Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Patents Electronic Gifting
theodp writes "Simply giving your mother an e-book for her birthday could constitute patent infringement now that the USPTO's gone and awarded Amazon.com a patent on the 'Electronic Gifting' of items such as music, movies, television programs, games, or books. BusinessInsider speculates that the patent may be of concern to Facebook, which just dropped a reported $80 million on social gift-giving app maker Karma Science."
*yawn* if this gets awarded, it will fall in court the first time its used against someone.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How does this affect me? can I still gift through these services or will they stop existing?
This patent abuse has gone too far. It's time to revoke all trivial patents as they are obstructing the innovation they were designed to help.
Wouldn't they have to patent a specific process? Otherwise I could just patent "an electronic device that turns on."
I know, I know. I must be new here.
nobody just pattented breathing while being somehow interacting with a computer, or "doing something trivial using a computer"...
there is really no excuse for pattents anymore...
Even if pattents would not be the worthless piece of skuldugery it became, I cannot understand how this did pass the "obvious to a trained practicant of the art" filter.
At this point my only hope is that in the near future the joblessness in the "first world" will hit 80% and the people finally realize that the situation is just unbearable...
and that all our creativity is stolen by:
- monetisation of education
- confiscation of real estate by the financial system
- destruction of invention by outsourcing and brain mushing marketing
"Gift" is not a verb. You cannot create a gerund from a noun.
hasn't valve been doing this for about a decade?
Would I be allowed to patent handing a gift to someone in person, and then take out a seperate patent on sending someone a gift through snail mail? What about e-mail? I was giving gifts electronically myself as early as 2003.
There's also a part on delaying payment until the gift is accepted - but again, is this really innovative? It's called "COD" in every other non-electronic market, and I think that Pizza Hut and all the other chains figured it out sometime in 1970s, and they weren't the ones who came up with it...I'm having trouble finding the origin of the idea easily, because it was obvious common sense in the 1950s. No, this is not new. What the hell, USPTO.
Giving gifts to others is something people have done for thousands of years. Doing the same thing electronically? No different, unless there is some ingenious new mechanism being used. -------- If that isn't the case, this patent is worth nothing, and will likely be overturned at the first opportunity.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Looking at how they describe their process of "e-gifting," I have to imagine this method was used somewhere, anywhere else first. I'm not up on patent law, but I thought you could essentially overrule a patent as long as you can prove you came up with it first.
How in the hell did they actually get something like this thru the patent office? If we just look around and come up with some every day thing everyone does and patent it... we can retire.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
I'd be more worried if I were Steam, to be honest. I hope their prior art was taken into account.
because why come up with something original and unobvious right?
1. pick a daily activity
2. put the word "electronic" in front of it
3. file for patent
4. profit
A Dan Brown [ or Insert your own Author here ] e-book would be a punishment and not a gift. I call patent for punishment e-book giving.
Thank you USPTO for gifting another piece of my mind to someone else. If I sell you the moon, does it then belong to you, or are you just an idiot for paying for it?
Nintendo has had this service for years. You've been able to send games as gifts on Wii Shop Channel for quite a while., when the released the console, if not shortly after. Actually, I just checked, and the patent was filed September 30, 2008, which was well after the release of the Nintendo Wii, and Wikipedia states that the gift feature was introduced on December 10, 2007. Well before the patent was filed. This isn't some kind of prior art that nobody knew about. This is something very obvious that the patent office should have seen as a reason to reject the patent.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I don't want to live on this (electronic) planet anymore.
The patent is for a system where you can setup condition on the gifts you are given and before they are shipped allows you to change them, even sending you notification on what the original item was.
For example, person X gives you a some new book, you have previously setup a condition that all gifts get converted to gift cards. You receive notification that they sent you the book and you can then use the gift card to purchase anything you want.
I guess it saves some time and money of shipping the product back but who is really going to use it?
There is one unusual twist: The patent describes the ability for the giver to delay payment until the recipient has accepted the digital gift, or cancel the order (and avoid payment) if the gift hasn’t been accepted and downloaded by the recipient after a certain period of time.
The FA goes on to say:
However, rest of the patent describes ideas that will seem less than novel to most people who use the Internet.
... and, so what? If the patent describes something unusual and nonobvious, then the fact that it also describes computers, or the Internet, or TCP, or anything else is irrelevant, provided the patent claims - the only part with any legal weight - recite that unusual, nonobvious bit.
Here's the method claim:
16. A computer-implemented method to enable selection of an electronically transferrable item that is electronically deliverable from a network resource to be presented as a gift, the computer-implemented method comprising:
obtaining a selection of an electronically transferrable item that is electronically deliverable from a network resource to be presented as a gift to a recipient from a giver;
generating a gift notification to be presented to the recipient, wherein the gift notification includes an access mechanism to enable the recipient to accept the gift as a one-time delivery without requiring the recipient to hold an account with the network resource;
determining whether the gift has been accepted using the access mechanism;
when the determination is that the gift has not been accepted, enabling the giver to cancel the gift such that no payment is processed; and
when the determination is that the gift has been accepted, initiating payment by a payment mechanism associated with the giver.
Those last two steps are that "unusual twist" that the article admits is in there.
Incidentally, if you want to invalidate a patent by showing sufficient prior art exists, you have to show prior art exists for each and every claim element. Not that gifts exist, or that Christmas exists, or that something with a similar title or abstract exists. To invalidate this patent, you need to find a reference, published or in use prior to Sept. 30, 2008, that enabled a giver to cancel a gift if the gift has not been accepted, or would initiate payment if the gift had been accepted. Most systems would bill first, deliver second, and if the recipient declined, you had a long fight for a refund ahead of you.
From the article:
"Maybe this stuff seemed innovative back in 2008, when Amazon applied for the patent. But four years later, it reads like a case study in the obvious."
A patent will issue unless there is PRIOR ART. If the invention was innovative in 2008, then the issuance of the patent was proper. The fact that it may be obvious NOW is not relevant; the question is whether it was novel when it was FILED.
This is patent law 101. Give me a break.
PayPal have a payment option called "gift" which is a payment method not intended for purchasing items as the sender cannot file a "item not received" type complaint against the recipient to get the money back.
And everyone knows that money is one of the best gifts to receive, so are Amazon going to go after PayPal? That would be funny, it's not like they're small companies..
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
... that regular everyday people regard copyright and patents as a pathetic joke and ignore them?
How do you get a patent on something your competitors have been doing for years?
1. old patent/idea
2. same thing, but *on a computer*
3. same thing, but *on a mobile device and location-based*
4. ???
5. profit!
Prior art is only one test. Novel is not sufficient, only necessary. Obviousness to a practitioner of the art should also invalidate a patent. This is a variation on layaway departments. You choose an item as a gift and the store holds it for you until later to pay for it. If you choose to not give the gift (or the recipient says they don't want it) you don't pay for it.
The only thing that is somewhat novel is that the acceptance of the item is split into a two-factor approval - you (at purchase) and the recipient (at acceptance). Traditionally, Amazon - and most larger online retailers - will allow you to select your item (your gift), then input your credit card information, then accept the item (click the purchase button), and ONLY WHEN THE ITEM SHIPS is your credit card charged. You can even go in an decline your item (your "gift") at any time before it ships and you (the giver) will not be charged for the item.
This is a "neat idea" not a novel invention.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Steam has also been doing this for a long time. You buy a game and send it to another Steam user. Preexisting art should not be difficult to produce.
prior art be buggered... these crap software patents should not be getting granted in the first fscking place...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
People gift me hats in TF2 and have for years.
I'm going to patent the process of applying for patents! Seriously, what is this madness? It's not like I needed further encouragement to vote for the Pirate Party.
SCOTUS recently sent a patent case back to appeals court for a re-review based on their Prometheus Labs V Mayo Clinic decision. The concept is that a patent which lists a natural law and then states 'apply the law' is not valid, and I think the SCOTUS's intent is for the appeals court to extend this logic to business models and other such unpatentable ideas. One cannot patent the concept of giving a gift to another person, and thus one should not be able to patent the concept of giving a gift to another person online.
"Simply giving your mother an ebook"... Ok. The patent is absurd. In fact, it's absurd enough that we don't have to add this sensationalist FUD.
This sounds like the average Joe is involved in patent infringement, when in fact it's the company's website that violates a patent. Additionally, there's no need to add "your mother" to the mix. It makes it more dramatic and sinister for sure, but please, drop the hyperbole.
""Simply giving your mother an e-book for her birthday could constitute patent infringement "
once again, someone has no clue how the patent system works, and everyone will use this chance to show how ignorant they are of the patent system.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
When my parents sent me money they would do it with an electronic transfer. It was certainly a gift so how is this patent novel?
Can't you just stop patent bomb everything and let patents cover "real" new stuff?
Well, email, but it's just whistling on the phone. Sort of.
a Slashdot post that doesn't overreact to patents.
Said post will contain an accurate analysis of a subject patent, correctly pointing out how the general public and media hype might misinterpret the key provisions of the patent claims.
This one is a slam dunk, there is no prior art.
Seems to me like the time to go out and patent my method of not charging for "non-gift" purchased items until delivery, and allowing of canceling the order prior to delivery.
Prior art is only one test. Novel is not sufficient, only necessary. Obviousness to a practitioner of the art should also invalidate a patent.
Respectfully, the term you're thinking of is not "prior art" but "anticipatory prior art" - it's okay, most people don't understand the distinction. Anticipatory prior art is a single reference that discloses each and every element of the claimed invention, showing that the invention is not novel. Prior art is merely anything in the art that's prior. TCP is prior art for Bittorrent. A Model T is prior art for a Hybrid SUV. Etc.
Why this is important is because there is already a second test for obviousness: a claimed invention is obvious if one or more prior art references, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element of the claims. You still need to find those prior art references, though.
Why can't a practitioner in the art simply be able to look at the patent and, without any evidence or prior art references, be able to say, "it's obvious"? For the same reason a judge can't look at a defendant up for murder, and without any evidence, witnesses, or even a body, and say "he's guilty": due process. Both are judicial decisions (quasi-judicial in the case of the PTO, but it applies), and therefore, are subject to the requirements of due process: evidence supporting a conclusion, a fair right to be heard, etc.
This is a variation on layaway departments. You choose an item as a gift and the store holds it for you until later to pay for it. If you choose to not give the gift (or the recipient says they don't want it) you don't pay for it.
Unlike layaway, however, the item is delivered to the recipient. If you hadn't paid, a store's layaway department would be pretty upset.
Here is an intersting Google Talk about The Patent Polution Problem
Some intersting statistics about patents:
The revierer spends only 19 hours for each patent to review it, find prior-art, etc. The USPTO makes 10 times as much money if they grant the patent (apply free+issue fee+maintant fee) as if they deny the patent (only apply fee).
That means that of the best of the best patents, 30% are prior-art and 40% are obvios. That tells a lot of the quality of US patents.
Of the patents granted by the USPO, how many are granted by other juristictions:
That means that less then half of the patents granted in the US are granted in Europe and Japan.
In summary: USTPO: is a rubber stamp organization, whose only role is to grant as much patents as possible.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute