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Amazon Using Patent Reform to Strengthen 1-Click
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Feb 24, 2007 06:20 AM
from the song-and-dance-routine dept.
from the song-and-dance-routine dept.
theodp writes "As some predicted, lawyers for Amazon.com have recently submitted 1-Click prior art solicited by Tim O'Reilly under the auspices of Jeff Bezos' patent reform effort to the USPTO, soliciting a 'favorable action' that would help bulletproof the patent. Last June, an Amazon lobbyist referred to deficiencies with the same prior art as he tried to convince Congress that 1-Click was novel, prompting Rep. Howard Berman to call BS."
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Bezos and O'Reilly 2.0 16 comments
theodp writes "Looks like Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly are investing together again, and this time it has nothing to do with patent reform. In Bezos Goes Web 2.0 Wild, Private Equity Week's Alexander Haislip reports that Explore Holdings, which as of late has been doing business as Bezos Expeditions, is one of 19 investors that have pumped $34.3M into O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures."
[+]
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."
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Amazon Using Patent Reform to Strengthen 1-Click
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Yea! (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/~nurb432/ | Last Journal: Friday August 27 2004, @03:24PM)
One-Click? (Score:4, Insightful)
1 Click (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't buy from Amazon. Is it really that hard to understand?
Re:1 Click (Score:5, Insightful)
No they didn't. Cookies were introduced to identify returning users by a unique code. The fact that Amazon made that code synonymous with a credit card number is a minor detail.
The reason you say it is "obvious" is that Amazon has made it so by their wide and successful use of it.
No, it's because it was obvious. It was obvious then and it's obvious now for the simple reason that it was a trivial and obvious use of someone else's idea.
And spouting off about cookies is not prior art -- you have to actually show how this was being used in the same way
Cookies are the invention, you moron. Identifying customers is what cookies were invented for. I don't have to find prior art because this is the SAME art.
buy.com vs. amazon.com (Score:4, Informative)
Polling the top 10 books from amazon.com [amazon.com] and comparing them to buy.com's prices gives me 3 prices within 1 cent of each other, 3 prices better at buy.com, 3 prices better at amazon.com, and one book that isn't listed at buy.com (however, this book is from the 90s and isn't even in stock at Amazon).
Polling the top 10 books from buy.com [buy.com] and comparing them to Amazon's prices gives me 6 within 1 cent of each other, and 4 better prices at buy.com.
This leaves Buy.com with a lead in the number of cheaper books.
As for the "no cost shipping if you are an Amazon prime member", that's not true: You're paying monthly/yearly membership fees to be an Amazon Prime member, so you are paying for that "free" shipping - you're just paying in advance.
Price - No, Selection - No, Customer Service - No.... what?
Selection: Debatable - Amazon lists just about every book ever published (many they have never stocked), but have an older inventory than Buy.com.
Customer Service: Debatable - They are pretty comparable from my point of view.
Thanks God (Score:5, Funny)
(http://the100rabh.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday August 17, @05:00AM)
1) One click see all specification(Rather make it Zero click also)
2) Hover and buy
3) Pay by credit card
4) Get it delivered at home
Why is US Government blind all these malpractices.
Which is TFA? (Score:5, Funny)
*mindblown*
Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://pjt33.f2g.net/)
Software patents "at lawyerpoint" and under fire (Score:3, Informative)
What is the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
The relevant testimony (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Saturday February 25 2006, @11:02PM)
Misener (who gets called out by Berman) is not an Amazon Lobbyist
Mr. Misener = Vice President for Global Public Policy, Amazon.com
Mr. Smith = Chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property & Rep from Texas
Mr. Berman = Rep from California
Mr. Issa = Rep from California
(this seems like a good spot to start}
And, Mr. Misener, one last question for you. This goes to the 1-Click patent for which Amazon.com is becoming famous. And of course it's under review by PTO. But--I know your answer, but could not Amazon.com be accused of being a troll for patenting the 1-Click?
Page 79 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. MISENER. Oh, we have for about 6 years now. But it's inaccurate, and here are the reasons why. First of all, there's been a lot of complaint about whether or not it was an innovation. And truly it's not innovative only in hindsight. At the time it was a radical departure from the shopping cart model which was ubiquitous on the Web. But more to the point, we have exercised this patent only against a competitor who at the time we exercised it had publicly announced their intention to crush our business. This was not some scheme to hit up small users of 1-Click or similar technologies, it was really to get at a competitor who had not invested anything in developing this technology and had, again, avowed to crush us.
Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Misener. And thank you all.
Mr. Berman, do you have any additional questions? Mr. Berman is recognized.
Mr. BERMAN. Thank you.
Paul Barton David, one of Amazon.com's founding programmers, called the 1-Click patent an extremely obvious technology. And Tim O'Reilly, who's been involved in shaping Internet trends, describes the 1-Click patent as an attempt to----
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Misener, we did not coordinate our questions here.
Mr. BERMAN [continuing]. Has not gotten up to speed on the state of the art in computer science. It's been a raging controversy, and I have no idea whether it's valid or not--because I'm a lawyer. But the controversy itself was one of the issues that got at least a few of us 5 or 6 years ago thinking about some issues of reform.
Page 80 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Let's talk about in your testimony you state last year for $40 million we settle with Soverain, owner of a host of broad e-commerce patents, nearly two dozen of which were purchased for less than a million dollars. We settled for 40 million. Did you believe these patents to be invalid because they were too broad?
Mr. MISENER.We still believe them to be invalid.
Mr. BERMAN. Because they were too broad?
Mr. MISENER.In part because they were too broad.
Mr. BERMAN. Did you attempt to initiate a reexamination?
Mr. MISENER.Yes, we did. And it was not going to be completed in time to be relevant to the case.
Mr. BERMAN. Do you consider this company a patent troll because they purchased the patents for less than a million dollars, which presumably didn't represent the value of the patents?
Mr. MISENER.I've shied away as defining them as a troll or not. We were----
Mr. BERMAN. Nobody has shied away from calling you a troll over one claim.
Page 81 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. MISENER.That's true. We worked, by the way, with Mr. O'Reilly; we came and met with Members of Congress 6 years ago because we agreed that there were areas to improve the patent system
Something smells. (Score:2, Funny)
The One Click Patent is Irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)
Undoubtedly, the "One Click" patent is ridiculous because it fails the test of being "obvious", but the issue
is -- if "One Click" wasn't patented would it be as commonly used as many believe?
Amazon has touted the one click patent to the ire of the world, but its important to remember that most Amazon
purchases are *not made through one-click*. Why does Amazon fight so hard to keep "One Click", then?
The answer is two words: "Stock Price". Remember that Amazon went for years and years as an unprofitable company
with a lot of expectation of future profit. Throughout those years they touted their ultra-efficient infrastructure
and their patented IP (including "One Click") as justifications for their high P/E ratio.
The battle for "One Click" is less of a battle for vital, core-business IP and more of a battle for the public
perception that Amazon has a "secret sauce".
Let 'em keep it if they want it. IMHO "One Click" is as much a 'security nightmare waiting to happen' as it is a
revenue booster. I see it as Amazon's Active-X. But even if it never turns into a security risk, its tough to
claim that Amazon's deathgrip on "One Click" is stifling internet commerce, which grows by leaps and bounds
annually.
Bezos + O'Reilly = (Score:2)
worse than that (Score:2)
But all of those don't get at the more serious problem with giving patent trolls like Amazon prior art information: merely listing a reference to prior art on a patent immunizes the patent from prior art claims based on that reference. The presumption is that if the prior art has been listed and the patent got approved, it must be because the examiner checked the reference and found it not to invalidate any of the claims. The presumption is totally wrong, of course, but that doesn't change the legal reality of it.
When someone applies for a bad patent, or has been granted one, do not send them or any public forum legally-relevant prior art information: you are not going to convince them to give up the patent that just cost them tens of thousands of dollars to obtain and that they stand to gain millions from. Instead, patent trolls like Amazon are just going to use any specific information you give them to strengthen their patent.
If you want to complain to them, tell them generically that you believe that there is plenty of prior art for their patent and tell them that you're going to hit them where it hurts: you're not going to buy from them anymore. If you want to give the prior art info to someone, give it to the people being sued.
More prior art (Score:1)
The VirtualPIN made it possible to buy things with one click. We even worked on Java-based banner ads that could accept VirtualPINs to buy what the banner ad was advertising.
Because of all this crap Amazon is doing, I've quit buying from them. Just like with the RIAA, I won't give my money to people who only want to abuse the system every chance they get.
Re:This shows the stupidity of giving up prior art (Score:2)