USPTO Reaffirms 1-Click Claims 'Old And Obvious'

theodp writes "After USPTO Examiner Mark A. Fadok rejected Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click Patent claims as 'old and obvious,' Amazon canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application as it requested an Oral Appeal, a move that smacked of a good old-fashioned stalling tactic. But the move may have backfired, as Fadok has just completed his review of the continuation app and concluded that all of the refiled 1-Click claims should be rejected, providing explanations of why the Board of Patent Appeals was wrong to reverse his earlier decision after listening to Amazon's lawyers in September. In October, USPTO Examiner Matthew C. Graham rejected most of the 1-Click claims as part of the reexam requested by LOTR actor Peter Calveley, a decision that attorneys for Amazon are currently trying to work around with some creative wordsmithing. Can't see how all of this means 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office.'"

another win for the lawyers

Hurray!

Is Amazon really this clueless, or are they just not in control of their lawyers? Are the lawyers just going after whatever they think is billable?

And does Amazon *really* think that what makes their site so appealing has *NOTHING* to do with 1-Click?

I really hate it when morons get rich; it just encourages the rest of them. :(

Re:another win for the lawyers

Given that at least one other business entity has licensed 1-click from amazon (Apple, I don't know if there are others), I'd imagine that this is an attempt to keep that revenue stream open and flowing.

Re:another win for the lawyers

Given that at least one other business entity has licensed 1-click from amazon (Apple, I don't know if there are others), I'd imagine that this is an attempt to keep that revenue stream open and flowing.

Given how much Amazon must've spent in legal fees over this thus far, they'd better be making a whole hell of a lot from the licensees to be making a profit.

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Ok guys, I hate the myminicity-com guy too. This is made by a french company called Motion Twin. You can email them at [e-mail] . This idiots myminicity is called fohootville. Diluge this address, maybe even their http://support.motion-twin.com/ [motion-twin.com] website. With requests that this asshole be tarred/featered, burned at the stake, shot X number of times, where X is the number of posts he's made. And to request the cancellation of his account. I'll probably be trying to troll this messa

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I know this is going against the grain, but the one-click patent wasn't obvious to me. When I first enabled it on my amazon account and I clicked the link I *didn't expect the transaction to be complete*. I'm a pretty bright software engineer working at a startup, and I honestly didn't comprehend how it worked until I saw it. I assumed that it would be one click followed by a confirmation.

On reflection, I realized that it was because when looking at how to do an e-commerce system no matter how short you

This makes no fscking sense..

Why is a company capable of such awesome technical inginuity (Amazon Web Services) getting hung up on something so utterly ridiculous? This just smacks of leadership that is a cut below the calibre of its employees.

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This just smacks of leadership that is a cut below the calibre of its employees.

If by "cut below" you mean "sub-basement" I'd say you're right on the mark.

Re:This makes no fscking sense..

This just smacks of leadership that is a cut below the calibre of its employees.

Is there a single case in the entire world that is the converse?

Incompetent management is pretty much required now in order to create work through inefficiency during the slow collapse in capitalism we are seeing.

If not for idiot managers who like to see everything done incorrectly at least three times before the job is done right, then many of us simply would be out of work.

Intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, skill and efficiency are NOT desirable qualities in management (in a failing capitalist democracy).

Be glad all our managers are idiots, it makes work for us.

Re:This makes no fscking sense..

Incompetent management is pretty much required now in order to create work through inefficiency during the slow collapse in capitalism we are seeing. If not for idiot managers who like to see everything done incorrectly at least three times before the job is done right, then many of us simply would be out of work. Intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, skill and efficiency are NOT desirable qualities in management (in a failing capitalist democracy). Be glad all our managers are idiots, it makes work for us.

A pity I've used all my mod points, that is darn insightful. But I must offer one small correction, the US is not a democracy -- it's a "democratic republic", a form of representative government which incorporates some features of a democracy. The most commonly seen pure democracy would be a lynch mob, which is why the founding fathers devised the system they did. Not a bad system really, but it requires a tad better than rampant apathy and cynicism to to make it work for us.

Now Corporate America, they really know how to use representative government, so they get excellent results. Maybe some day "we the people" will wake up to the power of that example and reclaim our rightful place as the true citizens of this land...and demote capitalism from the official religion of the US to it's proper, original, status of economic tool.

Deprogammers Needed!

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But I must offer one small correction, the US is not a democracy -- it's a "democratic republic", a form of representative government which incorporates some features of a democracy.

Actually, the US is a "constitutional republic" - we have a constitution which defines hard boundaries, we have representatives (who represent the public - i.e. republic). Most if not all subregions hold democratic elections to elect their representatives. This is not actually required in the original constitution (later ammen

Re:This makes no fscking sense..

Why is a company capable of such awesome technical inginuity (Amazon Web Services) getting hung up on something so utterly ridiculous?

Amazon is in a very competitive market that centers around their Web site. Every little thing that they can keep their competitors from being able to use on competing ecom sites is a win for Amazon, and they have the money to waste on the little stuff.

Like Wal*Mart, Amazon is responsible for destroying a large part of many cities independent retailers because although many people talk a strong talk about supporting a healthy local economy by frequenting small businesses, most of these same people will jump to save $2 on a $30 purchase by buying through these faceless uncaring mega corporations.

So really, while we rile against the practices of companies like Amazon and Wal*Mart, we rarely actually put our money where our mouths are.

When you shop at book sellers like Powell's World of Books [powells.com], you may pay a little bit more, but you're supporting a healthy business model that is centered around both the employee and customer, instead of lining Jeff Bezo's pocket even more.

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Three words: Mod Parent Up. This behavior, and the backlash to big box stores, have been pretty obvious to the observer since the advent of the supermarket. As an aside though, Jeff Bezo is probably paying his employees fairly and paying a whackload of taxes to boot.

Disclaimer: As a Canucklehead I know extremely little about American corporate law other than someone will eventually get screwed when a CEO siphons off a billion dollars of company money to buy ridiculous crap.

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This is simply not true. In many ways Amazon has increased the business of your local book seller, your local USED bookseller should be offering their used books on Amazon.

BTW I hear this statement that Amazon has killed local book stores repeated, yet when I actually look at statistics, number of shops open today vs those open 10 years ago, in San Francisco, there are MORE open today than there were 10 years ago. Most of the ones currently open were open then.

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This is simply not true. In many ways Amazon has increased the business of your local book seller

Used booksellers may be able to sell a few more titles on Amazon, but it's not going to float them when Amazon takes all their new book sales, and drives the price of used books into the range of pennies of profit.

Likewise, selling used books on Amazon does not support the local employment rolls.

In the short term, it's good for consumers, but over time the destruction of local economy these mega-retailers cause

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Likewise, selling used books on Amazon does not support the local employment rolls.

Sure it does. Those used books aren't going to receive, catalog, store, retrieve, box, mail and bill for themselves.

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bookstores should give away books for free and make money selling tshirts at poetry readings. Or does that only apply to musicians?

Support the local economy?

Do the math with me, will you? Let's say I want to buy the OpenGL Programming Guide. My local bookstore has it for 60 euro (http://www.selexyz.nl/pages/detail_v2/S1/10030001940805-2-10090000000010.aspx?showbreadcrumb=1 [selexyz.nl], or I can order from Amazon for $50 (http://www.amazon.com/OpenGL-Programming-Guide-Official-Learning/dp/0321481003/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198653310&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]). That's only 35 euro, or almost half what I pay at the local bookstore. Shipping cost is a bit harder to determine, but for me to travel by bike + train + fairly long walk to the above-mentioned bookstore will also cost me 11 euro, plus 3-4 hours. And these price differences are fairly normal for this type of book.

How about pockets, then? I can buy a single Harry Potter book in english for 17 euro, or in dutch for 20 euro (http://www.selexyz.nl/pages/search_v2/S2/SEARCHRESULTPRODUCTS.aspx [selexyz.nl]). Or I can go to Amazon and buy six Harry Potter books for $34 (http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Paperback-Box-Books/dp/0439887453/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198653687&sr=1-2 [amazon.com]). That's 24 euro - almost the price of a single book locally!

I'd love to support my local bookstore, but they *really* have to do better than this to compete. For years we were told that because of the strong dollar, import books were simply expensive. Now that the dollar is weak they don't use the excuse anymore, but we still pay through the nose for books.

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Why is a company capable of such awesome technical inginuity (Amazon Web Services) getting hung up on something so utterly ridiculous? This just smacks of leadership that is a cut below the calibre of its employees.

One word: investors. Investors see patents as very, very valuable assets to be defended. If you defend an absurd patent, you have a chance at $xy million dollars. If you simply say "LOL J/K!" and walk away, you've got a guaranteed loss of $xy million dollars. Yeah, you waste the salary of

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Companies act a lot less monolithically than most people imagine.

Yes, but a lot more moronically.

In related news...

...the USPTO has implemented this new one-click patent denial system, but due to a software bug, it only grants patents at this time. The workaround involves a few manual steps; click on the "Help" link for more information.

Not all claims were rejected

19 out of 69 claims were originally rejected, not the entire one click patent. So much of the patent is still considered original and non-obvious.

Keep it up Amazon

This is one reason you haven't received a dime of my money. Hasn't hurt me a bit, because EVERYTHING you sell can be acquired from other places, and from what I've seen, often at better prices.

Tag "sudden outbreak of common sense"

NT

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Just remember that tags can't have spaces in them, so tag it suddenoutbreakofcommonsense

Here's a question for any patent lawyers ...

Given the importance that Amazon places upon this particular patent, how many times can Amazon keep going back to the USPTO to get their patent reviewed? At some point, is the patent just ruled invalid, or can they keep this in limbo forever?