Slashdot Mirror
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!"
Abstract
A method and system for correctly and precisely placing a reasonable sized and digestible material inside the human mouth without death or injury to the consumer. This patent produces a new novel approach to the problems humans face in locating food in front of them and successfully placing it betwixt their teeth without injury to eye, nose or throat. The fact that the location of the food in front of them may or may not be immediately known inside their brain until they cast their eyes upon it establishes the validity of this patent.
Claims
Prepare to starve.
My work here is dung.
"obtaining delivery information for a gift from one or more information sources other than the gift giver and recipient"
Hey, if they have truly figured out a way to determine who I am sending a gift to without asking me or the person receiving the gift I would say that is worthy of a patent. All other retailers will be stuck actually asking you where you want your stuff mailed and who has the time to enter all that info?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't; I'm holding off to hear more arguments.
The submitter and at least one other poster are convinced that it's not at some obvious level, and I guess I'm missing the basis for that. So here are my questions:
1) Did you read the patent claims?
2) Do you know of anyone in the history of online shopping that has done the thigns the patent claims cover?
My answers: Yes I did; and No, I honestly haven't.
Lack of prior art alone doesn't prove something to be patentable, but if (as submitter applies) there is nothing novel about this patent, then I would be surprised to see we'd gone this far with online shopping and never seen it. Remember that just because something is novel, doesn't mean it doesn't "seem obvious" after someone has pointed it out...
It just occurs to me that, like so many other things, the government is simply incompetent at patents. They aren't like copyrights where you basically do the equivalent of a diff() between two works and come to a conclusion nor or they like trademarks which are also similiarly easy to evaluate.
People talk of fixing the patent system, but is it any fix at all? The really good stuff seems to be always "proprietary" and hidden anyway, and the goal of patent was to open knowledge in exchange for limited time monopolies - well, considering that society is different and much more fluid now, that you're hardly in a secretive guild, let alone one company your entire life, do patents satisfy the original purpose anymore?
And if they don't, why keep it around? Is it becoming too big a drag on commerce? I'm really curious what proponents have to say, because slashdot does tend to get one sided on issues.
That's not prior art at all. The patent is about "obtaining delivery information," not gift ideas or suggestions. A better example would be walking into a store and saying "I'd like to send this widget to my friend Bob who lives on Main Street," the clerk looking up Bob in the phone book and confirming that you meant Bob Smith who lives at 123 Main St, Apt 1, Anytown, Somestate, 12345.
The patent is just about filling in the blanks in the delivery information in case you don't happen to know the gift recipient's ZIP code, apartment number, etc. It's actually an extremely narrow patent, and I've never seen another retailer offer the service. That doesn't mean it's novel and nonobvious, of course, but it passes the laugh test, in my opinion.
The real problem here is I have no idea what is being patented. Since /. patent-related headlines and summaries are always false and misleading, this posting just makes me wonder what Amazon has actually patented. It would be interesting to know, but since neither the headline nor the summary of the article contains any factual information about the patent that could be used to form a rational judgement about the novelty of the subject matter there's really no point in discussing it.
Since it's Amazon--assuming the summary has the assignee correct--the patent probably has something to do with online sales, but I wonder what? I just wish there was some way of figuring that out without digging down into the USPTO site myself, which I can't be bothered to do because all it will tell me is that a patent has been granted on something that might actually be kind of innovative. At least, that's what's always happened in the past when I've bothered to contribute to the /. community by trying to inform people about how the (badly flawed) American patent system actually works.
If we knew what had been patented, people might be able to present prior art, but since we know nothing about what has been patented there really isn't any point in talking about it, is there?
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
So all of you owe me $599 per use.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
I don't know what you mean by "the source is other than giver or receiver"; but since you're comparing it to Santa Clause, I assume you mean the origin of the delivery. Since that is how every catalog or online shopping service works - the source is a warehouse somewhere - there would be a tidal wave of prior art, if that were what the patent covers. But it isn't.
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.
The PDF linked by the submitter is the amended Abstract. What legal weight does the Abstract have? NONE.
In fact, the single-page PDF with the amended abstract was to fix the Examiner's object that the abstract was 191 words long. That "wordsmithing magic" is just trimming the length down. It has nothing to do with the Bilski arguments.
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.
And this is two different arguments: inventions that are "performed largely within the human mind" are unpatentable under Bilski, even if they're completely new and non-obvious. In other words, if I invent a brand new type of mathematics that is completely unknown to the world, it's unpatentable because it's just done in your mind. It's not that it's not "novel".
So, essentially, the submitter has tried to claim that the attorney's fixing the length of the abstract, which bears no legal weight whatsoever and is merely for use in searching patent databases, somehow solves any question of patentability and novelty. And that's just wrong, and stupid.
Now, what did Amazon really say regarding the Bilski rejection? They amended the claims to include a server computer, which means they're tied to a specific machine, under the Bilski test. You can't do the method in your head unless you've got a web server installed in there.
Incidentally, as I explained above, this has nothing to do with whether something is novel or not obvious - this is just about "can you do it in your head"? Novelty is an entirely different question, and one that Amazon got around with further amendments to narrow the claims and additional arguments.
Also, this is the law as it currently stands. The Supreme Court will likely clarify the Bilski test in a few months, but currently, that's the test. So don't bitch at me about how a server is a generic computing device or how any computer method is still really just a mathematical algorithm. I'm just pointing out that the submitter's "they changed the abstract and that somehow convinced the USPTO that it's novel!" is completely, entirely, absolutely WRONG.
Ball's in your court.
"Your turn." Standard English.
Balls in your court.
A judge is alone at her bench when the handsome young lawyer walks in. Bow-chicka-bow-wow!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
...Amazon serves North Pole with cease and desist order.
Santa Claus counters with: Method for gift allocation by means of naughty/nice behavioral data mining.
Have gnu, will travel.