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USPTO Rejects Amazon's One-Click Patent
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Oct 17, 2007 09:07 AM
from the well-at-least-there's-some-sanity dept.
from the well-at-least-there's-some-sanity dept.
igdmlgd writes "A while ago I filed a reexamination request for the Amazon.com one-click patent and recently checked out the USPTO online file wrapper -it seems they have rejected all the claims I requested they look at and more!" And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer.
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Submission: USPTO REJECTS AMAZON ONE-CLICK PATENT by Anonymous Coward
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Register Article (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Eight of them did fall, in fact, from a Steven
Re:Register Article (Score:4, Informative)
Also, "copyright attaches when pen goes to paper". What you meant was that a good way to keep the obvious from being patented is is to have an expression of the idea published published first. The prior art has to be published and available. It also helps if the published work is a printed one. I'm currently trying to get some videos admitted as prior art, but am not sure how it will go.
Parent
Interesting, but not great (Score:3, Interesting)
What was interesting, to me, is that there were so many 102 (novelty) rejections. In patents, novelty rejections mean "super obvious". Oh well, claim 1 got rejected on a 102
Re:Apple gets a refund ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The company that liscensed the patent goes "It's all the PTO's fault!!11 one", and there's not much anyone can do. If the liscence involved a per-device fee, you can stop paying that, but anything you've already paid is gone.
IANAL
Parent
Re:Apple gets a refund ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on the license/contract I believe - I seem to remember that Hitachi(?) had a clause in their patent license with Rambus that if Rambus' patents ever got thrown out, Hitachi got their money back.
But I imagine that's tricky to get into a contract.
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
I read that there was a rejection review during which the rejection examiner found prior art that was obvious. This however was not the case and so the rejection was rejected and now I hear this guy making claims that some of his obvious prior art is infact obvious and should be counted on so the patent is now invalid.
What I don't understand is What is a Wookie doing on Endor?
Can someone give me one thing I can click which will explain this whole thing?
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Huh, no-click answers. I should patent that...
Parent
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
I could, but I'd have to get your promise that you'd click twice to get to it...at least until this whole thing blows over.
Parent
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
You can take a look at the original patent [gnu.org], too, but that would require a second click.
Parent
Re:Click me!!! (Score:2)
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Child Continuity Data
09/151,617 filed on 09-11-1998 which is Patented claims the benefit of 08/928,951
09/318,447 filed on 05-25-1999 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
10/194,602 filed on 07-12-2002 which is Patented claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/410,998 filed on 04-25-2006 which is Abandoned claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/610,619 filed on 12-14-2006 which is Abandoned claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/618,452 filed on 12-29-2006 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/751,483 filed on 05-21-2007 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
90/007,946 filed on 02-16-2006 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
PCT/US98/18926 filed on 09-10-1998 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
I bolded the application the article you linked refers to. Also read about continuing patent applications [wikipedia.org] which this history represents.
Not quite... (Score:5, Informative)
Items 1 and 11 (Score:3)
I'm not sure what claims 1 and 11 are though. Maybe someone else can ferret that out.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FINALLY! (Score:2)
-jcr
Obvious... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, I think it's unreasonable that patents can so greatly reduce people's freedom to create things, for fear that some of it may infringe upon some fairly trivial patent... Obvious or not, it places an unreasonable burden on developers, to use what they've learned except for those things they've learned about which are patented.
But was Amazon One-Click really "obvious" before they adopted it? I mean, the whole idea of
1: Storing user information (pretty obvious and common)
2: Launching a user order as soon as they click "buy it" (Not too challenging, except for the other issues that #3 solves)
3: Ensuring that situations where a user accidentally orders something can be readily corrected by the user (basically boils down to giving them the opportunity to back out)
It's easy to say the idea is obvious once someone else has thought of it and presented it to you - but was it "obvious" to people before Amazon did it? If so, then why was Amazon the first?
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Yes. That's why everyone was so upset about it.
-jcr
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User thinks "Buy that". GUI and database go kachunk kachunk kachunk.
In the programmer's view, ANY button click will call many functions, almost every time.
Where does the programmer stop calling functions? Why, when the app has done everyth
I think you forget how OLD Amazon is. (Score:2)
When I first started using Amazon, I never even ordered books from them. I was too chicken. I had never ordered anything electronically before. I'm ashamed to say that I just used them as a handy online way to access Books In Print and look up ISBN num
Re:Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
People trot out this same argument every time a bogus patent gets discussed. The main reason in this case was that Amazon was one of the first businesses that was involved in Internet transactions. Nobody did it before because nobody needed to solve that exact problem. That still doesn't mean that the solution wasn't obvious; it just means that the problem didn't exist. You don't deserve a monopoly just because you're one of the first people in a new market.
IMO, the laws for patentability ought to be changed to fix this problem anyway. I say that if something is obvious, even in hindsight, then it shouldn't be patentable. There are plenty of patent claims that I understand after seeing, but which certainly can't be called obvious, even in hindsight. That should be where the bar is set.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The shaving cream can was challenged as obvious. The court agreed that it was, *in hindsight*, obvious, but the fact that the competitors had spent *millions* trying and failing to achieve the same thing showed that it was not obvious.
hawk
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone is first to do everything, and that includes obvious things.
Parent
Re:Obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Managers submit problems to engineers.
Engineers find a solution to solve the problem.
Only bad engineers solve obvious problems. Give two good engineers the same problem, there is a high probability that they will come up with the same solution.
The idea that only the first one to solve the problem is allowed to use the solution is just nonsense.
Parent
Re: Obvious... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's easy to say the idea is obvious once someone else has thought of it and presented it to you - but was it "obvious" to people before Amazon did it? If so, then why was Amazon the first?
This is one of those "... on the internet." obvious bogus patents. The only difference between this and something that was common many, many years ago is doing it on the internet. You walked into the General Store, said hello to the owner, picked out items, told the owner to put the items on your tab/bill and walk out with those items.
Patent was for a result, not a process or design (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Patent was for a result, not a process or desig (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Patent was for a result, not a process or desig (Score:4, Insightful)
That is probably the best summation of what can go wrong with software patents I've heard in a while. I find nothing wrong with a guy who invents a more efficent algorithim getting compensated, but most patent applications are not "a specific method to solve the travelling salesman problem that happens to be O(n)," but instead "the concept of solving the travelling salesman problem in O(n), an example of which is given."
Parent
Damn (Score:3, Funny)
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Does this mean (Score:3, Funny)
well yes and errr, no (Score:5, Interesting)
I helped to start Amazon (I was the 2nd employee there). I've spoken out against the 1 click patent in the past. However, this comment "And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer" is not the reason why the patent should be permanently rejected. 1 click shopping was "new" at the time - if it was obvious, we would have done it right from the beginning on the web site. The issue with 1 click is not whether or not it was obvious to a web developer. It is whether or not business method patents that fundamentally simply map a practice in the non-online world ("put this on my account") to the online world ("1 click") should be permitted.
I don't believe that they should, and I am glad to see the patent struck down.
Re:well yes and errr, no (Score:4, Interesting)
First, you claim that 1 click shopping is not obvious. Then (in the same paragraph even!) go on to say that it's been done in the "non-online" world as a "business practice". I would agree that as a business practice it is unpatentable. BUT, I would also say that even if didn't fall under that category, it's obvious. I mean, how much more obvious can you get than - "Dude, someone's already doing that!"
And, no, teh answer is not "But THIS is using a computer!1!!! OMG ponies!".
It's as if there is this mysterious divide between "being done with a computer" and "being done without a computer", which seems to me completely specious yet so pervasive that even someone such as yourself seems to fall for it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I was intimately involved with many aspects of getting this new company started. I left, despite significant stock and other inducements to remain, because I am a technical person and had little interest in playing a role in the growth of the company. I was intimately involved with many aspects of getting this now-extremely successful company started.
Wow. I know some hardcore nerds, but you, sir, top them all.
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Re:Counter sue? (Score:5, Informative)
-jcr
Parent
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sucks to be Steve Jobs and Apple and realize that you've been licensing 1-click for iTMS for years now when it wasn't even a valid patent...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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In fact if something is obvious why do i need to publish or do anything with the idea, its obvious. The requirement that everything that is obvious should either be in some public archive or already patented is laughable.
Are you a patent lawyer by any chance?
Re:Whine enuf and you win (Score:5, Informative)
Its a bad idea for exactly the same reason that most erase features of most operating systems erase to a clipboard or a trash folder of some sort.
See, people click on and mis-operate all sorts of things in all sorts of circumstances.
Amazon is simply big and slow enough to be able to afford to do a ship-and-return or a block-that-order action when the customer screws up. It was also well-funded enough that it could operate at a loss for something like three years from startup and not die outright.
Smaller, more responsive, less funded business would have gone bankrupt long ago. And such businesses could never have survived under the onslaught of "I didn't order this $3,000.00 flat screen so you credit back my card immediately and I'll get this back to you once you send me a shipping label" type calls.
One Click Shopping is bad business in most uses, so people didn't design their web pages that way till the "big players" came in with a lot of financial ballast.
"Do it in fewer steps" (e.g. in one step, e.g. without asking "are you sure") is _always_ obvious and is almost _never_ implemented because people screw up. And when it is implemented someone usually gets fired because its hard to teach people that they _should_ slow down and double check before they do something (a) expensive, (b) irreversible, or (c) embarrassing.
Consider: Didn't you think to double-check that order before you just (a) fired the nuke, (b) ordered a whole shipping container of toilet paper for a one-stall bathroom, (c) sold off the entire calculator division of HP, (d) fired everyone in human resources. (etc.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In that case the explanation would have been:
Using someone else's invention (cookies) to do specifically what that invention was designed to do (recognise returning customers) is not something that even the most retarded patent examiner should have considered for a second.
EVERYONE knew how 1-click worked as soon as they heard of it