USPTO's 1-Click Indecisiveness Enters 5th Year

theodp writes "When it comes to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent, the USPTO is an agency that just can't say no. Or yes. It's now been 4+ years since actor Peter Calveley submitted prior art that triggered a USPTO reexamination of the 1-Click patent. Still no 'final answer' from the USPTO, although an Examiner recently issued yet another Final Rejection of 1-Click related claims (pdf), admonishing Amazon for making him 'sift through hundreds of submitted references to identify what applicant allegedly has already submitted,' which he complained is 'adding an undue burden' to his workload. Looks like Bezos' 2000 pledge of 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office' isn't working out so well in practice. Not too surprising — after all, Amazon did inform Congress that it 'has modified its specific [patent] reform proposals from the year 2000.'"

Comments

documenting it on http://en.swpat.org

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

As one of the classic cases, I've been gathering some info already about this:

• Amazon's one-click shopping patent
• Amazon's gift ordering patent
• Amazon

...but I still maintain that the real harm of software patents is that they block access to standards. Compatibility is essential for writing functional software, so some people having a legal veto on others being compatible is a big social problem.

swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.