Slashdot Mirror
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
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
So... the patent office (ie, government bureaucrats) are incompetent (or possibly the summary is wrong) and that proves all billionaires are crooks?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.
No. It's all the fault of the bankers. Do try to keep your scapegoats straight.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"A vast majority of USPTO decisions are right"
[citation needed]
http://rocknerd.co.uk
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."
Bezos already has a find precedent for stupid patents. As long as companies are required to license use of the "one click" purchase, anything submitted by Amazon should be thoroughly scrutinized.
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
If somebody just sends the Patent Office this Slashdot article, then they would be obligated to withdraw the patent;
Someone from the Patent Office would actually read the claims rather than relying on theodp's fabrications and misrepresentations and would conclude that the patent has merit.
How is it that Amazon still keeps on getting away with these illegal patents?
Illegal? Are you theodp posting as an Anonymous Coward now?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
No, congress needs to fix what the courts have broken. The ability to patent software and business processes is strictly the result of court decisions.
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?
Actually, I don't believe that the "vast majority of USPTO decisions are right".
I just had to go through a set of patents issued to a particular company, in a domain that I'm quite "practiced" in for the last 30 years. There was a complete lack of innovation in any of those patents.
I have several patents, and I am amazed to this day, that some dork in the USPTO thought they all should be granted.
Most patents are filed as legal weapons, hoping that some naive fool within the USPTO will grant the weapon. The weapons are used either as offensive or defensive weapons, depending on the culture of the organization that the patent will be assigned to. High tech companies incent people to push up "patentable" ideas to the "IP Department". Then based on the resources of the company, they will spend the $20K+ to drive them through the system. The "inventor" gets paid incremental amounts of money as it goes through the stages until finally granted. We are talking 4-5 figures. On top of that, people get raises and promotions based solely on the number of US7xxxxx numbers they have collected, whether they have anything to do with their job, their projects or even the industry they are in.
The definition of a "Patentable" idea from a corporate IP department point of view has NOTHING to do with innovation or relavence. It is all about the potential grade of the weapon, the potential enemy, the cost of paying the USPTO to grant the weapon, and whether the USPTO examiners will be stupid enough to grant them. Major corporations will use their "Pocket" Senators or Rep, to put pressure on the USPTO to expediate and get dedicated USPTO just to service their "weapon" requests. It is all about whether the "Patent" can screw up a competitor, or neutralize an attack based on another "bogus" patent.
Every metric is about # of patents granted, from USPTO, to how "GREAT" US R&D is, etc. There is NO incentive in any part of the system to stop the issuing of a obvious (aka stupid) patent. Get a patent and then go to one of those Stupid Idiot Judges in west Texas and watch what happens.
Now one could debate the definition "Obvious". If it means that it immediately" comes to mind without a second of thought, then someone could have gotten a patent on using a blunt object to break up ice in a ice maker when the cubes refreezes together. So should we go to 10 seconds, 10 minutes, 10 hours? Too many patents that I have read, are about some idea/use case where all the effort was in filling out the "IP Departments Patent Disclosure Statement, find a few "friends" to sell and share in the IP Department windfall, and push something into Corporate Patent machine.
Too many patents are ideas; they are never implemented by the inventor. "Inventors" convince some hick sitting in a USPTO office that 'Diagram 400" will work, and voila they get a US74xxxxxxx. When real people that have a real problem to solve, they think about for a while, and after 10 seconds, 10 minutes, 10 hours come up with an approach and then ACTUALLY make that damn thing work. They have no need to look to see if there is anything in the USPTO patent files; they can figure out an approach without any "teaching" outside of their education and previous experience.
In my experience, the USPTO has a bunch of examiners that are NOT practiced in the art, because if they were worth a crap, they would be working in industry, building things that have value and making 2x their salary (and that is outside of the Patent windfall.) They don't know innovation nor invention from a thought. Because they don't practice, they don't know what is obvious. The whole system is a perversion.
So I can not accept your premise that the "vast majority of USPTO decisions are right".
I'm quite convinced that there are "inventors" that have done great innovation things and those inventions desire patents, but in my experience, in my field, the "vast majority of USPTO decisions are BS"
Really depends on how a court interprets obviousness there. The airlines have prior art for predictive pricing of airplane tickets, but that's not precisely predictive pricing of metered computer resources. Predictive pricing of electricity might be another example, if that's used anywhere (as opposed to pricing based on bidding through an exchange). But to use those to invalidate this patent, you'd have to argue basically: given that predictive pricing is well-known, and given that metering computer resources is well known, metering computer resources with predictive pricing, even if novel, is an obvious combination to someone skilled in the art. Typically the USPTO hasn't made the bar to non-obviousness very high, though.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
No, it's like expecting the Coast Guard to guard the coast.
I see no reason why it is unreasonable to expect the USPTO to correctly do the one and only thing they exist for.
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.