Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Amazon's Lawyers Jerking USPTO Around?

Posted by CowboyNeal on Wed Apr 11, 2007 04:35 PM
from the unleash-the-busy-work dept.
Patents The Internet Government The Courts News
theodp writes "Reacting to an actor's do-it-yourself legal effort that triggered a reexam of Amazon.com's 1-Click patent, attorneys for Amazon have fired back, deluging the USPTO with documents to review, including Wikipedia articles. With the latest batch, Amazon's high-priced law firm even requested that USTPO examiners review an archived page of Norm Quotes (yes, Norm from Cheers) and rule that it does not invalidate CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] USPTO Examiner Rejected 1-Click Claims As "Obvious" 195 comments
theodp writes "Faced with a duly unimpressed USPTO examiner who rejected its new 1-Click patent claims as 'obvious' and 'old and well known,' Amazon has taken the unusual step of requesting an Oral Appeal to plead its case. And in what might be interpreted by some as an old-fashioned stalling tactic, the e-tailer has also canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application. As it touted the novelty of 1-Click to Congress last spring, Amazon kept the examiner's rejection under its hat, insisting that 'still no [1-Click] prior art has surfaced.' The Judiciary Committee hearing this testimony included Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA), both recipients of campaign contributions from a PAC funded by 1-Click inventor Jeff Bezos, other Amazon execs, and their families."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Amazon's Lawyers Jerking USPTO Around? 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • List of non-patents (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xzvf (924443) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @04:40PM (#18695313)
    Can anyone provide a link to ideas that haven't been patented yet?

  • Norm from Cheers? (Score:5, Funny)

    by faloi (738831) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @04:45PM (#18695369)
    Are they attempting a variation of the famed Chewbacca defense?

    • Re:Norm from Cheers? (Score:5, Funny)

      by dsginter (104154) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @04:57PM (#18695511)
      Are they attempting a variation of the famed Chewbacca defense?

      It can't be any better than the famous "Buffalo Theory" (also from Cheers):

      Well you see, Norm, it's like this; a herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and the weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

      In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

  • Goldilocks Was Not a Patent Lawyer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by XLawyer (68496) * on Wednesday April 11 2007, @04:46PM (#18695377) Homepage
    For what it's worth, Amazon's high-priced law firm really has no way to win. If they omit something from their Information Disclosure Statement, they can expect to hear the argument that they intentionally left out something material and that the patent therefore should be therefore be invalidated. If they include it, they can expect to hear the argument that they tried to bury relevant prior art in a mountain of documents.

    Admittedly I know very little about this particular reexam, but the Norm! page is not obviously irrelevant. It's on the Web, it probably has some kind of navigation feature that someone compared to some aspect of the one-click process, and so the lawyers probably decided to include it because it's the less risky thing to do. If it's really not useful, the patent examiner can probably figure that out without too much effort.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by trix7117 (835907)
      Did you even look at the Norm page? It doesn't have any "kind of navigation feature that someone compared to some aspect of the one-click process", it has a bunch of text (the quotes) and a single link at the bottom of the page (link to the "Cheers Main Page"). There is nothing on that page that has anything to do with one-click in any way unless you are saying that a regular old link is somehow related to one-click, in which case you better submit just about every page on the web. There's no possible ex
      • I suspect that you have not read the patent application file. If I am correct, then I doubt that you have much basis for saying what is and is not obviously irrelevant.

        • I suspect that you have not read the patent application file. If I am correct, then I doubt that you have much basis for saying what is and is not obviously irrelevant.

          If you had anything, you'd have produced it. Just one example of a bar, a tavern, a watering hole, or of Norm, Woody, Sam, Diane, Cliff or of beer or tabs. Maybe even the name "Cheers".

          The patent itself -- 5,960,411 (Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network) -- all 19 pages, is accessible at Google. Se

      • Re:Goldilocks Was Not a Patent Lawyer (Score:5, Interesting)

        by XLawyer (68496) * on Wednesday April 11 2007, @05:20PM (#18695733) Homepage
        Or here's an idea: it's not the navigation that's relevant, it's the content. In the majority of excerpts, Norm walks into cheers, is recognized, and, with a single action, buys a beer that is then delivered to him. It's not quite the same as one-click Web ordering, but I can see how it's relevant, especially considering the Office Action that granted the request for reexamination.
        • What the fuck are you smoking? Norm has a bar tab, Amazon has already lost if they take the stance that applying a centuries (millennia?) old concept to web purchases is somehow innovative or unique.

          Cheers.
          • The question before me was not whether Amazon had a strong argument for its one-click patent. The question was whether the Norm! document was conceivably relevant to the subject matter of that patent. I suggested one reason it might be relevant. Do you believe that my suggestion was irrational?

          • Re:Goldilocks Was Not a Patent Lawyer (Score:5, Insightful)

            by cubic6 (650758) <tom&losthalo,org> on Wednesday April 11 2007, @06:38PM (#18696523) Homepage

            What the fuck are you smoking? Norm has a bar tab, Amazon has already lost if they take the stance that applying a centuries (millennia?) old concept to web purchases is somehow innovative or unique.

            They aren't patenting the general concept of automatic identification and charging of a customer based on a pre-shared secret, which would include any kind of bar tab system, as well as many other kinds of financial transactions. They're patenting the specific method of using a web browser that supports cookies to provide customer identification information along with the HTTP request representing clicking the "Order now!" button, allowing the server to automatically look up the billing info associated with that customer and fulfill the order without any further customer action.

            It's a very broad patent that covers any pretty much any online store that uses cookies to identify customers, but it doesn't cover anything not involving the a web browser, web server and cookies. That's why (according to XLawyer's logic) Amazon included the Norm quotes page, as an example of a system that, while similar in concept, is different enough to not invalidate Amazon's claim to originality. It's a bit of a long shot, but out of all the theories I've read today, I think it's the one that makes the most sense. The purpose of Amazon listing prior art on their paperwork isn't to try to invalidate their own patent, it's to clarify the scope and show that their idea is different enough from previous implementations to merit a patent. It's Amazon saying "These are things that may have influenced our concept, but are different enough to be unique."

            That said, I don't think Amazon's patent should be ruled valid, and I hope that the USPTO recognizes that the patent is overly broad and covers many situations that have been happening since browsers started supporting cookies.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cubic6 (650758)

        There's no possible explanation for it other than "Amazon's lawyers trying to bury relevant prior art".

        I've read the small portion of the application that the submitter linked to, and I'll be damned if I can figure out why that Norm page would ever be relevant to Amazon's patent. However, I also can't figure out how including a bunch of irrelevant items on a patent application is supposed to "bury relevant prior art". I highly doubt the examiner is going to think "Holy shit, 9 pages, I'll just check one

        • Re:Goldilocks Was Not a Patent Lawyer (Score:4, Funny)

          by Pollardito (781263) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @09:13PM (#18697673)

          If I was Jeff Bezos right now, I'd be calling my law firm and politely requesting that whoever decided to just dump their bookmarks file into the patent application be thrown out a 10th floor window.

          you clearly know nothing about the way that Jeff Bezos thinks. right now he is patenting a one-click operation that kicks off a process whereby your lawyer is thrown from the 10th floor window automatically, thereby lowering the chance that the clicker will have second thoughts

  • Fraud charges and jail time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iamacat (583406) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @04:47PM (#18695387)
    It's a crime to submit false information to a government agency. Jeff Bezos should spend a couple of years in ... federal penitentiary.
  • Did this really happen? Or is this some submitter's idea of a joke?

  • The Smackdown (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ScrewMaster (602015) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @04:52PM (#18695443)
    They guy is right ... Amazon does deserve to be smacked down, for this and for other things. And you can lay the rest of corporate America right out there alongside them.

    Still, if this works, if Amazon's infamous patent is revoked by the efforts of a single individual unaided by professional legal representation, then there's hope that a load of other crap can be invalided the same way. Of course, the behavior of Amazon's own lawyers probably isn't hurting his case either.
    • I totally disagree. Amazon just did what the law allows them to do. And if they are going to fulfill their obligations to their shareholders by staying as competitive as the law allows them then they should do it some more.

      Obviously US patent law is up the creek, but it's not Amazon's fault. If anything Bezos should be fired if he were not to use every tool and weapon available to him.

      The people who should be slapped are those that have allowed this to happen: the lawmakers, which these days seems to incl

      • Re:The Smackdown (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ScrewMaster (602015) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @05:52PM (#18696065)
        Yes, indeed, we should bitchslap the lawmakers. Maybe have Hulk Hogan teach them a few new moves, preferably painful ones that leave bruises.

        I disagree that corporations should be given a free pass on unethical or illegal behavior just because it's in the interests of the stockholders. If you think about it, it is just that attitude that has brought corporate America to it's knees. "Go ahead, Mr. CEO, use every weapon available to you so long as the stock price doesn't drop, and don't worry about that 'ethics' thing, because if you get too concerned about wrongdoing we'll just fire your ass and bring in someone less scrupulous." How is that beneficial to anyone but the stockholder? In fact, long term, it's not beneficial to anyone, including the stockholders. Well, other than upper management, that is, who are generally so insulated from the effects of their actions that it doesn't much matter to them.

        Worse yet, the reason that U.S. patent law is up the creek is Amazon's fault! Amazon and all the rest of the corporations that went to Washington and bought changes to patent law, and the funding changes to the USPTO itself. Those were things that Congress would never have thought up on its own: they were pushed into it by corporations that wanted to gain even more control over America's intellectual capital.

        So far as I'm concerned, Jeff Bezos, Amazon, and all the other companies run by sociopaths can go to Hell. Create, invent, and compete on your merits: if you can't do that you don't deserve to be in business. The granting of, and enforcement of, utterly baseless patents doesn't do anything but force the transfer of our wealth to people that have no right to it.

        Jeff Bezos should be fired for being an antisocial jackass with criminal tendencies. He, and those like him, are running the United States into the ground, because they aren't leaving any room in their thought processes for anyone but themselves.

        Look up the term "enlightened capitalism" sometime, look at the positive effects that it brought to Western civilization, and think for yourself how little it applies to Bezos and people of his caliber.
        • I disagree that corporations should be given a free pass on unethical or illegal behavior just because it's in the interests of the stockholders.

          I never said anything about illegal behaviour. As far as ethics is concerned it's fraught with difficulty since one mans ethical is another's monstrousness (ie. stem cells, the nazis, abortion; to name a few obvious ones etc). Pointing fingers is a very tricky business.

          I agree there is a problem but I think it is with uncontained competitiveness, a problem that aff

      • Re:The Smackdown (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Peter La Casse (3992) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @05:54PM (#18696089) Homepage

        Amazon just did what the law allows them to do. And if they are going to fulfill their obligations to their shareholders by staying as competitive as the law allows them then they should do it some more.

        Obviously US patent law is up the creek, but it's not Amazon's fault. If anything Bezos should be fired if he were not to use every tool and weapon available to him.

        Wouldn't Amazon's obligation to its shareholders be better served by lobbying for patent reform? Software patents are like a guillotine poised to strike Amazon (and other companies that write software), and as this case shows, even so-called defensive patents have considerable cost. At some point this cost must exceed the price of a new law.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by node 3 (115640)
        Spoken like a true sociopath.

        While it's true that the lawmakers should fix this problem (don't hold your breath), it truly takes a special kind of madness to give props to Bezos for patenting (and enforcing) such trivial patents. Doubly so if the patents turn out to have been invalid to begin with!

      • And if they are going to fulfill their obligations to their shareholders by staying as competitive as the law allows them then they should do it some more.

        This is a bad argument if you hope to have long term investors.

        Just because it is legal to do and gains you short term gains on your quarterly income, doesn't mean it won't come back to bite you when you have a PR fiasco on your hands. Of course most CEO's don't stick around long enough to see the results of what they have done, but to commit to questiona
      • Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical. And I imagine using slave labor is also a good thing? Because that's just taking advantage of screwed up laws.
      • The argument that a business person has to work to maximize shareholder value is a common one - but it's not a good one. That business person is still a person, and still has to deal with personal ethics and values in their decisions. The fact that you have shareholders who want you to maximize the amount of money you make does not give you a free pass on doing immoral or unethical things. You are still responsible for your actions, and if you sell your soul for shareholder value you've still sold your soul

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by quenda (644621)

        I totally disagree. Amazon just did what the law allows them to do.

        No, not the law. They did what the legal system allowed them to do. They law says you
        cannot patent the obvious, or prior art, but the system allowed it.
            So if you are going to accept that, you'd have to allow murder of their opponents,
        just so long as they hide the body well and don't get caught. After all, they owe it to the shareholders

  • Norm! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Deagol (323173) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @04:52PM (#18695455) Homepage
    At least they didn't submit the survey about eating beans and George Wendt.
    • I believe that was the patent on a method of generating vast quantities of methane for use as an alternate vehicle fuel.
  • Patent applicants and their attorneys are under a legal obligation to cite ANY documents that a Patent Examiner may consider "material" to tbe patentability of the invention. If the applicant fails to cite anything that the Examiner might have found material, the patent can be held invalid by a court. But if they cite "too much," people complain that they're "burying" the patent office. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by j-pimp (177072)

      But if they cite "too much," people complain that they're "burying" the patent office.

      I was unaware people complaining has any legal binding. Freedom of speech does not mean anyone has to listen.

  • The patent applicant/defender is supposed to provide information about anything that could be considered prior art. If Amazon had been lax about that, the same people screaming now would have been complaining that Amazon wasn't thorough in its filing.
    • Ever since their A9 thingy went to Windows...I've not spent a cent there. b&n.com FTW.
        • So, it's actually cheaper than Amazon. Not that a few bucks here and there matters...it's the principle.
          • Barnes and Noble owns the bookstore on campus.

            By owns, I mean makes all the money. It's a campus building, with federally-paid work-study kids working there. They'll charge me $150 for a book that's $35 online (and then when i sell it back to them, they'll sell it used for $100)

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by PitaBred (632671)
              So buy some of the books online, and sell them to your fellow students at half the bookstore price. There's money to be made, son.

  • Crap (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ZOmegaZ (687142) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @05:46PM (#18695983) Homepage
    Amazon's one-click patent was good for one reason: it prevented other retailers from creating such an inane system!

    I once accidentally hit the one-click purchase button shortly before I had to leave my computer for the day. I couldn't cancel the order before I left, because the system hadn't processed it yet. By the time I got back later that evening, the order had already reached the point I couldn't cancel it! I had to wait for the merchandise to arrive, and then return it under a false reason.

    A good lesson in human computer interfaces: the complexity of executing a task should be proportional to the complexity of undoing it.

    • Re:Crap (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hxnwix (652290) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @10:43PM (#18698137) Journal
      The next time this scenario evolves, you ought to have already nipped it in the bud. Don't wait until the buying process initiates itself - at some point you will realize that you have already opened a browser and typed out amazon.com and pressed enter and clicked a product and clicked buy. Then it will be too late. Don't let that one click happen. Immediately, right now, you need to:

      Turn off your computer and make sure it powers down
      Drop it in a 43-foot hole in the ground
      Bury it completely, rocks and boulders should be fine
      Then burn all the clothes you may have worn any time you were online
  • While I consider the 1-click shopping patent ridiculous and the USPTO way out of control, I believe this is (well, roughly) how it should work. It's a legal struggle (of a sort), both sides need to present their legal arguments, and Amazon would be incredibly stupid to not do so. Of course it's not balanced when the big corporations have the best lawyers and even the small players contesting the patent need to spend lots of money, but that's another issue (and tells generally about the broken American legal

    • Re:That's how it works (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ScrewMaster (602015) on Wednesday April 11 2007, @07:15PM (#18696879)
      That's roughly how it should work in regards to a question about the validity of a legitimate patent. The insane amounts of money being spent on patents (and patent defense) are a direct result of the Patent Office granting invalid patents and expecting the courts to sort it out later, and companies determined to suppress competition by legal action backed by invalid patents. That is not how it is supposed to work! The reason that we even have Patent Examiners is to try and avoid this very problem: a well-written and properly-reviewed patent should be solid and hardly worth attacking. It's the Examiner's job to make sure that's the case. Put it this way: if you're just going to let anyone claim anything and have lawyers handle the determination of validity you might as well just abolish the Patent Office right now and get it over with.

      The unfortunate truth is that the USPTO has fallen down on the job, and blame for that can be laid squarely at Congress' feet.
  • Those who are curious what was on the "Norm" quote page was but are too lazy to type the URL by hand will enjoy this time saver:

    Click here [archive.org] or copy and paste http://web.archive.org/web/20010702004226/ourworld .compuserve.com/homepages/wildkingdom/normb.htm [archive.org] .

    I don't see any reference to "one click" nor "Amazon" nor anything remotely technical.

    I wonder if this story is partly a hoax. I can't imagine that lawyers would actually send someone to look at a document like that. If so, perhaps they're just seeing i

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.