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Amazon Patents the Milkman
theodp writes "Got Milk? Got Milk Delivery Patent? Perhaps unfamiliar with the concept of the Milkman, the USPTO has granted Amazon.com a patent for the Recurring Delivery of Products , an idea five Amazon inventors came up with to let customers schedule product deliveries to their doorsteps or mailboxes on a recurring basis, without needing to submit a new order every time. 'For instance,' the filing explains, 'a customer may request delivery of one bunch of bananas every week and two gallons of milk every two weeks.'"
Newspapers, magazines, book-of-the-month, all these are products that are delivered at regularly scheduled intervals. But these are old media, so it makes sense that Amazon doesn't know about them.
"... an idea five Amazon inventors came up with ..."
It took five of them to come up with this brilliance??? Amazon must have some stellar intellects...
Karma: Bad
Because they can use it to threaten smaller competitors.
The thing is, that this wouldn't be patentable in real life, even when patents first began.
Back then:
"Hey, I want to patent something?"
USPTO: "What?"
"A customer requests a product, not just once, but to have it delivered to them regularly. We keep their names on file and send it out and collect payment at the end of the month."
USPTO: "That's not an invention, that's how you run your business. Fuck off."
Even without considering prior art, this is not an invention.
It's not patentable matter.
Why is USPTO asleep at the switch?
This would fall under "Business method" patents. As for recurring deliveries without reordering, maybe my weekly newspaper should print a story on this "new" business method. They've only been doing this since they started.
35 USC 101: Patentable Subject Matter "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title."
That's the black letter law and has been for quite some time. Not saying it is right, or that the interpretations haven't been vastly overextended, but patents don't cover just inventions.
Oh bother... someone has been futzing with the word process.
There is an apparent corruption of the word process that confused a physical process with a logical process. The process for making steel is not the same as a process describing how to manage the making of steel.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.