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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 ----
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.
No, but you can create a verb from a verb.
gift/gift/
Noun: A thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present: "a gift shop".
Verb: Give (something) as a gift, esp. formally or as a donation or bequest: "the company gifted 2,999 shares to a charity".
I'd be more worried if I were Steam, to be honest. I hope their prior art was taken into account.
1. pick a daily activity
2. put the word "electronic" in front of it
3. file for patent
4. profit
Nice retort. You are truly gifted.
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.
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.
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.
God, your comment is so misinformed I want to explode.
FFS, please STFU until you educate yourself on what you are commenting about.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
It won't affect Steam at all. With Steam you buy the gift and it is immediately given to the recipient's account. There's no denial or acceptance and the charge is immediate. Amazon's patent is for a system that allows the gift recipient to deny the gift and not allow payment processing to go through until the gift was accepted or to permit the person giving the gift to be able to withdraw it before it was accepted.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork