attempted back in 2000 were successful?
Because I thought about this kind of problems long before I read this.