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Amazon Takes Pikachu To The Patent Office 337

Posted by Hemos from the it's-not-"would-be-nice-to-catch-them-all" dept.
theodp writes "On Tuesday, Amazon was awarded a patent for Search Query Autocompletion. From the Summary of the Invention--'For example, if Pokemon toys are currently the best selling or most-frequently-searched-for items within the database, the term POKEMON may be suggested whenever a user enters the letters "PO," even though many hundreds of other items in the database may start with "PO.'" See, Amazon practices the mantra "Gotta catch 'em all" with patents.
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Amazon Takes Pikachu To The Patent Office More

Amazon Takes Pikachu To The Patent Office

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  • Next year.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:18AM (#5955465) Homepage Journal

    Amazon tries to patent:
    Patent Application 20040182-2774a - Fibrous cellulose sheeting for the removal of extraneous faeces from the posterior opening of the alimentary canal.

  • Prior Art? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dejaffa ( 12279 ) <dbrowneNO@SPAMsewingcentral.com> on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:18AM (#5955468)
    There has got to be prior art on this. Didn't Yahoo do this before 2000 (when the patent was filed)?

    • Re:Prior Art? (Score:3, Informative)

      by zCyl ( 14362 )
      There has got to be prior art on this.

      1. /bin/grep
      2. /usr/bin/locate
      3. Browser url autocompletion
      4. Every spellchecker since the invention of dirt, which queries a dictionary listing.
      5. Every wordprocessor which autocompletes words you're typing with what it thinks is the most likely candidate.
      6. Every computer-based card catalogue which allows you to search for part of a title.

      Oh, I'm sorry, was applying the idea to toys new and original?

      • Re:Prior Art? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ichimunki ( 194887 )
        1) Prior art does not automatically invalidate a patent. Most patents include references to previous patents that contain ideas of which the current patent constitutes a refinement or development.

        2) In this case, using a "popularity" measurement to auto-complete would be different enough from all of the examples you listed to be a "new" idea.

        3) None of the above should be construed as approval for a patent granted for this "invention". Patents should cover actual devices and inventions, not ways to us
    • Google essentially does this. Google for something but spell it wrong, you'll get "Did you mean to search for ". This can be struck dead PDQ.

      --trb
    • I know my cellphone did this before 2000. Enter the first couple letters of a word on the keypad and it'd try to auto-complete with the most frequently word that started that way. Sure it wasn't on an e-comm site but it was the same exact concept. I know help systems have done it forever. The bash prompt and url widget in my browser does it too.

  • Google (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dj_paulgibbs ( 619622 )
    Does this make Google liable (or indeed, most search engines in general) if you type in an incorrectly spelt search, and it suggests an alternate?
    • probably not. google does simple spell-checking of your query, not searches based on first few letters. Though there may be an option (in google or other search engines) somewhere that allows the user to say "po*" to search for terms starting with the letters "po", but that would not infringe on this amazon patent as google wont care what the current hot selling item is. (IANAL)

      • Re:Google (Score:5, Informative)

        by rherbert ( 565206 ) <slashdot@org.ryan@xar@us> on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:39AM (#5955705) Homepage
        Actually, it's not just a simple spell check. I can't find any current examples, but when you used to search for "nekked", Google would say, "Did you mean nekkid?" (I was having a debate with someone as to whether "nekked" or "nekkid" was more commonly used... no, really!)

        It probably has more to do with the number of hits that a similarly-spelled word word has - if there are a lot more for that one than the current one, it makes a suggestion.
        • whether "nekked" or "nekkid" was more commonly used...

          neked is [sztaki.hu] ;-P
        • > (I was having a debate with someone as to whether "nekked" or "nekkid" was more commonly used... no, really!)

          "nekkid" wins. See yourself:

          http://www.googlefight.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl?q1 =n ekked&q2=nekkid&B1=Make+a+fight%21&compare=1&langu e=us
    • No. Google suggests an alternate based on very close search which produces a large or larger number of hits. It does not, as far as I know (and none of us can be sure since their algorithm is secret), suggest based on popularity of the search. If it suggested a similar-spelled search from, say, the Lycos 50, then yes, it would be comparable.
    • liable though if I can wade through the legalease correctly...my M$IE does auto-complete AND searching

  • erm.. is this patent G rated? (Score:5, Funny)

    by trmj ( 579410 ) * on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:19AM (#5955475) Journal
    This is so not gonna work unless they put a filter on it.

    If going by search engine queries is any example, pokemon is not the most commonly searched for word that begins with po...

  • Fine for some things... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Elvisisdead ( 450946 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:20AM (#5955479) Homepage Journal
    ...but not for others. Great for entering URLs you've visited before or text messaging, but suh-ucks in word processing. Thanks, I can write a sentence (or in this case, 1 word) for myself.
    • Spot on. My cell phone (Samsung A-460h) has a word-completion, um, er, let's be charitable and call it a feature for text entry. The theory being that it will speed things up when spelling common words.

      Horse-puckey.

      I find it much quicker to cycle through the letters by repeatedly hitting the appropriate number key rather than cycling through the "suggestions".

    • Great for entering URLs you've visited before or text messaging, but suh-ucks in word processing. Thanks, I can write a sentence (or in this case, 1 word) for myself.

      I disagree... when writing technical stuff with irritatingly long terms repeated many times I find autocomplete useful. It was the main reason why I did my degree project in OpenOffice.org rather than MS Word...

      Phil

    • Not necessarily bad for word processing. It depends on how it's implemented. If it only completes upon pressing a particular key (like maybe the "end" key), then it wouldn't get in your way at all. Let's say I type "top" and it offers "topology". If all I wanted was "top", no biggie. I just type a space, enter, or punctuation mark, or whatever was supposed to come next, and all is well. Being that this is the same thing I would have done without the feature, nothing is lost. But if I did want topology, then

    • "Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first." - My Dad

      That's the best original quote I've seen in a long time. Cheers!

    • Re:Fine for some things... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pmz ( 462998 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:43PM (#5956303) Homepage
      Great for entering URLs you've visited before or text messaging, but suh-ucks in word processing.

      The reason autocomplete sucks for word processing is the constant interruptions in the natural flow of typing. Then, once a person is used to autocomplete, the habits formed totally trash productivity in non-autocomplete environments.

      I think the best compromise is the tab-to-complete feature in bash and emacs, for example. It doesn't do anything until the user presses the tab key, and, then, it is pretty natural to begin a new word after a tab.

      The Amazon patent, however, is not autocompletion, but smart marketing. By flashing the most popular product name with each character typed, they gain instant attention and better chances at impulse purchases. It's sort of like an electronic version of check-out aisles with all the candy bars and trash magazines leading to the register. ...I think I finally understand, now, why grocery stores don't use the more efficient single-queue/multiple-registers model for check-out. Forcing customers into the horrendously ineffecient mode of standing in multiple lines increases customer exposure to all the crap they put in the "impulse zone." Damn, marketing people are evil.

  • Quick! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mattsucks ( 541950 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:20AM (#5955481) Homepage
    Someone patent searching for '*' and '%', which between them will cover all other searches! ...
    3. Profit!

  • Innovotive. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GothChip ( 123005 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:20AM (#5955482) Homepage
    Unlike the other patents this does actually look like an original idea.

    • Ok, but it's not a good idea, IMO. Well at least it can be optimized IMO.
      (I grant license to anyone to use it, as long as he doesn't patent it, then you own me 1 bazillion $$$$ ;) )

      Here's it:

      Just use the last search term the user entered before clicking on a search result, that way you are guaranted that nothing silly will polute your database.

      HTH ;)

  • hmmm... prior art? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pngwen ( 72492 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:20AM (#5955483) Journal
    Well I'd have to say that there is a pretty good case for prior art on this one. I mean this is not too dissimilar from what web browsers have been doing for a few years now in the location tab (autocompletion of URLs)

    Also, in mozilla you can define macros that can be accessed via the location bar. So I can type google foo to search google for foo. The next time I come along I will probably just have to get as far as google fo and it will complete my search parameter!

    So there you go, mozilla has done it for at least a year. It even gives you suggestions, most popular at the top.

    Another app that does it is my check tender on my palm pilot. It does this for payees...

    Too bad most people will be scared off by court costs to argue the obvious. Oh well.

    • Re:hmmm... prior art? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Elvisisdead ( 450946 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:25AM (#5955542) Homepage Journal
      The only exception is that browsers autocomplete based on a previous entry rather than based on speculation about what it thinks you're looking for.

      • Re:hmmm... prior art? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Roelof ( 5340 )
        Well, if that were indeed the case then even I would have no problem with such a patent.

        However, I do not think the patent is about an actual working AI that can speculate and even think!

        It is about extrapolating based on too few data points :).

        Roelof

    • Re:hmmm... prior art? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Zemran ( 3101 )
      Autocompletion is all over the place, typing a url to text messaging on a mobile. This is so similar to all the others that I think it is about time to start charging fines for the waste of time that these applicants inflict on the gov and therefore the US tax system.
    • No that wont be the topic of the patent filing.In this case mozilla is running on your machine and it is completing the form with data on your machine.
      The patent seems to cover data being sent from server to client for autocompletion. For example on my phone I type "po" and then the based on the keystrokes the server searches the database and fills in the rest (Kinda useful when u only have 10 keys). Any prior art would be found I think in the PDA,cell phone market.(What does DoCoMo think?) Or some really

  • What a waste of bandwidth (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cryptochrome ( 303529 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:21AM (#5955495) Journal
    Listen Amazon, your website is slow enough - no need to slow it further by constantly pumping partial queries and results over the net.

    Assuming you can get a patent on something as obvious as autocompletion. Whatever happened to not granting patents to the trivial, the almost-identical, and the prior-arted?

    • Re:What a waste of bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)

      by goon america ( 536413 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:40AM (#5955727) Homepage Journal
      This happened [iusmentis.com].
      Traditionally, patent protection was awarded only to technical inventions, such as light bulbs, shavers, medicines and so on. New financial techniques or ways of selling things were often explicitly excluded in patent laws. As electronic commerce became more popular, new ways of selling things were offering services over the Internet were developed. Since these new business methods involved computers, communication systems and other technical things, many inventors in this field tried to obtain patent protection. The 1998 State Street Bank decision in the USA ruled that patents on business methods were as valid as any other type of patent. The combination of these two of events resulted in an explosive growth of the number of business method patents.

      Which led to this [uspto.gov].

    • I can see it getting better than that. You type "po" and it querries the database, returns "pokemon" and updates your window, completely overtypeing "police stories." Or, flooding with searches to make "interesting" things come up, like the association of an Oral Roberts book with "The anal sex guide for men" covered in the register last year.

  • Quick! (Score:5, Funny)

    by da3dAlus ( 20553 ) <dustin.grau@REDHATgmail.com minus distro> on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:21AM (#5955497) Homepage Journal
    Everyone go there and search for goatse.cx!

    • Re:Quick! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Rick.C ( 626083 )
      Everyone go there and search for goatse.cx!

      It's not the most searched-for, it's the most-purchased match.

      Quick! Everyone go to amazon and buy goatse.cx!

    • Good idea. One catch though. We would have to buy goatse related products, for that to work.

      • Yes, but it did say "or most-frequently-searched-for items". Good point though, if it's not in the DB, does it still count?
    • Since the topic at hand (yet another spurious patent coming out of the USPTO that will stand forever because we have no system for removing bogus patents without someone actively suing) is way over-done on /. I thought I'd take your sig on instead... ;-)

      Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

      I just watched that movie [imdb.com] for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I don't think I've ever spent a full day trying to decide if I thought a movie was a "good film" or not before, which in itself is
    • Except you'll only need to search for 'go'

  • The words "prior" and "art" spring to mind... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MrFenty ( 579353 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:22AM (#5955510)
    My DOS (Clipper based) databases were doing this about 15yrs ago, and I think one or two of them are still running. Yet Another Unbelieveable Patent.

    *sigh*

  • i guess i'm on the wrong side again (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    this actually looks like an inovation, taking the client side history autocompilet a step further by making it a server side history. un-like the 'one-click' buy junk.
  • The more abusive the Patent Office is in granting these absurd patents, the sooner the entire patent scheme will be abolished!

  • Bye bye Amazon (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Illserve ( 56215 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:23AM (#5955520)
    Implement this feature and I will stop using your service so fast it'll.... well it'll cause a .0000001% drop in your revenue.

    Seriously though, what a terrible idea. I'm already going out of my mind in a righteous fury when Excel converts 2/24 into a date without asking me.

    I'm going to see about getting a class action lawsuit together on the ground of increased blood pressure due to "frustrating features". Microsoft has deep pockets and there's all kinds of medical literature on the problems of stress to flood the court with.

    • No, I've got a better idea. You should patent the frustration hormones that are released when you experience a frustrating feature.

      It's not unrealistic. Medical companies will use this technique nowadays when the patents run out on one of their drugs -- patent the reaction inside the body that the drug produces. It doesn't always work, but it gives them an extra couple years of patent protection while the lawyers fight it out.

      So, patent the reaction you get when you are frustrated by that. Then, when an

    • Nice to see we can always bring things back to a Microsoft complaint. Bravo!

  • what I really don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)

    by newsdee ( 629448 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:23AM (#5955523) Homepage Journal
    is how companies get patents on things that everybody is already doing. Shouldn't a patent be done *first* (or at least, be pending),before they start doing/producing something? As it stands, IMHO it seems to be something else: i.e. "let's see what's not patented yet and patent it". Insane...

    • is how companies get patents on things that everybody is already doing. Shouldn't a patent be done *first* (or at least, be pending),before they start doing/producing something? As it stands, IMHO it seems to be something else: i.e. "let's see what's not patented yet and patent it". Insane...

      keep in mind this patent application was filed in 2000, so the things you've taken for granted for the last 2+ years might not have been around then.
  • So I guess the fact that web browsers (just to name one example) have done this for years doesn't count as prior art.

    Let's see, I think we had our helpdesk application do this at an old company as well.

    What other examples of auto-completing search boxes can we think of? I know dreamweaver auto-completes tags.

    This is another typical BS patent and another example of why the patent office needs a major update in their procedures.
  • Are they going to be the Microsoft of Patents? It seems like literally every week I hear of Amazon getting or applying for another patent. To me (not being schooled in the patent rights) it seems like some of these are somewhat borderline - - as in I tend to ask myself is this something that should/needs to be patented? Also with all these patents that they own could they essentially stop selling/distributing and just collect money from tons of other companies using their patents?

  • Patents are good! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Basje ( 26968 ) <bas@bloemsaat.org> on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:26AM (#5955553) Homepage
    Let me get this straight. This is what they patented, right?

    select * from items where name like 'PO%'
    order by number_of_requests_last_week

    I'm really glad that I'm studying to become an IP lawyer. The more stupid patents, the merrier :)
    • No, No... It's way more than that... They can do it for any two letter prefix. I'm just waiting for the advances in technology that will allow them to complete 3, 4, and even 5 letter prefixs. It can't be more than a couple years away ;o)

    • This really is insane. There is nothing new about this at all, it's a small shitty algorithm that I'm sure has been used in databases all over the world for the very same purpose. Nothing revolutionary, nothing different, nothing validating a patent. But good luck to anyone that want's to take them on in court to prove that they had it first...

  • There must be hundreds of prior art. For example, URL autocompletion in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla fit the bill.

    I am tempted to patent "patenting frivolous patents" as a business method. At least this way Amazon.com would have to come out of the closet and claim "prior art" (I wouldn't disagree with them).
  • Now is Amazon going to start sueing Microsoft, Mozilla and others for using autocompletion in the address bar and forums?
    • Arg. How many people read the patent!? Or at least the abstract?

      The relevant snippet says (I've added emphasis):
      A system for facilitating ONLINE searches suggests query autocompletion strings...
      ...suggested strings are based on specific attributes of the particular database access system being searched      .

      WTF does this have to do with Mozilla or any orther client side app!??! Nothing! It is possible that this might be interpreted as searching a local application db for auto completions, but that's a stretc
  • Isn't that "new" patent just the combination of form autocompletion and of a recommendation engine? I think there is plenty of prior art for both... I'm not sure: is it ok to patent the combination of two existing things? Well apparently it is OK with the USPTO...

    Quick, must patent "Intake of Oxygen In Alveolae While Circulating Blood With a Biological Pump"!

  • Bad example (Score:5, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:31AM (#5955607) Homepage Journal
    When the user starts typing PO, obviously your first suggestion should be PORN :)

  • Patent is strategic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:32AM (#5955613)
    Amazon doesn't care if the patent can be canceled due to prior art. They'll strong arm other companies and many are bound to not put up a fight. If someone does, and the patent is later invalidated, then the max they'd lose would be to have to pay the original licensee back, I don't believe they'd have to pay any type of penalty on any fees collected. So they basically end up with a interest free loan, IF the thing gets invalidated. Not a bad downside. The way that the current patent system is setup, your much better off trying to patent everything, as even if a large number get punted, you'll probably make good money off the ones that don't (kinda like VC in the boom).

    • Re:Patent is strategic (Score:3, Insightful)

      by alkali ( 28338 )
      It's not clear to me that Amazon is enforcing these patents through license fees or otherwise. I suspect that it is doing like IBM and building up a library of patents so that it can't be strongarmed by someone else. (I.e., "You think we're infringing your patent? Are you sure you don't infringe one of our many patents?") Long story short, if the USPTO isn't going to be reasonable, Amazon has to protect itself.
  • Can I name the guy down the record store as prior art? His auto-completion is pretty good when I ask, "What's that band that begins with PO that had a hit in ..."

    Seriously though, it really does not qualify under "non-obvious". Maybe a "nice to have" for the users but it's just a hack (throwing some auto-complete data in the header and adding a couple of lines of Javascript). Definately not something that should be patentable.

    Phillip.

  • Smells like Marketing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mobileskimo ( 461008 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:35AM (#5955658) Journal
    Its not
    "Where do you want to go today?"

    It's
    "Where do we want you to go today?"

  • not quite as bad as the post (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    At first, I just read the slashdot summary of the patent and agreed with pretty much everyone else, that it was insane. After reading the patent abstract though, it does sound to be a bit more complicated than just auto-completion.

    "A system for facilitating online searches suggests query autocompletion strings (terms and/or phrases) to users during the query entry process, wherein the suggested strings are based on specific attributes of the particular database access system being searched. A string extr
    • Here it is again, with the bits that don't matter (may, may be, example, preferably) removed:

      "A system for facilitating online searches suggests query autocompletion strings (terms and/or phrases) to users during the query entry process, wherein the suggested strings are based on specific attributes of the particular database access system being searched. A string extraction component associated with a database access system ... periodically generates a dataset that contains the autocompletion strings for

  • Avalanche (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blunte ( 183182 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:37AM (#5955680)
    If we thought we were seeing too many software/business patents, we're about to really be amazed.

    Now we're patenting "features" of software--behaviors even. How about Undo? Oooh, that's worthy of a patent. Or double-click to select a word, triple-click to select a sentence?

    Pick any feature of any software system, and it's now fair game for patent. This means of course, in the future you'll have to get a licensing agreement from FubarU.com, the patent holder of the "Undo" feature.

    What I wonder though, is it just pure malice that drives these humans to patent things like this? It certainly can't be business sense, since Amazon can't conceivably get any more online retail business by others not being able to use this feature on their retail sites. And it can't just be for license fees, since those may or may not ever come to fruition.

    What ever happened to the good old days of insurance fraud, embezzlement, and plain old theft? At least those perpetrators had balls.

  • A few more moderate points (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dpille ( 547949 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:41AM (#5955732)
    1) This isn't such a "IE did this first" issue. If you read the claims, the process calls for some more detailed analysis on the suggestion end- for example, culling out null results. It'd be the equivalent of IE not autocompleting to 404's, which we all know it still doesn't do.

    2) Prior art from any time after their filing date in 2000 won't matter, so don't worry about what was going on "last year."

    3) The examiner clearly considered mere autocompleting- look at the references cited during prosecution. PDA operating instructions are among them, which I imagine contained lots of "this device will complete your word for you."

    4) Prior posters seem to be confusing "novelty" with "non-obviousness." I think it's pretty likely Amazon was among the first to use this invention as disclosed, but I'm willing to grant that any reasonable programmer turning his or her mind to this problem would have created a similar solution. But that doesn't mean it really has been done before.
    • Word 97 autocompletes names and dates. Is extending that functionality to previous database searches really all that revolutionary? I understand that this isn't autocomplete, but it's a very obvious extension of the autocomplete invention.

  • patents (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ajs318 ( 655362 )
    Just imagine if personal injury lawyers started offering a service whereby they will patent your injury! Not only do you get compensation when you hurt yourself, you get royalty fees the next time someone hurts themself the same way!

    I can think of a possible antidote to all this court mania, though. Has a retailer the right to refuse payment, even if it is made in pound notes, if it believes the money was obtained by some means it feels objectionable? I.E. can some methodist-run establishment legally
  • Let me see, I had been programming for about a year or so when I wrote an interest-generating bank account program for my C64 for use during a game of Monopoly (heh). Each time you wanted to select an account, you press the first letter of the name, and if it was unique you got the full account name. If not, it just waited until it had a unique string. If a 15 year old programmer can sort out autocompletion, for himself, without prompting from anybody, after only a few months of programming, how can anyb
  • Dammit! Now I have to strike the 'order by' clause out of my SQL arsenal. What's next, 'group by'?

  • Unlikely Situation (Score:3, Funny)

    by BigBadBri ( 595126 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @11:51AM (#5955818)
    'For example, if Pokemon toys are currently the best selling or most-frequently-searched-for items within the database, the term POKEMON may be suggested whenever a user enters the letters "PO," even though many hundreds of other items in the database may start with "PO."'

    Any fule nose that typing 'PO' will always autocomplete to 'PORN', no matter how popular Pokemon is at any one time.

  • is frustrate people. for long things like email addresses and URL's it's very handy, but for such short things like search queries it will just get very annoying very fast. I never see search strings over 10 words/50 chars.

    Of course, that's just my opinion.

  • Annoying, But (Score:5, Insightful)

    by praxis ( 19962 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:16PM (#5956087)

    For the record, this kind of behavior bothers me. But, they really are within the confines of the patent system.

    All the prior art examples I've seen posted have been about autocompletion or searching a users previously entered text. They are taking this and expanding it to search the entered text of a group of users, giving the benefit of possible autocompetion of text you may have never typed.

    Patents are supposed to do this. They exist so that someone can take someone's idea and exand on it. That's what they are doing. There very well me prior art on *their* idea, but so far all prior art has been on standalone autocomplete.

    And now...I should say that this is just plain stupid. I never thought something like this should be patentable, but it is. It's the system's fault, and it needs to be fixed. And although they are within the confines of the system, they are just contributing to it's failings. Of course, that could have the effect of more evidence to its demise and rethinking by providing even more examples of misuse of the system.

  • ... but I don't think I've heard of Amazon aggressively enforcing their patents on little guys. This patent seems to me to be a PREVENTATIVE patent, to keep someone else from stongarming Amazon in the future with a similar claim.
  • From the AP wire services:
    Amazon [amazon.com] flushes remaining dignity down the crapper.
  • As a business it is MUCH cheaper for Amazon to patant its processes than to wind up being sued by some guy that patents things, like say, "windowing" to fix the y2k bug. Has Amazon tried going after other businesses for infringing on the patents? If they have, then my argument is void.

  • At the risk of being Really Obvious... (Score:3, Funny)

    by KC7GR ( 473279 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @07:52PM (#5960110) Homepage Journal
    I just can't help myself. Every time I hear someone say the word 'Pikachu,' my gut-level reaction is to offer them a Kleenex and say 'Gesundheit.'

    I know, I know... Probably off-topic... There go my karma points (again).

  • "during the query ENTRY process" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ReadParse ( 38517 ) <john@fun[ ]ow.com ['nyc' in gap]> on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @09:44PM (#5960648) Homepage
    I think there's a big misunderstanding here about what the patent is. It's not just taking "po" and putting that into an SQL "like" statement, oh no. Much more than that. They say "during the query entry process", which means that they'll be using JavaScript or some other client-side code to autocomplete the search term for the user.

    Something like this.... if somebody goes to the DVD page, they could load the Top 50 DVDs into a JavaScript Array. And every time the user adds a character to the search field, it would look to that array and see how many titles match what the user has typed so far. When they're down to only one match, they pop the rest of the title into the search box and, in a perfect world, they would auto-select the autocompleted portion so that, if the user continues typing, it will erase the autocompleted portion.

    For example, let's say (as a really lame, quick example) that you have two titles in the array:
    • The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
    • The Hand That Rolls the Dice

    The user enters...

    "The Hand That Ro"...

    and nothing shows up yet, because the "system" (ha!) doesn't know what title you're going to enter. But as soon as you enter the "c" in the word "Rocks", it only has one left and it autocompletes "ks the Cradle".

    It's a reasonably good idea (not a great idea, but decent), and it DEFINITELY shouldn't be patentable, because it will become the SECOND thing (that I know of) that I, as a web developer, am prohibited from doing for my customers by law (the first is One-Click, Amazon's first silly little software patent).

    Just my USD 0.02

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