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E-Commerce To Evolve Next Month As Amazon Loses the 1-Click Patent (thirtybees.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: Next month e-commerce will change forever thanks to Amazon. September 12 marks 20 years since Amazon filed for their 1-Click patent. This means that the patent will expire and the technology behind it will be free to be used by any e-commerce site. Starting next month more and more sites will be offering a one click checkout experience. Most major sites have already started development with plans to launch soon after the patent expires. Amazon applied for the 1-Click patent in September of 1997, the actual patent was granted in 1999. The whole idea behind the patent is when you store a user's credit card and address you only need a single click to order a product. For the last 20 years Amazon has kept a tight hold on this technology, they have only licensed it to one company: Apple. No one knows what Apple paid to license the technology, but the value of the patent has been assessed at 2.4 billion dollars by sources. Over the last 20 years Amazon has defended the validity of the patent in several cases, even having to revise the patent at one point. But, now the wait is almost over and this technology is about to make it into the open market.
This patent exemplifies everything that's wrong with software patents.
Mickey Mouse, stupid as it is, involves an actual creative step. something new was added to humanity when he was drawn. The one click patent is the inevitable effect of standard UX processes trying everything possible to reduce the number of steps in a process. Nothing original was required to produce it.
More important than that though; Mickey Mouse has never stopped other cartoon mice being created. You are not free to copy Mickey Mouse but you are free to use the idea of a talking mouse in a cartoon in almost any way you like. The one click patent stops anyone living in countries where it is valid from creating a one click shopping process no matter what software they write themselves to do it.
The patent is much less reasonable than the copyright, even if the latter is illegally and unconstitutionally extended indefinitely (the judges who claim otherwise are fools).
One click is the Amazon version of having candy bars at the checkout stand: quite a few people will make an impulse purchase without thinking about it twice.