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Barnes & Noble Challenges Amazon 1-Click Patent (UPDATED)
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Oct 03, 2000 08:30 AM
from the and-a-one-and-a-one-and-a-one dept.
from the and-a-one-and-a-one-and-a-one dept.
Smitty825 writes: "Barnes & Noble is challenging the Amazon 1-click patent. Hopefully this will invalidate that lame patent, and hopefully this will clarify what is a valid patent. Full story here." There may be certain business methods worth patenting (or at least keeping secret, if you're so inclined), but "one-click" anything seems too silly for consideration, doesn't it? Update: 10/03 4:26 PM by michael : See also this easy one-click exploit of Amazon's one-click system.
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Amazon One-Click Patent to be Re-Examined 132 comments
timrichardson writes "A New Zealand actor, frustrated by a poor shopping experience, has successfully requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review the correctness of Amazon's infamous One-Click patent. An examiner for the agency ruled that the re-examination requested by Peter Calveley had raised a 'substantial new question of patentability' affecting Amazon's patent, according to a document outlining the agency's decision."
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Barnes & Noble Challenges Amazon 1-Click Patent
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Business Processes (Score:3)
Re:It is indeed obvious (Score:3)
You have to LOGIN to change anything. That means ANYTHING at all. You have to LOGIN to change the shipping address.
Maybe if you spent a few minutes and went to Amazon.com, read about 1-click shopping then you'd know wtf you are talking about.
Re:BN doesn't have any case. (Score:3)
Thats where most /. readers and I disagree with you. It is an obvious invention. You run a commercial website, you have customers, you use cookies. The whole purpose of cookies is to prevent your customer from entering the same information every time they use your site. All Amazon has done was to put their cute little name on the process.
Amazon did not invent cookies, and thankfully they are something any website can use. Therefore, I argue that any use of cookies to save your customers from repeating tasks when they visit your site is fair and should be legal.
I watch the sea.
I saw it on TV.
Re:OK... (Score:3)
http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spe
"This simple mechanism provides a powerful new tool which enables a host of new types of applications to be written for web-based environments. Shopping applications can now store information about the currently selected items, for fee services can send back registration information and free the client from retyping a user-id on next connection, sites can store per-user preferences on the client, and have the client supply those preferences every time that site is connected to."
Which part of that doesnt make storing user information like credit cards __**BLINDINGLY**__ obvious? This if from the original _draft_ of the cookie spec. Im sure if you ask netscape they can dig up the original date they submitted it on or something.
It is indeed obvious (Score:5)
- Multiple people may use the same computer.
Frankly, this patent isn't just for an obvious idea, but for an idea that is obviously stupid to anyone who gives more than a passing thought to security. This patent is no different from MSFT patenting automatically executing email attachments (another obvious and stupid idea) .Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
OK... (Score:3)
--
Dumb: secrecy of pending patents (Score:4)
As I was rummaging around the patent database [uspto.gov], I couldn't help but repeatedly soil my pants as I beheld the depths of Amazon's patent depravity [128.109.179.23].
As I continued rummaging, I realized that software patents are taking around 1.4 years to clear during which time only the applicant and the PTO have awareness of the claim. Is it just me or would disclosing the details of patents before they're granted revoluti*nize the discovery process for prior art?
By disclosing pending patents, they could immediately offload the tedium to those organizations most desperate (and knowledgable) to stop ill-bred patents... those same organizations would be beaten into licensing submission [slashdot.org] by legal henchmen weilding ill-gotten patents on loan from the PTO.
Yeah, it would be much harder to get a patent when your competition is digging up examples of why your idea is non-obvious. But isn't that the whole point?
Re:It is indeed obvious (Score:5)
I see that you dont have to login. I use the feature all the time. I dont have type in anything. I just go to amazon.com, click on something, and it comes to my door. Yes, someone on my machine could order something in my name. However, it gets shipped to me, not them. My CC is not stored in the cookie. Plus you have a good 5-10 hours or more to cancel depending on when it happened. Yes, there is no challenege/response type validation that takes place on the order. But remember most people do not share there computer. I dont. Its mine. All mine. Its kept behind closed doors in my house with the doors locked.
So how is this cookie insecure? I really dont follow. It makes it easy for you to order. Thats all. Very very easy.
Even if another computer could or website got ahold of that cookie, reproduced on their machine, and went to Amazon.com to order with your 1-click settings, you'd get the pacakge at your doorstep. They cant the shipping address without logging in using a l/p. So I dont see how a bug in IE makes it any more or less secure.
Now I have done ASP programming, and am now a professional web developer using PHP and some Java. But I never thought about making it that easy to order. Never. And not for security reasons either. But if it is as obvious then this should be easy to prove. Someone would have been dumb enough (in your opinion, not mine) to do this before. I mean its not like Amazon.com has an exclusive monopoly on all dumb things. So of the 10,000+ e-commerce sites out there, not one did this before Amazon?
For my buck, this seems like a valid patent on a valid idea. I worked on at least 5+ e-commerece sites before Amazon.com did 1-click, and it never occured to me to use 1-click ordering techniques So if it is so obvious, can we see some examples?
Re:Perhaps if I hurry,... (Score:4)
I hope all this stuff won't cost too much.
Re:OK... (Score:3)
However, integrating this into an extensive ordering system, and using a cookie so that literally after everything is setup that you have the package at your door in a few days via a single click is novel.
If you think its not, find me anything anywhere that shows someone thinking about this or doing it before Amazon.com. I dont think you can find it, but if you could I bet some people at B&N would like to talk to you.
Patent enforcement vs. Size of the Business (Score:4)
Face it: My idea of a lame patent can be someone else's life-long dream. I guess I think of 1-Click Shopping as a useless gimmick, as I'd never want to Click-and-automagically-buy something anyway, but Amazon puts it around their core sales strategy. So, they try to patent it.
My point is this: Companies try to patent everything they can due to the fact that they've had to pay for their employees to think up such things. Not everyone has the ideals of the FSF and all of the OSS developers. Businesses need to differentiate themselves, whether it be through functionality, appearance, etc.
That's why businesses need patent protection - ensure that their good idea makes themselves money, not their competitors. I don't see how we can blame Amazon. They're trying to discover their boundaries. Who here hasn't pushed the rules to check how far they could go, with sports, work, overclocking, etc?
<opinion>
Don't blame Amazon. Blame the Patent Office for giving Amazon an overly large protected space in which to operate.
</opinion>
Perhaps if I hurry,... (Score:5)
Re:It is indeed obvious (Score:3)
Here is one such example [207.244.81.196]
That doesn't make it right... (Score:4)
This way of arguing really slants things. The general form is devious: "Some have criticized [insert reasonable criticism here]. Some of this criticism comes from [insert more radical elements of the larger critiquing community here]. Similar kinds of criticisms were raised in [some other situation in which we ignored the criticisms]". The basic idea is to invalidate the criticisms by saying "yeah, but some of them come from really out-there people, and see, we've ignored this stuff before!" It's kinda like guilt by association. "If you agree with these criticisms, then you must be in this group over here which is at one extreme."
No sir, I don't like it.
--Joe--
sigh... (Score:4)
We'll never know... (Score:4)
How do we _really_ know that Amazon was the first to come up with 1-click checkout? How do we know that it wasn't first conceived or implemented on some obscure site selling hubcaps for '55 Buicks?
_If_ Amazon (or some other company) was the first one to the patent office with an idea, you can't really blame the patent office for granting an "obvious" patent. Would reactions be different if this patent was held by some 15 year old kid that wanted to license it out? The world is about making money, and patents have value. Personally, I think this is mostly a PR thing for Amazon to continue to grab headlines. This is the sort of thing that they can milk continual mention out of.
It's become evident that the Internet has changed the way that we do almost EVERYTHING. The problem is that the bulk of our lawmakers and governmental bodies are folks who have been for the most part "passed by" by most of this new technology. Do you think that these people _really_ give a shit? I doubt it, they grant the patent, and let the courts sort it out, while the rest of us sit on the edge of our seats, taking bets in office pools on the day that society at large meltsdown on itself from not understanding the technology it created.
Amusing quote (Score:5)
"In the fiscal year that ended Saturday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said Friday it will have granted about 1,000 patents out of 5,000 applications for computer-related business methods."
Man, if 4,000 applications failed while something like 1-click made it, makes you wonder how stupid those 4,000 were!
'Application for patent: Method -- Slamming forehead on keyboard'...
________________
Why is this an invalid patent? (Score:4)
It may not be a particularly "insightful" patent, but that doesn't by itself disqualify it from being invalid. The patent office does have guidelines about these sorts of things, and I think it's clear that Amazon were the first people to actually use this kind of system in a real-world situation.
To me this means it is a valid patent.
If you don't like this patent then attack the rules that made it possible, not Amazon. Amazon are a company persuing their fudiciary responsibilities to their shareholders, and of course they're going to take every avenue possible to increase their revenue streams.
Nothing is too sily (Score:3)
You won't blame your computer when it does something stupid - you don't blame legal system for it. You blame the law (or lack of it) which made it to work this way. Your americans should call (or write) your government representative and make the law change, not blame some poor guy at the patent office because he doesn't know is the "one click" obvious or not - most probably for him it's just half of "two click", whatever that be.
Here's what is happening . . . (Score:5)
Now, when a preliminary injunction is granted, the losing party is entitled to seek appeal directly to the Federal Circuit, rather than waiting until a final judgment is rendered in the case. This article is just that appeal. There is no new evidence or prior art that has been or can be raised, just a review of the decision below in view of the record that was then before the Court.
Maybe B&N will prevail, maybe not. If Amazon does prevail, however, do you suppose that we can expect to see a headline stating that the Amazon 1-click patent has been cleared as valid? Of course not. It would not be true, nor would it be appropriate -- that's not what will have happened -- this is just a case resolving an appeal of a temporary injunction. For the same reason, the present headline and story is likewise inappropriate.
I would, however, be interested in the specific issues being appealed -- does anyone know if a copy of the briefs may be found on-line?