Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

USPTO's 1-Click Indecisiveness Enters 5th Year

Posted by timothy on from the one-puff-candles-on-the-cake dept.

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.'"

12 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Simple solution ... by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Paging Captain Obvious: If you can't figure it out in 5 years, then the application is obviously too vague, or otherwise defective, to be granted a patent!

    Gee, do I have to do ALL your thinking for you?

    1. Re:Simple solution ... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's because Amazon has patented 1-click patenting as well and they won't let anyone use it.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. None of this would be an issue ... by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... if the USPTO had a '1-click' accept/reject option for their patent/trademark approval systems. Unfortunately either Jeff Bezos or Peter Calveley beat them to it.

  3. Bureaucracies... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The safest thing for any bureaucracy to do is nothing at all. You can't get blamed for making a bad decision, and you get to claim that you don't have enough resources to do the job, thus vying for an increased budget next year.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    1. Re:Bureaucracies... by ae1294 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wow, that's insightful and explains 90% of our entire government in two sentence... You just need to add one more line to explain why they pass absurd laws and your training will be complete...

      and thus you will be promptly shot...

    2. Re:Bureaucracies... by Overzeetop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh, that's easy. You pass laws so that decisions don't ever have to be made. The "perfect" law is one which exactly embodies the intent and leaves no room for interpretation. In doing so, you relieve the bureaucracy of any responsibility or culpability. Mission accomplished.

      (the fact that one cannot successfully legislate without unintentional - or intentional - loopholes provides the ongoing necessity of further legislation)

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    3. Re:Bureaucracies... by lessthanjakejohn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I would say this is in direct disagreement with your previous statement.

      Congress typically passes vague laws so that the responsibility of the effect of the law is lessened or more easily deflected.

      It is up to the courts to reject laws as too vague and require them to have more specificity.

      Laws would be much less absurd if they left no room for interpretation. #1 this would lead to a fear in passing laws and #2 this would reduce their breadth

  4. Waiting on Bilksi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    USPTO is waiting on Bilski. It will come soon and state whether a business method (and not software as is commonly said) is valid. USPTO doesn't want to have to re-decide this afterward, and only if business method patents are approved of will it get approved.

    1. Re:Waiting on Bilksi by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not really clear to me from looking at the file wrapper exactly why the USPTO hasn't sent out another office action yet. Maybe, as you say, they are waiting on Bilski (a decision will probably be out around April or May of this year). In the meantime, Amazon keeps filing more references for the examiners to consider, including as recently as 20 January 2010. The re-exam folks get to spend a lot more time with their applications than regular examiners do, so they may just be going over these references very carefully.

      From what I can tell, though, the examiners had last indicated to Amazon's lawyers that a relatively minor amendment (which Amazon later filed) would make the rejected claims allowable (some of the claims were already indicated as being allowable, or "confirmed", since it's a re-exam, without amendment). That may have changed since this indication was made (as part of an interview). As they say, it ain't over until the fat examiner sings.

  5. Re:applicants should pay the USPTO for expenses by shentino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's only an incentive for examiners to drag their heels to rake in more in fees.

    It would also ensure yet another gateway open only to the rich.

    I'd prefer a merit system, where both companies and examiners who are involved in either requesting or granting a patent that is later invalidated lose brownie points.

    And I think that companies submitting frivolous patent applications should get spanked.

  6. Re:Don't pay royalties to Amazon: Force them to su by nns6561 · · Score: 3, Informative

    It probably wouldn't speed up the process. First, just because some company implemented 1-click, does not force Amazon to sue. Unlike trademarks, where the mark has to be enforced to prevent delusion, patent infringement can be ignored. RedHat has even gone so far as to publicly state they won't enforce their patents in certain situations. Second, even if it was brought to court, the judge could decide to stay the case pending the decision from the USPTO. This sometimes happens because the judge doesn't want to waste their time or effort when the USPTO is already looking at the case.

  7. Re:The USPTO... by nns6561 · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's not what the patent attorneys say. Most patent attorneys complain that the USPTO won't issue even completely new inventions. The statistics confirm that the USPTO is far from just a rubber stamp. >90% of all patent applications get rejected after their initial submission. It's typical that a patent only gets issued after a few rounds of prosecution.