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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.'"
Jeff Bozos is a chiselling little crook.
What about ice delivery?
You kids with refrigerators stay off my lawn!
Have gnu, will travel.
The USPTO has no signs of life...
Karma: Bad
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.
...I use it so that I get a new pack of socks every 6 months...
Nothing better than coming home from work to a fresh package of socks!
ERMAGHERD SCHOCKS!
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
How many amazon inventors does it take to screw in a light bulb? No one knows, but it takes 5 to figure out how to automatically send you a new one every 6 months.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Did someone at Amazon tell their boss that you can patent the most bullshit things, and they're just seeing what the biggest BS patent they can get is?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Columbia House did this years ago. I know many people get their oil or propane delivered regularly. TFS points out the milkman. Newspapers have been delivered for a long time.
This is a business process, not an invention from what I can tell.
Yet another patent which is a "system and methodology for doing something we've been doing for decades, but with a computer".
Epic fail to the USPTO.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Are Amazon deliberately trying to discredit the USPTO, or even the entire patent system?
This patent fails on so many criteria: prior art, lack of novelty, obvious. If it's granted, it's a crock.
...laura
How nobody else implemented this almost justifies that amazon should get the patent...
Newspapers implemented it a few centuries ago. If you subscribe to a newspaper, it is delivered to your door, and you get a discount off the newsstand price. You can also vary the schedule. For instance you can get it delivered everyday, or just on Sunday.
...his ACTUAL goal is to have software patents abolished entirely - while simultaneously protecting his company from others who patent things out of greed and avarice.
This explains why he continually patents the most ridiculously obvious things - it's an effort to eventually (so he hopes) get the non-technical world to realize how absolutely f***ing stupid the software patent system is. Sadly, he appears to think that his efforts need to be even more obvious; ergo, the latest patent.
I'm telling you - GENIUS...
BTW - On a serious note, I'd be embarrassed as an engineer to have my name as 'inventor' on a patent so blatantly f***ing stupid.
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That's what "defensive publication" is for. Any invention that one publishes can't later be patented by someone else.
I'm not arguing that it's a defensible patent, but it's also not patenting what the summary or TFA claims. Here's the #1 core claim of the patent:
In other words, it's a particular implementation of a subscription system that has to include every element in the above list in order to infringe. It would be easy to work around this in implementing a subscription system. It's also not generally how milkmen used to operate. It's also PROBABLY covered by prior art, but whenever I hear "X just patented Y that's stupid LOLOL!" I have to go to the claims, and I usually see that, no, only a particular implementation/method for accomplishing Y is covered.
E pluribus unum
The inventor of that, William Murdoch, actually didn't patent it because James Watt Jr informed him that it wasn't patentable.
James Watt's father, the more famous James Watt of steam engine fame, then went on to steal the idea for himself.
*The* Watt is remembered as the father of the steam engine. His true contribution to history wasn't really technological: He invented patent trolling. Boulton and Watt's firm dominated the industrial revolution by systematically patenting every little detail they could come up with, right down to individual layouts of gears, and then letting the lawyers loose on anyone who dared compete. Far from advancing steam technology, he deliberately held it back, fearful that smaller and more practical engine technology would be disruptive to his highly profitable business manufacturing large stationary engines. Murdoch eventually became a partner in the firm once it passed from Sr to Jr, having established his loyalty both by his skill at invention and his willingness to perform industrial espionage - offering assistance to unsuspecting inventors and smaller steam firms, only so he could gain access to their workshops and later testify in court that he had seen them using mechanisms patented by Watt.
We were used to plentiful of uninformed /. 'news' over the last decade on patents and stuff; when 'filing' and 'granted' was considered the same, effectively, and lots of nonsense, like the contents of the abstract being considered as the underlying idea, or even as the legally binded grant, and much more.
In a nutshell, I expected the same, yet again, and was almost reluctant to even go into the details and actually read the document.
OMG!
It is a patent
It does grant what the summary said
Incredible.!!
There is a comment from AC further up ("Bad summary of patent") stating correctly that it does contain a last minute change as necessity for potential infringement. True. But I can't believe that there is no anticipating document before 2009, where a recurring delivery system of any sorts had a 'last check' of possible modifications by the customer before the actual delivery.
Much too often, I had to come to the defense of my former colleagues in patent examination. In this case, however, I need to agree when someone questioned if there are signs of life left in the office.
Actually, I doubt it.
Everyone, repeat after me: "Business methods should not be patentable"
That means:
- No one-click ordering patents
- No more patents on online auctions
The courts cannot fix this. It is up to congress.
As I understand, they patented their subscribe and save feature which has been around for years. How nobody else implemented this almost justifies that amazon should get the patent... almost, it's a stupid patent.
When you look at the actual patent you see there was plenty of prior art cited. If Amazon cited these you can bet they believe (as does the USPTO) that the Amazon patent is significantly different, and does not infringe.
You have to READ the patent to see what part of this is new.
For instance Amazon states in the Patent
Some online merchant systems may provide customers the ability to place standing orders for delivery of consumable products on a recurring basis, such as every week or every month. However, these systems may be limited in their flexibility for allowing modifications of the recurring orders or for allowing the addition of one-time or specialty products to an order. Further, the customer may not be able to schedule the recurring orders for the same time and day of each week or month, thereby making it difficult for the customer to arrange to be present at the delivery of perishable goods or other consumables.
This patent is different, in that it allows Scheduling not only the day of a re-occurring delivery, but also the time. This is pretty significant. You get to choose the time slot from available time slots, when the truck will be in your neighborhood on the days you request, at the hour you request. And you do this by some form of drag and drop of products to your door step, selecting from the available time slots (presumably when the truck will be there). Pretty specific if you ask me.
Further, you can easily change it by adding or subtracting items (one time, or every scheduled time) to be on that truck, put it on vacation hold, etc.
(If Amazon can actually pull that off in any grand scale, I'd be surprised, but that's not the patent office's problem.)
Further virtually every claim in the patent is proceeded by the words: A computer-implemented method.
Dammit! I hope there is an App for this!!
This, the computer scheduling done by the customer, combined with picking the actual delivery time slot from the available time slots, is the bit that they are patenting. Not the milkman, not the newspaper boy, not your local grocery weekly delivery.
The closest prior art is the cited Amway patent. But it merely suggests to the customer that they might want to order some more Amway for future delivery, and says nothing about the details of precision or picking of exact days and time slots.
I'll leave it to the lawyers (and wanna-be lawyers) among you to pick out the details where this patent differs from the others, but do try to contain your rage till you at least Read the Patent, and ignore the hype in the summary. Its really pretty clever, and relies on Amazon knowing the precise location of the delivery vehicles on their routes in the future, and using that information, allowing the customers to make sure a half dozen bananas are on that truck, and will arrive at their door step when they are home to receive them.
Ambitious, and fairly novel if you ask me.
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Exactly.
Its pretty amazing when you read all the claims, and imagine dragging and dropping a dozen eggs onto the manifest of a truck that will just happen to be near your house at 7pm every second Wednesday. And then being able to put that delivery on vacation hold, or add a one time order of 12 pork chops for the big barbecue you are planning next Saturday. And the delivery will take place within the time period you specify so the neighbors dog doesn't run off with your chops while you are at work.
Amazon has to know where the trucks will be at future points in time.
Provide you with a way to put products on that truck, set them to be periodic or one time, Adjust your orders, add, subtract, reduce, or hold.
All from your computer, and (hopefully) from your smartphone.
Its way more ambitious than the Milkman, and I'm not aware of anything that comes close.
People have to stop the knee-jerk reaction to headlines.
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This is one instance where the incompetence of the reviewers is so blatant that they should no longer be working for the USPTO. There is a point that people need to be held accountable for their decisions. The USPTO has become too much of a rubber stamp under the idea that the courts will sort out any issues. The system breaks down under that model as many people do not have the money to go to court. The USPTO is hardly a speed bump in the patent process any more.
First off, yes, I read the patent.
Amazon is, of course, doing something on the scale that nobody else has attempted. They'll probably be very good at it, and good for them.
However, that has nothing to do with the patent. The processes described by the patent are the exact same thing that people have been doing in real life on smaller scales for hundreds (or maybe even thousands), of years.
There is nothing ... NOTHING ... in that patent that enables them to do this on a large scale, except for the automation that a computer provides (which, unfortunately, seems to make anything patentable these days). If you disagree, please call out something specific, like an actual claim in the patent, and a description of why it's something new and not just the first and most obvious solution their engineers came up with.
Congratulations to Amazon if they pull off this scale of delivery. But what they're doing should in no way be patentable, at least not as described in the patent that was awarded.
Still, it's hardly rocket science, is it? It's more flexible & sophisticated than telling the milkman to bring you a pint every other day, but it's not a qualitatively different thing like a jet compared to a piston engine.
I'd be surprised of most ERP systems don't have something like this.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They are patenting an entire delivery scheduling methodology for customer order management of groceries (etc) that will re-occur on a predictable and fairly precise time period of the customer's choosing.
I have a picture of a milkman's horse lifting his blinkers with one hoof and rolling his eyes at this patent, it's just ordinary business practice for any company that delivers stuff to your door. The local chemist paid me to deliver stuff on on a push bike way back in the 60's. Most family's had one car (at most), the chemist had plenty of regular customers who had difficulty getting around so he bent over backwards to accommodate their needs. He didn't have a computer and trucks, he had an order book, a big black phone, and a bunch of eager kids on push bikes who had more than enough local knowledge to make UPS blush. If a customer was in dire need during school hours, he would get in his VW and deliver it himself. Virtually the same service is available today but it's organized by the government, you get a qualified nurse in a tiny car rather than a grotty kid on a push bike. There is however a shit load more paper work involved to join up.
Copyright protects Amazon's software implementation of this age old business practice, the only possible use for a patent such as this is to burden and stall serious competitors with serious litigation, as in Apple vs Samsung. Software patents are a legislative experiment that failed. It was worth having the experiment, but now we know that all it does is provide an arena for elephants to fight, and we all know what happens to the grass when elephants fight.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.