Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Takes Round One in Patent Dispute
Masem writes "Amazon has gotten a preliminary injunction placed on
Barnes & Noble due to the fact that B&N used
Amazon's patented 1-Click method for ecommerce.
This does not bode well for those fighting against
business model patents, and if Amazon does turn out victorious,
this could deal a lot of damage to e-commerce." Now, at this point it is only a preliminary injunction, however, it does not sound the tone we'd like to hear.
All a preliminary injunction says is that the plantiff's case does in fact have merit, and to prevent further potential damage from being done, the defendant must cease in the offensive behavior until such time as the defendant is cleared. There has been no trial, no finding of fact, and no consideration of the merits of Amazon's case by either a judge or a jury. Don't get too worried too quickly.
--
Matt Singerman
Matt Singerman
http://matt.vegan.net/
In a perfect world, the patent isn't valid if it was obvious to one skilled in the art. Hopefully B&N will duke this thing out and get a good precedent set.
This is just plain idiotic. The only way e-commerce is to take off is if it is universally adopted and considered "safe" by the unwashed masses. What Amazon is doing is *not* protecting their investment in doing busness over the web, rather, they are harming it by discouraging others from using a rather generic, but good, method of making it easier to shop online. The only way e-commerce will take off is if many companies, including competing ones, get out there and present their products. (I know their already are many out now) The threat of being sued because they might be violating someone's stupid patent on common technology would be a serious deterent to a small company attempting to market online.
Run. I like water. Push My rutabaga.
Just make your customers click somewhere twice. ;)
Then you have 2-click shopping. But, then again, I'm applying for a patent on n-click shopping, where n > 1. So I would have to sue.
This sig is false.
Alright, this is probably going to be an unpopular post on a open-source haven like /., but I think that it's good that some of these companies have a way to protect themselves from competition. Internet sites offer so much to so many for, in most cases, real little. Think about it - you spend hours developing your competitive advantage and it's gone the second you go live. Not that companies should be able to patent non-revenue and widely used things like the technology behind downloading files off the net, but innovative methods like Priceline's and maybe Amazon's, that are not real difficult to reproduce but still unique, should have some protection.
lf.o
I'm letting them know, politely, that their practices will cost them more than just attorney fees. To make the point clear, I'm attaching the total sum I spent in their on-line store during this year.
While Amazon's service is generally good, and shopping there is easy and convenient, I can't in good faith endorse anyone who abuses the patent system the way they have. I'll be more than happy to shop there again, if they make it clear that they will make it their policy to not patent obvious software "inventions".
Grab cookie.
Grab book id.
Use cookie to lookup userid in database, and extract shipping & billing details.
Create order.
Output pretty screen.
How hard were these programmers working?
The problem with their logic is a very simple one. In order for a patent to be valid it must not be obviouse. Well here is the thing, Microsoft had a patent on Cookie technology (as in the browser end) first, and the concept of 'one click shopping' was the whole point of Cookies, to make e-commerce easy (no really, I did some probing). Anyways B&N should call as witness the team at microsoft who developed the technology, since that would end it real quick. I hate to say it but this time Microsoft may be a hero for free flow of commerce and information.
Instead of e-mailing Amazon and saying, "I'm not going to buy from you anymore....", e-mail B&N and say, "If you fight this case instead of cowering, I will be a faithful customer to you. If you give in, I will not buy from you."
Mapquest was (I believe) the first online map engine. Mapblast came along, it does the same sort of thing, but it's a superior product. (don't argue with me about the previous if I'm wrong, I'm just trying to make a point.) If mapquest had patented the idea of having a map online (I don't really know if they have or not), we would be stuck with crappy Mapquest until the patent ran out, or until someone came along with enough money to start a new business *and* license the patent, which could be a long time.
When the business strategy is nearly the product, (you can buy the same book ten different places on the web, so you use the easiest one) only allowing the original inventors to use a strategy stifles innovation. It's like the first bookstore that thought to put a coffeeshop in it would sue every other one that did it. You could argue for something like that, but traditionally that hasn't been patent fodder.
Bookselling online is obviously different from an online service (like the map businesses), but I think the analogy extends. I think the bookseller with the best prices and best marketing strategy (not the best totally original strategy, just the best strategy) should be able to be the best bookseller, not the bookseller with the best patents.
p.s. if think that if Amazon were smart, they would have just found a way to license their software to all the other booksellers that were slow to come online. It would have really fattened their profits (if they have even started making them yet).
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
As someone else pointed out, they claim to have spent thousands of hours on what is essentially a fairly simple feature - adding the "one click" button to the UI and using cookies to determine the user (assuming the guts of "multi-click" shopping were already there). This makes it very likely that either their progammers aren't very good or their project management isn't very good, or both. And if so, the software's quality is questionable and therefore difficult to sell.
Then again, since their success isn't measured in actual profit, but rather in "percieved mindshare" inflating the stock price, they would prefer eliminating competitors to mearly making money off of them.
BTW, I totally agree that this patent mess is a Very Bad Thing(c). Moreover, I don't understand how or why these "concept" patents are granted in the first place. It's one thing to copyright the phrase "One click shopping" but it's another thing to patent the concept of not requiring a login to make an online purchase. It's equivalent to McDonalds not being content with copyrighting "SuperSize" and instead patenting the concept of offering food in a greater quantity for an small additional fee.
- bridgette
Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes is one of my favorite Onion articles. Every year, I give a copy to the students in my computer architecture class.