Amazon Scores Gift-Delivery Patent

theodp writes "In May, the USPTO rejected Amazon.com's patent claims (PDF) for its Method and System for Placing a Purchase Order Via a Communications Network (a 1-Click spin-off). At the time, a USPTO Examiner cited Bilski, explaining that elements of CEO Jeff Bezos' gift-delivery invention 'may be performed largely within the human mind,' coming to essentially the same conclusion a NY Post reporter arrived at in 2002. But Amazon's attorneys have worked their legal wordsmithing magic (PDF), convincing the USPTO that 'obtaining delivery information for a gift from one or more information sources other than the gift giver and recipient' is indeed novel and patentable. A Notice of Allowance for the patent was mailed to Amazon on November 17th, just in time for Holiday Season injunction-giving!"

Comments

Re:Should Patents be done away with?

[MightyMartian]

Greed, it strikes me, is one of the great moral questions of our time (considering how it has brought to the world economy into its worst position in 80 years). Exploiting a broken patent system to gain ludicrous patents to use to stifle competition is as much a cause and/or symptom of the insane push for profit regardless of cost or merit. I doubt very much that anyone thought patents would simply become one vast extortion racket.