USPTO's 1-Click Indecisiveness Enters 5th Year 36
theodp writes "When it comes to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent, the USPTO is an agency that just can't say no. Or yes. It's now been 4+ years since actor Peter Calveley submitted prior art that triggered a USPTO reexamination of the 1-Click patent. Still no 'final answer' from the USPTO, although an Examiner recently issued yet another Final Rejection of 1-Click related claims (pdf), admonishing Amazon for making him 'sift through hundreds of submitted references to identify what applicant allegedly has already submitted,' which he complained is 'adding an undue burden' to his workload. Looks like Bezos' 2000 pledge of 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office' isn't working out so well in practice. Not too surprising — after all, Amazon did inform Congress that it 'has modified its specific [patent] reform proposals from the year 2000.'"
Re:Waiting on Bilksi (Score:4, Informative)
It's not really clear to me from looking at the file wrapper exactly why the USPTO hasn't sent out another office action yet. Maybe, as you say, they are waiting on Bilski (a decision will probably be out around April or May of this year). In the meantime, Amazon keeps filing more references for the examiners to consider, including as recently as 20 January 2010. The re-exam folks get to spend a lot more time with their applications than regular examiners do, so they may just be going over these references very carefully.
From what I can tell, though, the examiners had last indicated to Amazon's lawyers that a relatively minor amendment (which Amazon later filed) would make the rejected claims allowable (some of the claims were already indicated as being allowable, or "confirmed", since it's a re-exam, without amendment). That may have changed since this indication was made (as part of an interview). As they say, it ain't over until the fat examiner sings.
Re:Don't pay royalties to Amazon: Force them to su (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The USPTO... (Score:2, Informative)