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USPTO Grants Bezos Patent On '60s-Era Chargebacks
theodp writes "Chargebacks on computing resources are certainly nothing new, dating to the '60s. But five decades later, the USPTO has deemed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' invention — Dynamic Pricing of Web Services Utilization — worthy of a new patent. From the patent: 'Utilization of a storage resource may be measured in terms of a quantity of data stored (e.g., bytes, megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), etc.) per unit of time (e.g., second, day, month, etc.). Similarly, communication bandwidth utilization may be measured in terms of a quantity of data transmitted per unit of time (e.g., megabits per second). Processing resource utilization may be measured as an aggregate number of units of processing effort (e.g., central processing unit (CPU) cycles, transactions, etc.) utilized, or as a rate of processing effort utilization per unit of time (e.g., CPU cycles or transactions per second).' Sound familiar, Greyglers? Another example of why it's not wise to grant software patents when people don't know much about computer history."
There's a barrel load of stuff I've forgotten. Should have patented it while I could.
WAIT!!! Maybe I still can.
Go on, get off my lawn!
FFS, someone should take a hatchet to the US PTO. Don't they need to reduce the budget or something?
Deleted
is Bezo's offering to pay us for charge-chargebacks?
So who is more brainless? The patent office for granting this abomination? Or the person at Amazon who simply typed up a description of a common computing paradigm from 40 years ago?
I don't really understand how this is patentable. It is essentially a patent covering 'charging for computer time' or 'charging for computer resources'? The credibility of patents is eroded day by day, diluted into pure paperwork used for litigation fodder.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
USPTO is only a small organization - and there is only so much they can do. It is like expecting the coast guard to have the expertise to stop the BP leak.
A vast majority of USPTO decisions are right - and occasionally some are rotten. Those rotten one can be appealed by companies planning to use the technologies - esp. if the prior art is so obvious (and actually is relevant). Else, the USPTO will have to hire 200-400% more people, and take 5 times as long, to award patents.
Finally - Software patents are not all bad. If you find a new way to compress/decompress video - that is patentable. It is just some stupid business processes (like this one above) that needs to outside the realm of patents...... but that is a decision for the US Supreme court
IMHO this is just further proof that no billionaire deserves the money. They're all crooks, sometimes within the law, but still crooks.
I thought we were meant only to call ideas inventions when they were ideas that are not obvious, and would challenge someone practiced in whatever discipline to come up with by themselves?
If somebody just sends the Patent Office this Slashdot article, then they would be obligated to withdraw the patent; thus nullifying Amazon's incredible ability to claim ownership of common sense business processes and methods that anyone can think of.
How is it that Amazon still keeps on getting away with these illegal patents?
The patent is actually for utilizing a predictive process to change pricing based upon expected future load. Still not necessarily new, but very different than the summary implies.
It doesn't matter that the idea is old - if the implementation of the idea is new.
Let's look at a claim:
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: provisioning for an enterprise an enterprise-side web services computing resource to accommodate a given level of the enterprise's anticipated utilization; an enterprise-side computer system of the enterprise dynamically predicting the enterprise's own utilization of the enterprise-side web services computing resource that is expected to occur during a given interval of time; dependent upon said dynamically predicted utilization, said enterprise-side computer system setting a price to be charged for utilization of said web services computing resource by an entity other than the enterprise occurring during said given interval of time; and said enterprise-side computer system electronically providing said price to a client-side computer system for presentation to a customer associated with the client-side computer system as the price said customer will be charged for utilization of said web services computing resource during said given interval of time, wherein the client-side computer system is external to the enterprise.
WTF? That's not an innovative solution to a problem. That's not even a solution to a problem - that's a description of the problem itself. They just patented anything that is a solution to the problem.
This patent doesn't help other people implement any technology. The whole patent doesn't even contain any source code. If this document were released to the public, and had never been submitted as a patent, the world would be no better off than if it had never been written. Nobody would even care that it existed.
This isn't an invention. This is worthless junk.
Worked there. Done that. Got the T-shirt. G56
Milk the system for all it's worth. You never know when it's going to collapse on you. It's as predictable as any Pavlov experiment. I've gotten to where I don't give a shit anymore. If this is what people want, then who the hell am I to complain?
Expect a patent on the biological exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
None of this is going to matter to me after my patents are granted for
-combining oxygen and a combustable material through the application of heat resulting in the production of heat and light.
-a circular object through which a shaft is placed. The shaft may or may not support a load which will then be able to travel across a surface with out coming in contact with it.
-combining oxygen and hydrogen in to create a fluid useful for sustaining light. Also good for stopping the first patent.
So why can't this just be overturned instantly with this proof of prior art? The problem with overturning even obvious patents is that it is so GD expensive in terms of money and time that very bad patents are allowed to remain standing until some idiot tries to enforce them.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wow, reading that PLATO link has got me feeling all nostalgic, and sad that I wasn't a part of it. I was only 1-year-old. It sounds magical.
It also reminded me of how much I hate the locked-down mentality of certain modern computing companies. These companies only exist because of open systems and people tinkering, hacking, experimenting... and now they seek to deny those opportunities to new generations. Great shame.
Wow, I hadn't thought of 'Kilo-Core Ticks" (or similar measures) for decades (back when I cared what they cost).
Maybe only people who have been in the field over 40 years should be able to file patents -- at least they might recognize crap like this and be too embarrassed to actually apply for a patent like this.
Perhaps we need to enable 'reverse patent trolls'. If someone patents something and the patent is later invalidated, the person (company) who made the application must pay the challenger's legal expenses. In addition, the entity filing for the application must pay the challenger, with interest, all revenue derived from the patent (both licensing fees paid to them and the added value derived from the patent in their own products - such as 'one-click' during the life of the patent). In addition, the entity applying for the patent would have to pay back (with interest) all licensing fees they were paid back to the people who paid them (yes, this is double!).
People might think a little more about filing bogus patents with a system like this.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
The patent is actually for utilizing a predictive process to change pricing based upon expected future load. Still not necessarily new, but very different than the summary implies.
I think the airlines may have some prior art.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Surprised no one has mentioned In re Bilski yet. The SCOTUS Bilski decision will likely come out on Monday. This may have an effect on the validity of these claims, as well as other software patents, under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Way back around 1972, I worked on a CDC time-share system. They charged 4 cents per CPU second, 1 cent per PRU (640 characters) transferred to/from disk, and 0.2 cents per kiloword-second of memory used.
Except after 5PM, when the rates went down 50%.
Luckily I worked for the computer center, so the long assembly times ( 5 minutes ) were charged against a funny-money account. Still it was humbling that one missing comma and I'd wasted about 20 minutes of real time and $12, when $12 was real money.
Did anyone actually read the patent?
The summary author is an idiot and clearly doesn't understand the patent or simply didn't read it.
They didn't patent measuring and charging for computer resources.
They patented predicting resource utilization at a particular point in the future and varying charging at that time.
They basically patented the ability to charge users hosting services with them based on response time and performance, they implemented this capability by predicting loads at a point in the future.
Sounds like they don't want to charge by the RAM/disk usage/CPU time etc anymore but would rather charge based on guaranteed performance.
Also this isn't a software patent at all. They effectively patented a business model.
If you want to argue the merits of that, fine, lets at least stick to the real issue.
From the patent: 'Utilization of a storage resource may be measured in terms of a quantity of data stored (e.g., bytes, megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), etc.) per unit of time (e.g., second, day, month, etc.). Similarly, communication bandwidth utilization may be measured in terms of a quantity of data transmitted per unit of time (e.g., megabits per second). Processing resource utilization may be measured as an aggregate number of units of processing effort (e.g., central processing unit (CPU) cycles, transactions, etc.) utilized, or as a rate of processing effort utilization per unit of time (e.g., CPU cycles or transactions per second).' Sound familiar, Greyglers?
It should, since it's part of a description about the art generally. I mean, if you're going to quote mine in a biased effort to show that the patent is invalid, why not go for this:
For example, in some embodiments computing resource 100 may include tangible resources such as computer systems (e.g., standalone or rack-mounted systems), storage devices (e.g., magnetic/optical disk storage, tape storage, etc.), wired or wireless network communication devices (e.g., Local Area Network (LAN)/Wide Area Network (WAN) devices and/or media), input/output devices, or other types of computing devices.
Oh, no, they just patented every computer system, storage device, and network!
I mean, heck... if you're spreading FUD, why not go all the way?
Hearing the stories of how well that worked in businesses and universities 30 years ago....good luck and have fun with that!
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
A Futures Market in Computer Time, Communications of the ACM, June 1968: "An auction method is described for allocating computer time that allows the price of computer time to fluctuate with the demand...if the computer ever is idle, its price automatically becomes attractively low."
I think this coming Monday is the last day of the current SCOTUS session, and is expected to be the day that they give a ruling on the Bilski case. If we wish with all our might, we may hear on Monday that software and algorithms are not considered patentable material.
I think the current patent situation is a kin to a patent land grab. It is little about valid patents, but the fact they are constrained to the US(Thru the USPTO).
It is cleary state sponsored.
Said it before, and I'll say it again: Patents will be the new oil resource, and wars will be fought over them in the future.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
"!They basically patented the ability to charge users hosting services with them based on response time and performance, they implemented this capability by predicting loads at a point in the future."
So the fact that my energy utility did that alread yback in the 80, invalidate that patent ? They charged me for used electricity, but also predicted how much I would use in the future based on my previous usage, and then each month I would get that to pay for the next year. Once inn 2 years they would give me back/make me pay the difference, and then use a new prediction.
Sounds like we need an Intellectual Fraud law. Charge both the filer (the person, not the corp) and the clerk that approved it. Put a stop to this kind of crap real quick.
when I was a computer operator, we charged departments for CPU time, magnetic tape, paper, and hard disk space. IBM provided hooks into their mainframe OS for recording resource utilization. How Amazon can patent this is beyond me. What's next? Patenting breathing?
Ask Me About... The 80's!
This article has inspired me to patent "a method where an employer removes an employee from payroll, and relieves said employee of all duties". I have no doubt it will be granted, at which point I will either have guaranteed job security, or a guaranteed early retirement.
I already have the patent on "reading something and then patenting it before the other guy does", so don't even think about stealing my idea.
My webcomic
The Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war and to create patents. The constitution does not require of Congress either of these things.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Everybody should know by now it's not wise to listen to Slashdot when it comes to intellectual property law. If Slashdot knew anything about IP law, they'd know it hardly matters what the patent application says in the introduction. Pretty much all that matters is what's written in the claims.
Patents are structured from general terms to specific terms.
A patent is only valid for those specific term, not those general terms.
Why do Slashdot editors always, consistently, every time, quote the general terms? To make people look stupid?
Plus you get to say you do the same job as Einstein.
Write Only Memory: Another pointless blog.
garglers?
to extend his patent for charging people different prices for the same book depending on how much he thought they'd agree to pay...
go amazon, defender of frivolous patents
is a 1 click, mens bath house chargeback, buttfucker
It seems to me that there is a sort of - dare one say conspiracy? No, lets call it a collusion - it seems to me that there has been certain elements in the SW industry that have silently propagated the idea that "innovation" is really the same as "invention", which is actually nonsense, as far as I can see.
Invention, that's when somebody takes a carbon fibre, sends a current through it and gets the idea for the light-bulb. Innovation, by comparison, is when somebody takes the same light-bulb, paints it pink, and calls it "The Romantic Ambience Lamp"; not something I feel merits a patent.
The USPTO examiners have only a few hours to research prior art and make a decision to grant a patent. The backlog of applications is years long currently so the rush to review and grant will let a lot of low quality patents through. Article One Partners is a company working to improve patent validity for granted patents. Peer 2 Patent is another project to help improve the information available to examiners. Both are great projects to get involved with if you're interested in the current patent mess.