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Bezos Buries Patent Office in Paper
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Jun 16, 2008 08:13 AM
from the it's-hard-standing-by-your-word dept.
from the it's-hard-standing-by-your-word dept.
theodp writes "On June 2nd, almost two-and-half years after the USPTO initiated a reexamination of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click Patent, Amazon dumped another load of documents on the USPTO Examiner assigned to the case, asking for consideration of the 185 or so listed references and 'favorable action.' Peter Calveley, the LOTR actor whose do-it-yourself legal effort prompted the reexam, notes that he was cc'ed on 20 kg of documents that Amazon sent earlier to the USPTO as it tried to stave off last October's nonfinal rejection of all but 5 of Amazon's 26 1-Click patent claims. So much for Bezos' 2000 pledge of 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office.'"
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Patent Reformers O'Reilly, Bezos Mum on 1-Click 48 comments
theodp writes "Brought together 7 years ago by a threatened boycott over Amazon's 1-Click patent, Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Bezos vowed to reform the U.S. patent system. So in The Register's Open Season podcast (@12:25), Andrew Orlowski finds it very ironic that news of a victory by LOTR choreographer Peter Calveley against Bezos' 1-Click patent broke as O'Reilly was once again busy trotting out Amazon-tied speakers to headline a Web 2.0 conference, this one sponsored by Fenwick & West, the prestigious law firm bested by Calveley. Orlowski notes that O'Reilly, who now counts Bezos among his investors, was oddly silent for a self-described software patent protester, especially one who once vowed to torpedo 1-Click. Equally untalkative was Bezos, who deflected questions on the damage done by Calveley's DIY legal effort, telling a Wall Street analyst to 'refer to our public filings' (although nothing on the subject appears in the 8-K and 10-Q filings). One last dose of irony — in explaining the prior art he used to reject the 1-Click claims, a USPTO Examiner cited the very same TV remote control patent that was deemed to be unsuitable in a 1-Click prior art contest run by the O'Reilly and Bezos-bankrolled BountyQuest (just last year, Amazon testified to Congress that the contest failed to find prior art for Bezos' patent)."
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Fortunately, the 2-day shipping was free (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fortunately, the 2-day shipping was free (Score:5, Interesting)
I won't even grace their website with hits.
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Re:Fortunately, the 2-day shipping was free (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Fortunately, the 2-day shipping was free (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not use their bandwidth to listen to music samples or read book extracts, and then buy them elsewhere?
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20 kg? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the same guy who submits these anti-Amazon stories every other week, right? At least this time the links seem vaguely related to his grievance, although I have no idea what that Flickr picture is supposed to show.
Re:20 kg? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a whole lot of paper to wade through, especially if it's in legalese rather than English.
Go down to Legal and ask them if they think that's "burying" the recipient, particularly in a defense of your company's key patent. Believe me, if CmdrTaco ran a story every time a company submitted a legal filing OMG! THOUSA
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the (in)ability for OTHER sites to use the patented methods and tech that's at risk.
Re:20 kg? (Score:5, Insightful)
2) If you look at the "pledge" link, Bezos raises some ideas for patent reform and notes that if implemented it would cut the workload at the Patent Office. There's no "pledge" to send fewer boxes of paper in a reexamination. I don't usually notice who says what, but this "theodp" guy sticks in my head because all his (frequent) submissions are like this: obsessive complaining about Amazon, with multiple links that have little or nothing to do with he's claiming they're about.
Incidentally, it seems like the June 2nd submission that prompts this round is 15 lousy pages long, no?
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4 Pages? (Score:3, Interesting)
In school, I learned that an idea/concept was garbage if you couldn't convincingly explain it in 4 pages or less.
In civil cases where there is a propensity for information to be buried like a needle in a haystack, it makes sense for the prosecution to be legally required to supply the haystack because it should be the defenses burden to find the needle.
In the patent office though? They should be held to a reasonable limit (100-200 pages?). In this case, the vastness of their "supporting documentation" should be enough evidence to throw away the claim.
Of course, the alternative for the patent examiners (if it was a logical world where reason prevails) is to find an instance where the mountains of documentation is internally inconsistent and then toss the claim out the window because of Amazon's arrogance to submit contradictory claims in regards to their potential patent.
Re:4 Pages? I think not (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:4 Pages? I think not (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:4 Pages? (Score:5, Informative)
Amazon, and all other patent applicants, tend to submit large volumes of information for consideration by examiners. Both federal law and patent office rules (37 CFR 1.56) require applicants to submit information that is "material" to patentability -- which federal courts have construed to mean anything that remote relates to the invention.
So, if you forget to submit a single page of information (out of 10 million) that has some marginal relation to your invention (in this case, probably a printout of every existing ecommerce site), your patent could be held unenforceable due to "inequitable conduct."
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Re:4 Pages? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well... poop. I wanted to be mad at him. (Score:4, Interesting)
We SHOULD recognize that Business method patents are different from other patents. (Don't get me into software patents). There should be types of patents and each patent should have a time limit. However, there is not a SINGLE patent type I can think of that should be 17 years long. 10 years MAYBE... and that's an extreme.
I understand that companies invest a lot of time and money in research for "things". Pharmaceuticals, Engineering etc... but none of them take 17 years to fruition. It's one thing to protect a return on an investment, it's another to exploit it.
Additionally the patent system should be built to specifically fight those who would exploit it's system in a method that is SELF policing. His comment about creating a prior art database where people on the internet would be able to comment on prior art of a patent before it is approved is a TERRIFIC IDEA!
This would be like a wikipedia for patents and prior art making the jobs of the patent reviewers a thousand times easier at finding prior art. Once they are alerted of it, they can then investigate that specific instance and make an informed recommendation.
It's a start and a reasonably easy one to implement.
17 years is a good number for patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Pledge? (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw no pledge of less work for the Patent Office in that open letter. I saw instead a prediction of less work, should his recommendations for patent reform be realized.
The One Click patent is certainly a lightning rod for patent reform, but we should be more sure of what we're accusing our enemies of.
Suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
Marketing ploy (Score:4, Funny)
Can he do anything else? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Thursday, April 05, 2007 (Score:5, Informative)
(See post topic)
Re:They should.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)