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1-Click Smacked Down Again, While Reexam Languishes

Posted by timothy on from the waiting-game-is-rigged dept.

theodp writes "Pressed on Amazon's 1-Click patent, then-USPTO Chief Q. Todd Dickinson got testy: "I make this challenge all the time. If you're aware of prior art out there that invalidates a patent that is existing, file a re-examination. We'll be happy to take a look at it." Really? It's been 3+ years since unemployed actor Peter Calveley submitted prior art that triggered a USPTO reexamination of the 1-Click patent. Still no 'final answer' from the USPTO. To put things in perspective, 1-Click inventor Jeff Bezos once proposed a three-year lifespan for patents (later retracted), let alone patent reexams. In the meantime, other patent examiners have repeatedly smacked down 1-Click — the latest (non-final) rejection was issued on Feb. 10th with Sandra Bullock's help."

3 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Invented? by symbolic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please don't say that the one-click experience was "invented" by Jeff Bezos - it completely trivializes the entire creative process. It reduces those who are truly innovative to the status of mere dilettantes.

  2. Re:From May,2000 by idlemachine · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The summary really isn't difficult to comprehend:
    • Nine years ago the USPTO chief said "Don't whine about prior art, submit evidence of it" regarding the 1-Click patent.
    • Three+ years ago, such evidence was submitted.
    • Today: Amazon still retains the patent, while the promised re-exam has yet to occur.

    So yes, if you only focus on one element of the entire summary I can understand why you might think that its someone other than you who is being a "dipshit".

  3. It's a Small, Small 1-Click Patent World! by theodp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ironically, Stephen Levy - whose 1995 article The End of Money is now being used by USPTO examiners to reject 1-Click patent claims as obvious - reported back in 2000's The Great Amazon Patent Debate about the conversation he sat in on in which Jeff Bezos just wouldn't hear that 1-Click was obvious. Responding to Tim O'Reilly's charge that "trying to enforce a patent claim on something as obvious as 1-Click is downright selfish," Bezos countered: "When we applied for the patent, 1-Click wasn't obvious...When we introduced it, people were surprised...They called it innovative."