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Patents

Amazon Pursues Plogging Patent 110

Posted by Hemos from the add-it-to-the-one-click-patent-trophy dept.
theodp writes "When it unveiled a beta of Plogs (personalized blogs), a nonpublication request Amazon had in effect prevented the USPTO from disclosing that Plogs were patent-pending. But now you can check out Amazon's patent application for the Personalized selection and display of user-supplied content to enhance browsing of electronic catalogs, which describes how 'blurbs' can be made available in a blog format for viewing by others."
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Amazon Pursues Plogging Patent More

Amazon Pursues Plogging Patent

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  • Comments? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Dogers ( 446369 )
    It seems Slashdot will soon owe royalties to Amazon..
  • My first thought is no way, this is so obvious. But then I got thinking--if the process of selecting individualized blogs is the true patent (basically selecting items for different individuals based upon viewing past history, etc.) then I might see this being upheld. Usually when you do have a process though you will see the word "process" somewhere. It will be interesting if they leave the patent like this or seek to further clarify.
    • Excuse me, but I have patented the process of posting individualized comments based on past reading of a slashdot article. Please cease and desist all posting activity until we can work out a licensing arrangement.
  • Pogs [badfads.com]?
    • I'm still looking for the Steve Allen Pog.
    • The site is almost certainly incorrect in saying that the game originated on Maui in the 1920s. It seems to be a variant of "menko" (or "pacchin"/"pettan", onomatopaeic words for the sound of a card hitting the ground), a children's game from Japan. It was probably taken from Japan to Hawaii by immigrants in the 1920s. Here's an illustrated page [i-kosodate.net] showing the Japanese version, and here's another page [kardas.net] that supports the Japanese origin of the game.

  • RSS feeds :-) (Score:2, Interesting)

    by CSMastermind ( 847625 )
    Well I'm not sure if the patent will be approved as is but I must admit that I like to idea behind the service. Most notably I enjoy the RSS feed integration, that's something that more people really need to start using. As for the patent, seems alittle broad to me but that's why you need to get these things approved.
    • Yea, we really need RSS, because it is much too much effort to click on the bookmark to slashdot or other fav' sites to get to the news.

      Not to mention the scaling problem by folk's browsers requesting RSS content even when they don't read it. Much like running your TV while doing something else.

      I mean RSS is great for cross-site syndication, but it is not really cool for personal access.

      • Re:RSS feeds :-) (Score:2, Insightful)

        by mattspammail ( 828219 )

        RSS is one of the greatest things to come out in recent history. (I daresay even better than "plogs")

        The whole purpose of RSS is so that you don't have to visit all of those sites, unless something catches your eye. XML kicks ass, even though it's a wee bit bloated. I have about 10 sites' RSS feeds on my MyYahoo page, and I cannot live without it now. If Google would give me an easy way to do it, I'd probably switch to that. Either way, my RSS content is what I WANT to view from sites that I WANT to monito

        • I'm not trolling, but I have to admit I don't get RSS. What exactly DOES it do? Why would I want it?

          Sounds like yet another client/module that I would have to have running and learn how to use.

          • RSS is a standard form of XML that has been adopted. What it allows the parent site to do is publish and update an XML document that has article summaries that can include title, time, summary, link, etc. to their own web site.

            Then when someone like me comes along and enters the URL for the RSS document into either an RSS reader or site like My Yahoo, it will take the content of the RSS document and display it using the format of My Yahoo or the RSS reader. Unlike HTML, RSS (and XML) is strictly for the tr

          • I'm not trolling, but I have to admit I don't get RSS. What exactly DOES it do?

            Many sites nowadays, especially blogs, have an XML file that lists recent articles. You copy the lociation of the XML file into an RSS reader and set it to check for updates every so often. Then, when you want to surf the web, instead of going to two dozen sites and finding that half of them haven't been updated, you just look at your feed-list, find the sites that have been updated, click on one, and then scan the list of new

        • If you were trolling, I fell for it. If you were being straight up, you're an idiot.

          Well, at least I am straight.

          My site visiting behaviour does not match yours:

          Either I will be heavily procrastinating, in that case I will visit most sites anyway even without RSS preview, or I will be working under a spell of concentration, in which case no site will be able to distract me, except maybe the one or two sites which I know to have fresh quality content every day, and there would be no benefit in having

      • RSS is good for pumping down undates about a product too, the government telling companies that a law is about to change and affect their business, or the government actually advertising consultations for a change.
      • Yea, we really need RSS, because it is much too much effort to click on the bookmark to slashdot or other fav' sites to get to the news.

        RSS is, for all intents and purposes, a bookmark, just to an XML file instead of HTML. It also has the advantage of letting you see if a site's been updated without opening it. That may not sound like a big time-saver, but it's halved (at least) the amount of time I spend surfing the web.

        Not to mention the scaling problem by folk's browsers requesting RSS content even w
    • Overly broad would be a gross overstatement ... obvious ideas are not susposed to receive patent recognition.

  • Blurb authoring (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:02AM (#11997821)
    The method of claim 15, wherein receiving a plurality of blurbs comprises receiving blurbs generates using a blurb authoring pipeline provided in association with the electronic catalog.

    It sounds like they are talking out of their blurb authoring pipeline

    • The method of claim 15, wherein receiving a plurality of marklars comprises receiving marklars generates using a marklar authoring pipeline provided in association with the electronic catalog. Wasn't that taken straight out of a South Park script?

  • Plogging (Score:2, Funny)

    by mfh ( 56 )
    So this is the age when we change a letter of an already annoying idea, patent it, and sue everyone who infringes? Soon I will patent this new idea I had called pife -- it's when you are born, live and grow up, become a productive member of society -- but it's different than life because it's more personal and it's branded with my own special logo, and ongoing product placement using cranial implants.

    Soon you will all bow to me!
    • I am still boycotting amazon for thier one click patent and then sueing barnes and nobles with it. I remember when a lot of people were against them. I still am. They just haven't sued anybody lately because after the one click ordeal, they got Borders to give them thier online portal. Maybe also because they are more profitable of late.
    • Forget this whole plog thing. Who wants a personal log? I'm going to patent the group logging feature, aka glogging. My next step is to integrate a full search engine so people can look for relevant glogs. This search service will be called gloggle. So after gloggling your friends and posting in your glog, you can all head down to the pub for some grog.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • No entry found for plogging.

    Did you mean plugging?

    yes these new words annoys me , but what annoys me more is companys trying to get stupid patents ,
    "According to a note on Amazon.com, the Plog is a diary-type feature of the users' shopping experience. "]It will help] you discover products that have just been released, track changes to your orders, and many other things. Just like a blog, your Plog is sorted in reverse chronological order. When we think we have something interesting or important to tell you, we'll post it to your Plog.""

    So its an information system based on your previous purchases, Im sure many catlog order companys have been doing this for years , with target special offers etc .
    Plus im sure several advertising companys have with tracking cookies and other forms of spyware , been doing the same thing to provide ads that may intrest the customer/victim
  • ...Plog?

    I hope this word doesn't catch on... otherwise it'll cause almost as much confusion as spelling out orally the slashdot URL.
  • We are seing articles about patent applications at least once a week.
    We have another potencial litigious bastard here, but, what do we gain by saying the same stuff each time we see such a story? (and beleive me, you will se a lot more in the future)
    Just add this to your /etc/hosts file:

    127.0.0.1 www.amazon.com
    127.0.0.1 amazon.com

    Don't buy anything from them, don't recommend amazon to friends, don't keep a wishlist, don't even go to the frkn site, don't click on banners, etc,etc.

    It's the only w

  • This is why I'm still boycotting Amazon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jamie ( 78724 ) * <jamie@slashdot.org> on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:18AM (#11997909) Journal
    It's a pain to buy through other vendors, since typically their websites suck by comparison, but -- this is why I'm still boycotting Amazon. Even the FSF gave up [gnu.org] long ago, but Amazon's patent-hungry approach still just seems wrong to me, and I don't like rewarding corporations like that.

    Amazon is really pushing its APIs to open-source developers and is trying very hard to become part of the open-source community. Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly sat side by side at OSCON to tout how small developers could use Amazon's API to make lots of money. This worries me.

    • I interviewed with Amazon last year, despite the fact that I hate patents all to hell, and Amazon is a patent whore.

      All I can say is that many of their team members spend all day thinking about how to improve customer experience, which is great. But unfortunately for the rest of the world, those ideas turn into patents which then no one else can use.

      I agree that Amazon ought to be rewarded for the amount of innovation they produce, but it seems that they already are being rewarded by a high percentage of

    • I have a question.

      Has a company ever been successfully boycotted, where success means the company saw a significant drop in their bottom line?
    • While I commend you for sticking to your principles, if you were to boycott all companies that patent even just software, you'd fast run out of companies to do business with. Even Apple has some very dubious patents, and IBM is almost a patent factory.

  • Next Up (Score:5, Funny)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:19AM (#11997911)

    Amazon combines Plogs, Reviews, and One-Click and gets a patent on Prick.

  • Concepts (Score:3, Insightful)

    by northcat ( 827059 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:23AM (#11997933) Journal
    They are patenting concepts. They are not even patenting theories or ways to implement concepts, they are patenting concepts. It's like patenting the very concept of a flying car itself, instead of patenting an implementation of the concept.
    • If this goes on too much, we may see a reversal.

      In the early 1900s, a guy named Selmer? patented the Road Steamer, IIRC, which covered everything about the automobile. It was so comprehensive that no one could compete in the car industry without Selmer?'s license. Ford couldn't get one, so he manufactured anyway and fought the patent. In the end, he won and the USPTO withdrew the patent.

      Note: I searched for the patent once and couldn't find it.

    • The US patent system was specifically designed so that the inventor would have the broadest protection he can grab. If you invented the concept of flying cars and disclosed how to build and use a flying car, then it is your Constitutional right to define your invention as "a car that can fly" if the prior art fails to teach it.

      Additionally, I think you would enjoy reading about "constructive reduction to practice" compared to "actual reduction to practice". The former is quickly defined as documentation

  • We should patent the process not the idea... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vhogemann ( 797994 ) <victor.hogemann@com> on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:39AM (#11998022) Homepage
    This way, for exemple, one should be alowed to patent the code to achieve certain functionality... but not the functionality itself.

    I think its more fair... Medicines for one, a Lab should be able to patent a process to achieve certain compound. But not be able to patent the compound formula... if some poor country find a way to produce the medicine, the Lab would not be alowed to charge for royalities... unless they're using the patented process to make the medicines.

    Take a look at the HIV case here at Brasil, the governament tried to produce generic medicines, to distribute among the population for FREE, but the Labs couldnt allow that, and sued the governament. When the Labs were about to LOOSE the case, they lowered the price of the meds to a fraction of the original cost, so would be cheaper for the governament to buy the meds, instead of produce them!!!

    What I mean is, patents doesnt suck. What is wrong is the way theyre used nowdays.

    • I already give people things based on there history.

      e.g. When I'm down the pub I know what beers my friends drink, and if they are drinking something different tonight.

      I also know what new papers many friends read and what they are interested in taking about.

      How can anyone be granted a patent for this (or even consider putting one forward)

      Lets, use the word gossip instead of blurbs.

      An electronic catalog system provides an interface for users to author and post pieces of content, referred to as gossip The gossip submitted by a particular author are made available for viewing in an any format you like.
      gossip may also be obtained from external sources, such as the post man, or a news paper.

      A personalized gossip selection component selects gossip to present to users based on histories of catalog items selected by such users, and/or based on various other criteria.

      We call this the postman.
      The gossip selected for a particular user are presented within a personal log or "plog," which may be updated daily and will typically contain entries from many different authors.

      We call this the bartender.

      User feedback provided on specific gossip is taken into consideration by the personalized gossip selection algorithms.

      We call this the mothers meeting.

      Looks like Amazon is patenting the wheel.
    • It's patenting of processes that is entirely the problem. Patents, on their own, are not neccesarily a bad thing (provided the 'obviousness' test is being applied properly). Patenting of end products provides a developer of a product the chance to fully recoup their investment into the formulation of that product. It makes sense.

      However, patenting of processes is something far more insidious. When you patent a process you are granted much broader powers. Now you not only own a end-product, but the steps it

  • Quick question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phunkphorce ( 809864 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:44AM (#11998057)
    I am the leader of an open-source (GPL) effort to create a truly multi-user and multi-blog blogging tool built on PHP and called pLog [plogworld.net]. Even though it's an ugly name, it stands "PHP Log" and has nothing to do with Amazon's patent whatsoever. But the question is... Should we start worrying about this now? I mean, can we expect Amazon's lawyers coming after us because our project name and the name of their patent sound too similar? We've been in Sourceforge since June 2003 [sourceforge.net] (if that counts)

    We'd like to keep our name because it's been our identity for almost 2 years now but we cannot affort legal litigation (being a free community effort, etc)
      1. Send Amazon a Cease and Desist letter :)
      2. Make website about it, post it on slashdot
      3. ????
      4. Profit!!!
    • You're probably going to run into problems. Not because of the patent application, but because of the trademark. Amazon has a trademark application in on the term that sounds very similar to what you are using the term for.

      http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state =o n881u.2.1

      You may be looking at a name change soon. Good luck!
    • I, for one, will immediately register a complaint with Amazon for naming their new feature after an existing project.

      Also, haven't countless Content Management Systems , Groupware, and Portals had personal log features forever? I know my previous employers intra-net has has this feature for years. (PHP Nuke must for sure!)

      http://www.opensourcecms.com/
      After looking at all the Web site management systems out there, you can't tell me that this is not already a well known feature. Some people call it "Stic

  • My patents (Score:3, Funny)

    by ZehFernando ( 848954 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:46AM (#11998072) Homepage
    I'd like to announce that I've patented the following technologies, and everybody who makes use of such concepts must now pay me an annual fee starting ar $500,000 per year.

    WLOG (TM)
    A whining blog. Log in, bitch all day about traffic/technology/your boyfriend/your tatoo/your parents/your friends/school. Under this new concept, users will be able to whine more fast and more effectivelly than ever, thanks to our Instant-Whine(TM) technology that allows for up-to-the-second bitching about the upcoming issues.

    SLOG (TM)
    The server blog. With this breakthrough concept, now servers (and other applications) themselves can write blogs about what's happening to them. We find this kind of blog will be most interesting to system administrators and aficcionados alike. You'll fully understand the advantages of this system when you read your server's SLOG (TM) and find entries such as "I'm feeling bored today. I took 10.6231 seconds to process the last data backup. I had to rewrite 12731312kb of old files in the process. Those people can't create new files or what?".

    DLOG (TM)
    The dead blog. Create once, never post anymore. We think we can make big bucks with this tech, as most blogs effectively become a DLOG sooner or later. With our post lock feature, you can force your own blog to become a DLOG (TM) and never be able to post on it anymore.

    SPLOG (TM)
    The spam fest blog. This is actually an improved version of DLOG (TM); it not only makes your blog dead, but also leave comments open for comment spammers so they can build up their google rankings. Enjoy having thousands of posts about free onl1ne poker, v1agra and pen1s enlargement on your 6-words "I'm feeling bored" post.

    This is just a preview of the many technologies we're creating that enable YOU - the user - to blog more effectively than ever. Stay tooned for several new exciting releases in the future.

  • New portmanteau words make my head hurt (Score:5, Funny)

    by kahei ( 466208 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:47AM (#11998080) Homepage

    'plogging'?? This is the sort of gratuseless neologism that's making modern webontent so incomprusing. Why can't they use ordular, regdinary words that we've all heard of? Why must they inventorate these mad brandologues, taking the initialet of a well-known verbagos and sticking it haprandom onto a pointuculous wundragubbin?

    This frumblotionary addlepoopery is threatening to grurmstipth crumbobblious fremd eebree zorn frell completely and utterly INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

  • Amazon is in the business of Selling Things.

    "Sell" is a verb.

    "Things" are nouns.

    Verbs and nouns. Amazon is in the Verbs and Nouns business.

    Conclusion: Amazon should simply patent "Verbs" and "Nouns". That would cut to the heart of the matter, eh?

    -kgj

  • Lots of examples to break this (Score:5, Informative)

    by mattr ( 78516 ) <<mattr> <at> <telebody.com>> on Monday March 21, 2005 @09:23AM (#11998395) Homepage Journal
    I designed a system called MyNet for users to send email to a system that would add entries to a personal diary page. circa 1995. This was not in production though I made a proof of concept and manually updated a blog (web nikki or diary) in 1995 online for a designer named hachiya, who designed sony's pink bear.

    David Blair's waxweb system (also about the same time) also should break parts of this as it included an advanced system allowing users to add annotations to a movie that is broken up into scenes, and edit the movie.

    I think if you take apart the patent line by line you will find lots of things that beat it piece by piece, and some which have more than one piece. I don't buy it that these guys invented blogging.

    For example Wiki's are based [c2.com] circa 1994 on work from the 80's.

    It looks more like the patent describes some things that have been around a while, and some already established techniques to extend them. Maybe some good development in there but not the originality as far as I can see from Amazon to be worth a patent. Not if it is circa 2003.

    Anyway, I'm against software patents in general since they seem to act opposite from the way patents are supposed to act, but the main thing here is that if there is going to be such a thing as a software patent it better be something more revolutionary and less obvious to experts in the field at the time, than what they have. I'm tired of seeing "software patents" for things that ought to be laughed out of the patent office if they were based on the physical world. And then you get more into mathematical / algorithmic discoveries which are not patentable for even better (similar) reasons. I wish Amazon would fuck off. They have enough of the fucking pie.
  • How is it possible that the Patent Office can hide the fact that something is patent pending, is this an attempt to deliberately submarine a patent?

  • Personalised Blogs... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jasgo ( 679531 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @10:19AM (#11999010)
    as opposed to..........?
  • ...of why software and other ephemeral patents are a bad idea and should only ever be granted with a much more jaundiced eye than anything like a new kind of machine. I agree with adding Amazon to the dead loopback section of the hosts file. More and more and more we need patent reform.
  • But this doesn't strike me as a huge issue like it does to so many here.

    Amazon is not talking about patenting the idea of a Blog. What they are looking to patent is the idea of attaching "blurbs" from users and other blog sites to specific items in their online catalog. Sort of like comments attached to a story here on Slashdot, or an RSS feed from another site. It even refers to blogs as an external concept it is trying to mimic in the patent itself.

    They're combining the power of blogs with their sear
  • Plogging is plugging your blog. Like Roland Piquwhatever, the guy who spams for his blog on Slashdot.
  • These terrorists must be stopped.
  • Comb Over! [uspto.gov]

    Patenting linking to peoples blogs is like patenting the comb-over.

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