Amazon's Bezos Wants Web Advertising Patent 264
theodp writes "Just published today by the USPTO--Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' patent application for adding advertisements to web pages. Sure would be ironic if those 50,000 online banner impressions on oreillynet.com Amazon receives as a Platinum Sponsor of the upcoming O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference turn out to constitute patent infringement." Someone *has* to have prior art on this - GEnie/Prodigy/BBSes embedding ads for memberships.
Wired? (Score:2, Insightful)
Haven't read the application, but I assume they have some "novel" way of including advertisements.
Re:Wired? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wired? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe the first people to have banner Adverts was happypuppy.com, tho I could be wrong.
Re:Wired? (Score:5, Informative)
Anything earlier?
Re:Wired? (Score:2)
Re:Wired? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wired? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wired? (Score:5, Interesting)
And while the patent is somewhat novel, I don't think it's sufficiently different from other advertising models (magazine publishing, television, radio) that select what ads to play during which shows to be considered inobvious. But, hey, neither of us are patent clerks. Thank God.
Re:Wired? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since then, other companies have attempted to patent more specific aspects of online advertising. Doubleclick.com's patent [uspto.gov], for instance, was covered on
However, the new Amazon patent is (apparently) not for something as general as banner ads, or tracking the users viewing ads- but on selecting ads to run by comparing them with the shopping behavior of a customer.
As usual, that's something which hardly seems worthy of the name "invention". Let us remember: Jeff Bezos agrees that the USPTO accepts patents far too liberally- but as a responsible businessman, he has no choice but to seize every advantage the government offers him.
One could even argue that high-profile abuses of the patent office serve to emphasize it's shortcomings, and set the stage for eventually fixing patent law. Call it a backwards form of civil disobedience, maybe?
Re:Wired? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish people would STOP SPOUTING THIS BULLSHIT. Hiding your lack of ethics and/or morals behind the corporate veil is no excuse for this behavior.
Why do corporations feel that they are above the rest of us? If its Bezos's job to take advantage of the government due to poor enforcement for as long as he can get away with it, that must make it my job to take advantage of the government due to poor enforcement by killing people for as long as I can get away with it.
Re:Wired? (Score:5, Funny)
In the off-chance that you're not kidding... when you begin your rampage, can you please start somewhere FAR AWAY from where I live?
Thanks a bunch. --Jon
As if I didn't need a reason to NOT use Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
B&N online is dependent on Amazon (Score:2)
I could be wrong but isn't run by Amazon? [barnesandnoble.com]
That's why it's got the same interface - rather than develop their own technology to cater for online customers, B&N licensed Amazon's technology from them. A bit like buying an off-the-shelf database as opposed to writing your own one.
Re:B&N online is dependent on Amazon (Score:2)
There's always ebates.com's 4% money back deal for buying from barnes and nobles' website (and they have a long-running special, buy two or more items and get free shipping). Yeah, Amazon, you're not making it any easier on me.
I could be wrong but isn't Barnes & Noble's web site [barnesandnoble.com] isn't run by Amazon?
That's why it's got the same interface - rather than develop their own technology to cater for online customers, B&N licen
Re:B&N online is dependent on Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
If you really want to Fight the Man(TM), you might want to check out Powell's City of Books [powells.com]
Re:B&N online is dependent on Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
Re:B&N online is dependent on Amazon (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.nwlaborpress.org/12-18-98Powells.htm
I say... (Score:5, Interesting)
-- CodeZion
Re:I say... (Score:3, Informative)
Our last patent was closer to $8k including legal fees and prior art searches. Many cost much more.
I hope the GET the patent (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I hope the GET the patent (Score:5, Funny)
I hope he gets it (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, wishful thinking, I know.
Yea!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yea!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I use nt at work, linux at home, and I don't do ads. Bottom line, WE control what happens on our computers. Let's not forget that we have this power, or that we're going to have to fight to keep it.
Pick Your Poison (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking from experience, subscriptions work really well, even for a not so major web-site like IcarusIndie.com
Currently I just use banner ads for intersite advertising (my site is huge), to allow other game development sites to get some free exposure and to plug web-sites I'm a fan of. I still have a number of text ads you'd never notice unless you clicked on them to get statistics on how well they work (at least for exposure). I've yet to make a dime on them.
As a result of using subscriptions I have a lot more bandwidth available to offer more free stuff.
Like this Survey [icarusindie.com] on who people think the US should attack and tons of material including video on the war [icarusindie.com]
So, block all you want. It's a very simple thing to go to a subscription model. For sites that are struggling with bandwidth usage and costs, I highly recommend it.
Ben
What? (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds more like eBay to me... (Score:4, Informative)
I could be wrong.
Re:Sounds more like eBay to me... (Score:5, Informative)
It is a patent on web advertisements that take up real estate on a web page, which would exclude pop ups, and flash flyouts would be gray area. Specifically when selling those advertisements based on bids. So you will be able to sell ad space on your site for a fixed rate, or a scaled rate, but not to the highest bidder. If this goes through, then techically and legally Amazon will be the only site that can sell banner ads, text ads, etc. to the highest bidder.
Re:Sounds more like eBay to me... (Score:2)
looks like we're screwed (Score:5, Funny)
What? (Score:2, Funny)
Any real lawyers know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that this one clearly stupid slip of the tongue has become a major character flaw in what is clearly a man with above average inteligence (even if you think his ideas are wrong this must be admitted), while all the inane verbal blunders our current prez says seem to be classified as a quirky endearment?
Is this just a VP thing? Remember the Dan Quayle potato - potatoe thing!
Personally I couldn't care less about Gore (and even less about Qualye) but I am just
Did you read the patent? (Score:5, Informative)
NOT "all web advertising"
Re:Did you read the patent? (Score:5, Interesting)
24. A method in a computer system for selecting an advertisement to present to a user, the method comprising: identifying an advertisement for an item to be presented to the user; when an advertisement for a related item has previously been presented to the user, analyzing activity of the user associated with the advertisement for the related item; and when the analysis indicates that the user may not be interested in the item of the identified advertisement, identifying an advertisement for another item.
Covers most of advertising on auction sites and targeted advertising methinks. IANAL!IANAL!!!
I did, I did!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I.E. A system of showing ads based on companies' bid amounts??
Re:I did, I did!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I'd say that sums up IE fairly accurately!
Re:Did you read the patent? (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't newpapers and magazines do this already?
and auctions in general... (Score:2, Insightful)
I am starting to get the "impression" pun intended that any company composed of more than two people should be suspect of being crooked and just generally lame.
And any governments of more than ONE person.
I think it's time to just scrap patents all together and scrap copyrights, or at most make them for a very short period, like two years max. And I don't care about the temporary economic mod
No, but I read the misleading title and submission (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be nice if people read the articles that were posted here, but sometimes that isn't possible because the sites get slashdotted.
What would be even nicer is if the submitters and the editors would read the articles themselves, and not put a bunch of misleading information into the submission and the title.
You know what else would be nice? A cold beer. :-)
One out of three ain't bad.
Correct. Prior out exists. (Score:4, Interesting)
The system was exactly what what described here.
Now I need to hunt down the folks who used to work there...
Hmmm..... (Score:5, Funny)
Prodigy was first (Score:4, Informative)
If you google it, Prodigy is often regarded as the first.
--Jon
Re:Prodigy was first (Score:2)
Re:Prodigy was first (Score:2)
I (or, more likely, my parents) somehow got solicited as a beta tester for AOL when they were first releasing their PC client. This was in the late 80's. It ran on GeoWorks and sucked... badly. Didn't handle anything faster than 2400 baud (I believe I had a USR 9600 HST at the time) and apparantly used xmodem as the transfer protocol.
And while AOL still sucks, it doesn't suck nearly as much as it once did. Scary thought.
Re:Prodigy was first (Score:5, Informative)
Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
I have not been paying much attention to thier profit reports of late, but it seems that royalties, even very small royalties, on this would put them over the top.
Either that or do away with banner ads altogether, which I cannot really complain about
The only thing Bezos won't try to patent (Score:5, Funny)
I have a feeling.. (Score:3, Interesting)
How is this going to effect Google??? (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems *very* similar to Google's system of advertising [google.com]. The rest of the patent also seems to be like ad words.
re: Do the patent people even care? (Score:5, Interesting)
As an example, If I had a patent on the concept of a stool (probably called an elevated sitting device
Neither of the improvment inventors could make or sell their improved sitting devices without paying me royalties for my basic patent. I however could not utilize any of their improvements without paying them royalties.
Often in cases such as these, a cross licencing contract is created to allow us both to use the other's patented ideas. This is why IBM et al. try to get patents on anything and everything; if you try to sue them, they reach into their files and find something where you infringe on one of their patents.
This is the difficulty in the patent examiner's job. He has to decide whether an application is essentially the same as an existing item, or is an improvement on the prior art. Often, the examiner may ask the applicant to remove one or more claims (which the examiner thinks are duplicative of the prior art) leaving only the claims that represent the improvement.
Ok... Jeez...enough is enough.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Stuff like this will only serve to stifle competition on the internet (which is probably the intent) and generally muck up internet commerce in general.
In a capitalistic society, greed is good, But Mr. Bezos is taking it a bit too far, I think.
Time to start boycotting them.
Plenty of alternatives (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed... (Score:2)
Re:Ok... Jeez...enough is enough.... (Score:2)
Actually, do we WANT to challenge this? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Actually, do we WANT to challenge this? (Score:2)
Patent spam (Score:3, Insightful)
Please repost all comments from last patent (Score:2)
Boycott (Score:2, Redundant)
Press release/ Patent issues as free advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
And those half dozen or so, the ones who answer spam, the ones who believe everything that they see on the TV ads for Ebay, are now the targets for a whole new realm of name-awareness advertising... Patent lawsuits, class action lawsuits, and so on. The whole McDonald's thing- that's one in reverse. People say, 'oh, look at the dumb class-action lawsuit' (regardless of its validity or silliness, these people are only going to hear about it in the media, where it's been given the general spin already) and will recite, 'people who can't control their eating habits-' then go on to discount the lawsuit altogether, and the "McDonald's" logo has gotten one more creep into their brains. So they go have a Bic Mac. Yeah, i know that this might get a lot of nasty responses from clever people who have something to pick at with all this ramblimng, but how bout it? Are lawsuits becoming a whole new marketing venue?
I hope that he gets it. (Score:2)
the first honest lie of the internet mania (Score:4, Insightful)
that being said, i hate stupid patents.
irony ? (Score:2)
Even if Amazon received a whole dollar for every single impression - which you can sure they don't - the total is a drop in a large bucket.
Prior art (Score:5, Informative)
Hall, J Storrs, Louis Steinberg and Brian D Davison (1998) "Combining agoric and genetic methods in stochastic design" Nanotechnology [iop.org] 9 No 3 (September 1998) 274-284
the paper can be found here [foresight.org]
Re:Prior art (Score:2)
I used to be involved in a project at one of the big Telco's that was looking at automated marketing of transatlantic bandwidth.
As far as I know it never got off the ground because the telco industry couldn't organise a jumble sale with the state it's in at the moment.
Re:Prior art (Score:2)
Well, SPAM selling banner ad space was being sent out at least as early as
February 1996 [google.com]. I love how the text of the spam says the site displaying the ad the gets two - three hundred hits per day.
(Note the 'patented' process for having an ad embedded in my /. sig below)
Re:Prior art (Score:2)
why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes these tech lords really don't help their case.
It's only time before (Score:5, Funny)
SEATTLE, March 20, 2004 -- Amazon, Inc. (Pink Sheets: AMZNQ) announced today that the U.S. Patent Office has granted it a patent for "a method to systematically patent all things obvious and previously discovered by others." Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, indicated that this patent places the company firmly on the path to reorganization as an intellectual property and rights management firm. "I fully expect this strategy to enable us to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection later this year," Bezos said at a press conference this morning, where he outlined his plan to an enthusiastic crowd of such totalitarian dictators as Fidel Castro and Bill Gates. The remaining points of his strategy include patenting patent infringement as well as a method to litigate patent infringement cases.
Mark
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
The Slashdot community is in outrage
"There must be prior art. I mean someone must have the word 'and' in a patent application" writes one reader.
"I never read the patent, but I can see from the other comments that this monster is really trying to patent the word 'and'!! How ridiculous. The patent office is ensuring its own doom with this one."
"No one is sure if Bezos' secret agents in the patent office will get this one approved," reports the Slashdot editor who posted the story, "but this is yet another sign of the impeding downfall of western civilization"
Re:In related news... (Score:2, Funny)
there's only one spelling and one grammar mistake in that. Slashdot editor comments require a minimum of three easily-spotted errors.
Prior Art (Score:2, Informative)
The Claims are what is important (Score:5, Informative)
1. A method in a computer system for allocating display space on a web page, the method comprising:
receiving multiple bids indicating a bid amount and an advertisement;
receiving a request to provide the web page to a user;
selecting, based at least in part on review of bid amounts, a received bid;
and adding the advertisement of the selected bid to the web page.
>>>
It's clear that the "advertisement" is an advertisement of an item up for bids on an online auction, such as ebay. Therefore, this patent does not deal with online advertisements such as banner ads, etc.
However, this patent attempts to claim online auctions. Period. In that sense, it is very broad and all-encompassing. If Bezos gets this claim, he gets the rights to a monopoly on online auctions, in many senses.
Re:The Claims are what is important (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong.
"selecting, based at least in part on review of bid amounts, a received bid;
and adding the advertisement of the selected bid to the web page."
This is indicating that the ad is added to the webpage based on (at least partly) the amount of the bid. It covers both outright sale of a slot to the highest bidder (you paid the most, so your ad will always show up), AND sale of the same ad slo
Re:The Claims are what is important (Score:5, Insightful)
You read it wrong. The patent is on a system for allowing advertisers to bid on ad avails, and has nothing to do with the content of the advertisements.
If you really are a patent agent, thank you for proving to Slashdot that patent agents do indeed lack the comprehension skills necessary to evaluate technical patent applications.
Look at the old BBS's (Score:2, Insightful)
Prior art holders and USPTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Prior art holders and USPTO (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. You have to apply within one year of the original disclosure of your idea to *anyone*. Therefore, if you could produce the prior art, the most you could do is get the patent invalidated, but you would have to go to court to do that.
Re:Prior art holders and USPTO (Score:4, Interesting)
To apply for a patent, paperwork must be recieved [lawnotes.com] at the USPTO within 1 year of the invention's public use or publication. "Prior artists" who hadn't thought about filing a patent before will usually find it's too late to start one now.
(Note that once the application process has started, it's possible to drag it on for years and re-apply several times before the patent is granted or denied. Some companies have intentionally delayed the awarding of their patents, as a way to extend the eventual expiration date)
My New Patent (Score:2)
I believe you all owe me royalties?
Re:My New Patent (Score:2)
Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
This is for AUCTIONS guys... (Score:4, Informative)
BTW, I hate dumb patents.
Am I the only one... (Score:4, Funny)
Prior art? So what? (Score:2)
Read it again... (Score:4, Informative)
However, I really question the non-obviousness of the implementation. Any practitioner of the art would be able to easily create this...there's no value in its disclosure to the IT community, and so the value of the "invention" as an advancement of the arts and sciences is pretty well worthless.
Yahoo? (Score:3, Insightful)
First for advertisements? (Score:4, Interesting)
And yeah, even if it wasn't for people like Prodigy, Genie, and (there was a third, wasn't there?) -- didn't AOL have advertisements all along?
Malachi
WIPO to change rules on electronic prior art (Score:4, Interesting)
The Practice Guidelines under the SPLT are available at http://www.wipo.int/scp/en/documents/session_9/pdf /scp9_4.pdf [wipo.int]. The relevant section is 76 d on pages 19/20.
This information is useful not only for defending against patent claims like this, but where OpenSource developers have been discussing concepts and ideas on mailing lists open to the public. The document above is also a good read (really!) on the subject of prior art.
It appears that WIPO are taking a stand against Intellectual Piracy.
Phil
This isn't about putting ads on web pages... (Score:4, Informative)
How much more proof... (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, business models or other general "methods" -- like this auction method -- should never be patentable. Patents should cover inventions. You've found a good business model -- fine. Doesn't mean that just because you're the first one to utilize that business model or method, that no one else should be able to.
Patents should, at the very least, consider independent discovery. Furthermore, simply coming up with the idea a few days before someone else hardly means that you're entitled to sole ownership.
Another thing -- life should not be patentable. Living organisms should not be patentable. It is absurd to treat living organisms as if they are "property". This poses innate problems, because living organisms tend to spread. See the Canada case where a greedy multinational corporation decided to bankrupt a farmer for growing what was in his own yard.
Finally, corporations should not be allowed to patent inventions that they did not actually develop. A disgusting category in this case is biopiracy, where corporations are given the rights to profit off of an invention which they in no way invented, but simply extracted from indigenous peoples. Anyone who pursues these kind of patents is an immoral crook.
Re:Good news! Or not? (Score:5, Insightful)
No it wouldn't, because this is not an application for a patent on online advertising. For goodness' sake, actually go and read the application (linked in the story, even!) instead of writing knee-jerk reaction posts based on what you think it might be.
As for the moderator who thought this was "insightful", you should be ashamed of yourself.
Re:Good news! Or not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Correct, although it appears to be based on every search engine's system of allowing paid links, which I believe goes back to Yahoo and AltaVista circa 1998.
Bezos has just sunk to a new low in terms of the crowd of idiots trying to patent things after the fact. For shame.
OD
Re:Good news! Or not? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not an application for a patent on online advertising. Rather, it's a patent application for how one gets one's advert/banner on a target webpage through a bidding system. i.e. you bid for what's called in the patent claim as "display space" the more you bid the more chances your ad will get placed on the page, thereby increasing visibility.
Either way, I am sure there is prior art for this.
Way to go Jeff!!! Rack up those patent claims. One day when your company eventually fails to become profitable, you can use those patents to sue other companies for $$$!
shame on you. (Score:2)
That's quite a slam and like most slams it's uniformative and wrong. I just read most of the damb, dull generic description of a mundane function. Nowhere did I see
I don't want to argu (Score:2)
Re:shame on you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you tell me why having a clerk answering a sales line would not be covered by this?
Yes. The first sentence of the first paragraph of the patent is "A method and system for allocating display space on web page."
Re:Good news! Or not? (Score:3, Funny)
<humor>
Given that it's Amazon that filed the patent application, I think these knee-jerk reactions are justified. I looked up "frivolous patent" in the dictionary and it said "see Amazon". You just can't argue against that.
</humor>
Re:Prior art this, prior art that (Score:2, Interesting)
In other words, the story is a troll.
Is it just me, or does every submission on Slashdot have more links than actual words now? What the hell is up with these people? Why is O'Reilly mentioned in this submission? Why are
Re:Oh pu-leeeze! (Score:2)