Apple Licences Amazon's 1-click Shopping

An anonymous reader was the first to note that Apple of all people (corps?) has announced that it is the first sane corporation to actually think Amazon's patent on one click shopping was legitimate enough to license it. I can't fathom why Apple would do this. (Unless Bezos said they can have it for $3.50) but even then, when one company takes something so lame seriously, that's a dangerous precedent.

Re:Not so lame

Though I appreciate your approach I still think your conclusion - that the patent might be valid is not warrented. Then there is the entirely other issue of use of patents, which isn't clear cut at all. But, given that patents are a fact of life, what is wrong with amazons patent?

Really, why were cookies developed in the first place? They were developed to enable sessions to be persistent (to my knowledge). This enables you to do stuff like automatically log on to a service such as slashdot, your web-email provider, whatever. Depending on what you do on the web, you can use this identity thing in different ways.

It's simply a combination in utterly trivial manner of existing ideas, moreover, these idea's were made to be used together.

Hyperlinks came first. Amazon was not involved. Quite a useful idea. dynamic web pages - the CGI idea - came next. CGI was intended for things such as an online store, or a message board, or in general a way to get program output easily to the web. Obviously, programs that need to communicate with a wide population really make use of this most - such as a store. Amazon couldn't get a patent on using CGI to this end, and they were not involved in CGI's developement. They weren't around at the time. Next come cookies. I don't know whether amazon already existed or not, but the ovious purpose by the "inventor" was to make sessions persistent, so that a user doesn't need to identify himself. It also makes intra-session persistence easier, but it is by no means really necessary. Amazon used cookies exactly as intended. Why should they they be rewarded for that.

After all, it was 3M who got the patent on post-its not the first person to use them.

And obviously, if patents didn't exist in the first place, certain things would be very different. For many people, it would not make a difference. For those regions in which huge investments are necessary for one advance (medicine, for instance) things would go a lot slower. But realize also that the increased freedom means you'll have a lot more people developing, so who knows whether this is a good or bad thing... and finally, the government should take an active part in funding and supporting research. It already does, but remove patents and increase support... who knows. I certainly think that the duration of patents bu much more so copyrights should be much shorter - and even shorter depending on the region. Things that take longer to develope should be protected more than those that take shorter.

patented heart transplants?

For God's sake! I can't believe that, despite the number of people who have reacted to this fairly heavy-handed troll, nobody has yet pointed out that neither the silicon chip nor the heart transplant were patented. That was the whole point of the troll! I am utterly disgusted with the standard of kneejerk posters on slashdot today, so in the tradition of mad people everywhere, I am replying to one of my own posts to complain. And abusing the +2 bonus to do so, for God's sake!!

Apple ventures doomed to grow from this.

Apple introduces the one-click crash. Just click once on the Help icon, and your Mac is thrown into a system crash.

Apple introduces the one-click animé plugin for Adobe Photoshop. Just one click with the animé tool, and watch that special Apple magic come to life! (WARNING: Not for use on photographs of Steve Jobs, Steve Case, or Stephen Wozniak, as they morph into Jay from Mallrats, Jay Leno, and Chewbacca the Wookiee, respectively.)

Apple introduces the one-click Electronic Funds Transfer. For each click of the new Apple Pro Mouse, $500 is directly transferred to the accounts and estate of Mr. Steven Jobs. For each millisecond of dragging the mouse, 50 cents is transferred. (DISCLAIMERS: Apple is not responsible for bank statement errors on your part. Due to high latency issues dealing with the USB port structure to which the mouse is connected, as well as the Java which is used to power the EFT logger, funds may be withdrawn at a higher rate. The user is required to wear a stylish electronic tracking necklace which comes in five flavors. If insufficient funds are reported, the necklace will automatically detonate. Apple is an Equal Opportunity Swindler. Java is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, LLC, CRAP, ETC.)

Apple introduces the one-click lobotomy. Just point your browser to any of these company webpages: Microsoft, Dell, HP, Micron, or Intel. You'll instantly have 50% of your brain mass removed by the special lobotomy Javascript plugin installed in Netscape Communicator 4.7 for the Mac. (DISCLAIMERS: Due to Javascript compilation latency, the process will take 5 agonizing days to complete. No anaesthesia is used in the process. Apple is not responsible for the following symptoms of the process: schizophrenia, delerium, homicidal tendencies, incest, and death. Use as directed.)

inside story (secondhand)

A friend of my worked for store.apple.com over the summer, and he told me that this was coming. He said this came from Jobs himself. Apparently, Jobs was in a meeting with some of the web design team and said "I want one click." Someone pointed out that it was patented by Amazon, so Steve got Bezos on the phone right then and there and said "Jeff, we want to use one click." No one heard what was said on the other end, but Steve said "OK, thanks Jeff" and hung up, and told them to go ahead and do one click.
I'm not really sure what the point of that story was, except that this kind of licensing and agreement between two mega-companies doesn't have to have rhyme or reason to it: it can happen because Steve Jobs is nuts and knows Jeff Bezos personally. So, if Steve knows the head of BT, maybe he will license links from them too :) Otherwise, I doubt it...
~luge

Re:Good for Apple

Perhaps it isn't that Apple thinks this is fair, but that Apple thinks it is cheaper to buy the license than to argue the legalities of it (though they'd be unlikely to admit that in a press release). Think of it as 'protection' money. Give Amazon cash; Amazon won't beat you up for giving your customers ease of use.

Apple's 1-click page

here... [apple.com]

Good for Apple

Apple at least have the guts to admit that the US patent system is fair. Buy licensing innovative technology from Amazon, they are playing by the book. Sure, they could have simply stolen the idea, but as a company, the know full well that Amazon would have every right to excerise their rights under the law.

This is what the patent system is all about: Allowing innovative companies to make money from their inventions. Good for Amazon, and good for Apple.

P. Hill

There's a new section on Amazon...

Give them your credit card number, and after pressing the mouse button JUST ONCE, you TOO can have a license for the one-click patent.

However, if you click twice, the license if voided.
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But how much did they pay?

The real question is whether or not Amazon was running another "pricing test" and Apple actually thought they were going to pay a lot less for the patent than they ended up paying.

(Or maybe they license lots of patents, and can expect to be overcharged in the future...)

Prior Art

I did essentially this for a client in '94 (as I have mentioned here before). Then we thought better of it and decided NOT to store the credit card number.

Here's the deal...

Patents (at least in the US) are not awarded as a gold star for having come up with an original idea, they are awarded to further the public good.

The framers of the Constitution recognized that nobody has or ought to have ownership of an idea, but in order to encourage people to share ideas instead of keeping them secret they made the patent system where you were granted a limited temporary monopoly on the use of your idea--in exchange for which you had to publish your idea, with all the detail necessary for someone else to implement it. Alternatively, you are perfectly within your rights to try to keep your idea secret, but if someone else comes up with the same idea, or your secret leaks out, you have no legal recourse.

So what about the one-click patent? Regardless of whether someone thought of it before, there's no public good in protecting an idea the very description of which gives anyone "skilled in the art" enough to go on to reproduce the idea. It is impossible for Amazon both to use this idea and to keep it a secret, therefor there's no reason to bargain with them to make it public.

Apple hardware at Amazon

They're doing it so that Amazon will begin carrying Apple hardware in its online stores. Apple got the deal for a song in return for "blessing" Amazon as a place to buy apple products.

Usefullness of "One Click" ordering

I can't imagine that this is even the best use of such "technology". I buy stuff from the Apple Store and have to admit that I've never been overly concerned about the speed of the process.

I would think that "one click ordering" is intended to assist in impulse purchases (like the crap at the supermarket check out) rather than making the buying experience more user friendly. And I would suspect that it becomes less and less viable as the cost of the item goes up.

I mean, it's one thing to say "oops, I just ordered a copy of 'Dirk Gently'" and quite another to say "oops, I just ordered a G4 cube" :-)

But I suppose that, somewhere out there, there's someone waiting for one-click ordering here [uraniumonline.com].

Re:Not so lame

That's just completely bogus. The patent process is lengthy this is true. But look at the patent databases, there are MILLIONS of patents by "Joe normal guy". I have a bunch of friends who have patented little inventions. They sure as hell aren't millionaires with legal departments.

You have NO proof to back up your claims.

Not so lame

If it's so "obvious" that "anyone" could have invented it, you have to come up with a slick explanation for why there was no undeclared prior art; why nobody did in fact invent it. I've not been impressed by any of the claims made about this patent on Slashdot and indeed, am coming round to the view that it's valid. Think of the example of Post-it notes -- the idea of sticking pieces of paper with messages on them to things is as old as paper, but nobody designed that specific product until 3M. A patent isn't on a general idea, it's on a particular product, and Amazon invented the one-click ordering product. Deal with it. Or at least, come up with some actual, cogent reasons why the product is "lame" instead of just saying it is. Or better still, have the honesty to admit that you hate *all* patents, from the silicon chip to the heart transplant, and that you don't care that we wouldn't have half the "cool stuff" we all crave without 'em.

Re:inside story (secondhand)

I can easily see Steve Jobs doing that. He probably got the license for a trivial cost -- my guess is zero dollars and a sweet mention at Steve's next public webcast. Think about what Amazon gets in return -- an air of legitimacy for the patent. Apple is a media darling these days, so when they do something unusual people pay attention.

I'm sure Jeff Bezos expects that other companies will now come forward asking to buy rights too. A few good contracts could put Amazon within striking distance of not going bankrupt next year.

Re:Not so lame

Ahh, grasshopper you have so much to learn. Amazon's patent covers the idea of using cookies to remember a customer's billing information so that they do not have to re-enter it every time they return to the site.

While this may seem novel, anyone with any understanding of web programming will tell you that patenting the use of cookies to save user information is like patenting the use of HTML for marking up text. Cookies were created to allow web site to 'remember' who you are when you return to the site. That's what they do, period!

So, even though there is no prior art, anyone who is familiar with the technology will tell you that this is a case of patenting the obvious. That's why so many people have their panties is a twist about the whole thing..

Apple just hit wrong button

and purchased this licence in 1-click.
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Every secretary using MSWord wastes enough resources

Re:Not so lame

problem is, at the PTO, we're getting less and less time to do a thorough search. the amount of time I get to send out a first action (i.e. rejection, allowance) hasn't changed in like 25 years, even though the number of references to search has gone up 6 or 7 times at least. plus, the "search tools", if you can call them that, well, suck. I know examiners who still do paper file searches because, well, at least the paper files don't crash on you.

now, this isn't an excuse for a bad examination. (note, I am *not* talking about the one-click patent here, technically I am not allowed to comment on the validity of a patent) however, I still believe in the patent system (trademarks and copyrights, that's another matter).

the big problem is, we really don't have the time to do a really good examination of an application. that, plus the fact that we are highly underpaid, and examiners are leaving the PTO in droves for industry, means its really hard to be surprised when a bad patent makes it through.

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