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Amazon's Lawyers Jerking USPTO Around? 134

Posted by CowboyNeal from the unleash-the-busy-work dept.
theodp writes "Reacting to an actor's do-it-yourself legal effort that triggered a reexam of Amazon.com's 1-Click patent, attorneys for Amazon have fired back, deluging the USPTO with documents to review, including Wikipedia articles. With the latest batch, Amazon's high-priced law firm even requested that USTPO examiners review an archived page of Norm Quotes (yes, Norm from Cheers) and rule that it does not invalidate CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent."
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Amazon's Lawyers Jerking USPTO Around? More

Amazon's Lawyers Jerking USPTO Around?

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  • List of non-patents (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xzvf ( 924443 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @04:40PM (#18695313)
    Can anyone provide a link to ideas that haven't been patented yet?

  • Norm from Cheers? (Score:5, Funny)

    by faloi ( 738831 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @04:45PM (#18695369)
    Are they attempting a variation of the famed Chewbacca defense?

    • Re:Norm from Cheers? (Score:5, Funny)

      by dsginter ( 104154 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @04:57PM (#18695511)
      Are they attempting a variation of the famed Chewbacca defense?

      It can't be any better than the famous "Buffalo Theory" (also from Cheers):

      Well you see, Norm, it's like this; a herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and the weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

      In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

  • Goldilocks Was Not a Patent Lawyer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by XLawyer ( 68496 ) * on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @04:46PM (#18695377) Homepage
    For what it's worth, Amazon's high-priced law firm really has no way to win. If they omit something from their Information Disclosure Statement, they can expect to hear the argument that they intentionally left out something material and that the patent therefore should be therefore be invalidated. If they include it, they can expect to hear the argument that they tried to bury relevant prior art in a mountain of documents.

    Admittedly I know very little about this particular reexam, but the Norm! page is not obviously irrelevant. It's on the Web, it probably has some kind of navigation feature that someone compared to some aspect of the one-click process, and so the lawyers probably decided to include it because it's the less risky thing to do. If it's really not useful, the patent examiner can probably figure that out without too much effort.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by trix7117 ( 835907 )
      Did you even look at the Norm page? It doesn't have any "kind of navigation feature that someone compared to some aspect of the one-click process", it has a bunch of text (the quotes) and a single link at the bottom of the page (link to the "Cheers Main Page"). There is nothing on that page that has anything to do with one-click in any way unless you are saying that a regular old link is somehow related to one-click, in which case you better submit just about every page on the web. There's no possible ex

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by XLawyer ( 68496 ) *
        I suspect that you have not read the patent application file. If I am correct, then I doubt that you have much basis for saying what is and is not obviously irrelevant.

        • I suspect that you have not read the patent application file. If I am correct, then I doubt that you have much basis for saying what is and is not obviously irrelevant.

          If you had anything, you'd have produced it. Just one example of a bar, a tavern, a watering hole, or of Norm, Woody, Sam, Diane, Cliff or of beer or tabs. Maybe even the name "Cheers".

          The patent itself -- 5,960,411 (Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network) -- all 19 pages, is accessible at Google. Se

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by XLawyer ( 68496 ) *
            Please consider my other comment to this parent. I did find it, and then I posted it.

            Things often turn out to be relevant during patent prosecution for reasons that the face of the patent or application does not make apparent. Fortunately, the entire patent file is available through the Patent Office's web site. Again, if you look at the Office Action that grants the request for reexamination, one issue is prior disclosure of buying something through a single action.

            Do you think that the Cheers excerpts o

            • Please consider my other comment to this parent. I did find it, and then I posted it.

              I must be pretty dense today, because I went back to the cousin(?) post and looked at it, and all I can tell is that you said you said something. As far as "Office Action" WRT this patent, I cannot locate any such thing on the USPTO website. Perhaps if you hummed a few bars or quoted something . . . but since I've taken up a contrary position, I'm not gonna beat myself up for coming up empty.

              I'll grant that Norm makes

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by XLawyer ( 68496 ) *

                You can see information about any U.S. patent or published patent application using Public PAIR at the Patent Electronic Business Center, which is on the PTO's Web site at http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair/ [uspto.gov]. From there, you can search for application number 90/007,946, which is the serial number assigned to the reexamination proceeding.

                Once you see the main page for the patent, select the tab reading "Image File Wrapper". This will give you a list of every document that has been filed in the

      • Re:Goldilocks Was Not a Patent Lawyer (Score:5, Interesting)

        by XLawyer ( 68496 ) * on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @05:20PM (#18695733) Homepage
        Or here's an idea: it's not the navigation that's relevant, it's the content. In the majority of excerpts, Norm walks into cheers, is recognized, and, with a single action, buys a beer that is then delivered to him. It's not quite the same as one-click Web ordering, but I can see how it's relevant, especially considering the Office Action that granted the request for reexamination.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cHiphead ( 17854 )
          What the fuck are you smoking? Norm has a bar tab, Amazon has already lost if they take the stance that applying a centuries (millennia?) old concept to web purchases is somehow innovative or unique.

          Cheers.
          • Norm had a bar tab as a tool for quick beer; Amazon has a toolbar for quick one-click purchases although maybe not beer. When drinking beer, one click is easier than two. Somewhere in here lies a syllogism that would make it all clear.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by rts008 ( 812749 )
              Yes, it's clear to me now.

              I can (if Amazon wins) go to amazon.com and "one click" my beer on Norm's tab!....KEWL!

              GO! GO! Amazon!...what?....oh, nevermind; stupid lawsuits s*ck.

              Where's Norm and Amazon, I need another one-click beer!
          • The question before me was not whether Amazon had a strong argument for its one-click patent. The question was whether the Norm! document was conceivably relevant to the subject matter of that patent. I suggested one reason it might be relevant. Do you believe that my suggestion was irrational?

          • Re:Goldilocks Was Not a Patent Lawyer (Score:5, Insightful)

            by cubic6 ( 650758 ) <tom@NosPaM.losthalo.org> on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @06:38PM (#18696523) Homepage

            What the fuck are you smoking? Norm has a bar tab, Amazon has already lost if they take the stance that applying a centuries (millennia?) old concept to web purchases is somehow innovative or unique.

            They aren't patenting the general concept of automatic identification and charging of a customer based on a pre-shared secret, which would include any kind of bar tab system, as well as many other kinds of financial transactions. They're patenting the specific method of using a web browser that supports cookies to provide customer identification information along with the HTTP request representing clicking the "Order now!" button, allowing the server to automatically look up the billing info associated with that customer and fulfill the order without any further customer action.

            It's a very broad patent that covers any pretty much any online store that uses cookies to identify customers, but it doesn't cover anything not involving the a web browser, web server and cookies. That's why (according to XLawyer's logic) Amazon included the Norm quotes page, as an example of a system that, while similar in concept, is different enough to not invalidate Amazon's claim to originality. It's a bit of a long shot, but out of all the theories I've read today, I think it's the one that makes the most sense. The purpose of Amazon listing prior art on their paperwork isn't to try to invalidate their own patent, it's to clarify the scope and show that their idea is different enough from previous implementations to merit a patent. It's Amazon saying "These are things that may have influenced our concept, but are different enough to be unique."

            That said, I don't think Amazon's patent should be ruled valid, and I hope that the USPTO recognizes that the patent is overly broad and covers many situations that have been happening since browsers started supporting cookies.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AK Marc ( 707885 )
              They aren't patenting the general concept of automatic identification and charging of a customer based on a pre-shared secret, which would include any kind of bar tab system, as well as many other kinds of financial transactions. They're patenting the specific method of using a web browser that supports cookies to provide customer identification information along with the HTTP request representing clicking the "Order now!" button, allowing the server to automatically look up the billing info associated with

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by cubic6 ( 650758 )

                Yes, they aren't patenting the obvious "give me that and bill me" that has been in use for hundreds of years. They are patenting the unique and non-obvious "give me that and bill me *on a computer*". It seems that many of the stupidest patents are for something where it would be laughed at by the patent clerks if the "on a computer" was taken off the end.

                Again, I'm not saying that I believe the patent is valid, I specifically mentioned that I thought it was too broad. However, to be precise, it's actuall

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Sj0 ( 472011 )
                  If that's the case, I wouldn't actually want that in a site I spend money on. I want to verify everything at least once per transaction so I know it'll be billed to an account that exists and will be sent somewhere that I happen to be.
            • They're patenting the specific method of using a web browser that supports cookies to provide customer identification information along with the HTTP request representing clicking the "Order now!" button, allowing the server to automatically look up the billing info associated with that customer and fulfill the order without any further customer action

              simple database tricks. is this so hard that even a college hire couldn't design in a few weeks? perhaps the devil is in the details, but using a cookie (id

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by cubic6 ( 650758 )
                I never said it was particularly innovative, I was simply explaining their patent for the benefit of a few of the previous posters in this thread who obviously hadn't read anything about Amazon's claims except the Slashdot blurbs.
              • ook up data base fields seems SO routine and not at all patent-worthy.

                In other words, Amazon is use a browser feature that was specifically supported to remember information between sessions. The mechanism is intentionally broad. The simple fact that cookies existed for Amazon to leverage is prior art.

                This is like building a race track and distributing the plans for cars that will race on it. All cars that have historically raced on it are white. Now someone comes along and patents a blue race car on th
            • You are completely wrong. If the patent just covered a browser implementation using cookies specifically, then Apple wouldn't have had to license it for itunes. It covers any one click purchasing on a computer over the internet.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by cubic6 ( 650758 )
                iTunes uses an embedded web browser to display the iTunes Music Store. Nice try, though. If you actually read the patent [gnu.org], you'd see that it specifically mentions using a browser that displays HTML as the primary interface for interaction with the online purchasing system.
                • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by cubic6 ( 650758 )

                    iTunes uses an embedded copy of Quicktime to display the dynamic content used for things like the iTMS. While I believe it uses HTTP for the network transport layer, very little of the rest has to do with the web. No HTML, no GIFs, no cookies in the web browser sense.

                    You're correct in that it doesn't use HTML, I was mistaken. However, while checking to confirm that, I found out something rather interesting. Apple licensed the famous "1-Click" patent in September of 2000 for use with their web store on A

        • In pre-democratic Russia, the beer drinks you!

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cubic6 ( 650758 )

        There's no possible explanation for it other than "Amazon's lawyers trying to bury relevant prior art".

        I've read the small portion of the application that the submitter linked to, and I'll be damned if I can figure out why that Norm page would ever be relevant to Amazon's patent. However, I also can't figure out how including a bunch of irrelevant items on a patent application is supposed to "bury relevant prior art". I highly doubt the examiner is going to think "Holy shit, 9 pages, I'll just check one

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by andreMA ( 643885 )

          It's more work than the examiner should probably have to do
          Does Amazon have to pay for that wasted time, or do the taxpayers need to shoulder that burden? At what point is the line of absurdity crossed?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cubic6 ( 650758 )

            Does Amazon have to pay for that wasted time, or do the taxpayers need to shoulder that burden? At what point is the line of absurdity crossed?

            From TFA:

            Calveley is not acting for any corporation and had to raise the cost of a patent re-examination himself. There is a $2,520 fee which he raised from donations from people who found out about his campaign online.

            That's who's paying for it, at least in theory.

        • Re:Goldilocks Was Not a Patent Lawyer (Score:4, Funny)

          by Pollardito ( 781263 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @09:13PM (#18697673)

          If I was Jeff Bezos right now, I'd be calling my law firm and politely requesting that whoever decided to just dump their bookmarks file into the patent application be thrown out a 10th floor window.

          you clearly know nothing about the way that Jeff Bezos thinks. right now he is patenting a one-click operation that kicks off a process whereby your lawyer is thrown from the 10th floor window automatically, thereby lowering the chance that the clicker will have second thoughts

  • Fraud charges and jail time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iamacat ( 583406 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @04:47PM (#18695387)
    It's a crime to submit false information to a government agency. Jeff Bezos should spend a couple of years in ... federal penitentiary.
  • Did this really happen? Or is this some submitter's idea of a joke?

  • The Smackdown (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @04:52PM (#18695443)
    They guy is right ... Amazon does deserve to be smacked down, for this and for other things. And you can lay the rest of corporate America right out there alongside them.

    Still, if this works, if Amazon's infamous patent is revoked by the efforts of a single individual unaided by professional legal representation, then there's hope that a load of other crap can be invalided the same way. Of course, the behavior of Amazon's own lawyers probably isn't hurting his case either.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by midnighttoadstool ( 703941 )
      I totally disagree. Amazon just did what the law allows them to do. And if they are going to fulfill their obligations to their shareholders by staying as competitive as the law allows them then they should do it some more.

      Obviously US patent law is up the creek, but it's not Amazon's fault. If anything Bezos should be fired if he were not to use every tool and weapon available to him.

      The people who should be slapped are those that have allowed this to happen: the lawmakers, which these days seems to incl

      • Re:The Smackdown (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @05:52PM (#18696065)
        Yes, indeed, we should bitchslap the lawmakers. Maybe have Hulk Hogan teach them a few new moves, preferably painful ones that leave bruises.

        I disagree that corporations should be given a free pass on unethical or illegal behavior just because it's in the interests of the stockholders. If you think about it, it is just that attitude that has brought corporate America to it's knees. "Go ahead, Mr. CEO, use every weapon available to you so long as the stock price doesn't drop, and don't worry about that 'ethics' thing, because if you get too concerned about wrongdoing we'll just fire your ass and bring in someone less scrupulous." How is that beneficial to anyone but the stockholder? In fact, long term, it's not beneficial to anyone, including the stockholders. Well, other than upper management, that is, who are generally so insulated from the effects of their actions that it doesn't much matter to them.

        Worse yet, the reason that U.S. patent law is up the creek is Amazon's fault! Amazon and all the rest of the corporations that went to Washington and bought changes to patent law, and the funding changes to the USPTO itself. Those were things that Congress would never have thought up on its own: they were pushed into it by corporations that wanted to gain even more control over America's intellectual capital.

        So far as I'm concerned, Jeff Bezos, Amazon, and all the other companies run by sociopaths can go to Hell. Create, invent, and compete on your merits: if you can't do that you don't deserve to be in business. The granting of, and enforcement of, utterly baseless patents doesn't do anything but force the transfer of our wealth to people that have no right to it.

        Jeff Bezos should be fired for being an antisocial jackass with criminal tendencies. He, and those like him, are running the United States into the ground, because they aren't leaving any room in their thought processes for anyone but themselves.

        Look up the term "enlightened capitalism" sometime, look at the positive effects that it brought to Western civilization, and think for yourself how little it applies to Bezos and people of his caliber.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by midnighttoadstool ( 703941 )
          I disagree that corporations should be given a free pass on unethical or illegal behavior just because it's in the interests of the stockholders.

          I never said anything about illegal behaviour. As far as ethics is concerned it's fraught with difficulty since one mans ethical is another's monstrousness (ie. stem cells, the nazis, abortion; to name a few obvious ones etc). Pointing fingers is a very tricky business.

          I agree there is a problem but I think it is with uncontained competitiveness, a problem that aff

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Moofie ( 22272 )
        Doing something wrong, just because it's legal (and maybe profitable) does not make it right.

      • Re:The Smackdown (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Peter La Casse ( 3992 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @05:54PM (#18696089)

        Amazon just did what the law allows them to do. And if they are going to fulfill their obligations to their shareholders by staying as competitive as the law allows them then they should do it some more.

        Obviously US patent law is up the creek, but it's not Amazon's fault. If anything Bezos should be fired if he were not to use every tool and weapon available to him.

        Wouldn't Amazon's obligation to its shareholders be better served by lobbying for patent reform? Software patents are like a guillotine poised to strike Amazon (and other companies that write software), and as this case shows, even so-called defensive patents have considerable cost. At some point this cost must exceed the price of a new law.

        • Perhaps, or perhaps not. I reckon Bezos isn't a fool, and he may know that a flawed patent system serves Amazon best (for now, and can be changed if it doesn't in future). It's easy to accuse Amazon of being bad, like most here. After all they aren't persuing a policy of loving kindness, rather that of being materially fruitful. Perhaps that is what a business should be doing, within the framework given them by law-makers.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by peipas ( 809350 )

          ...the price of a new law.
          The fact that I'm the first to take note of this speaks volumes.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by node 3 ( 115640 )
        Spoken like a true sociopath.

        While it's true that the lawmakers should fix this problem (don't hold your breath), it truly takes a special kind of madness to give props to Bezos for patenting (and enforcing) such trivial patents. Doubly so if the patents turn out to have been invalid to begin with!

        • As a competent businessman what would you do knowing the competition is working hard to crush you?

          I reckon you are moralising: "Amazon is bad because they are doing what I think is wrong."

          Actually they are doing everything legitemately in their power to survive, which is what the competition is also doing, and that judges have ruled to be correct. If they hadn't patented that stupid idea, someone else would have, and Amazon, as we know them, might no longer exist. Bezos isn't an idiot: he did what he knew h

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by node 3 ( 115640 )
            I'm fully aware that the 1-click patent is good business sense. I do not dispute that in any way whatsoever. And yes, Captain Obvious, I *am* moralizing. Any other astute observations you care to impress us with?

            The fact that it's a smart business move does not mean I should applaud it. It does not mean I should find it to be moral. It does not mean I should hold it as a positive value.

            In fact, as you may have guessed, my reaction is exactly the opposite.

            Business is only one aspect of humanity. To value it

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by nagora ( 177841 )
            I reckon you are moralising: "Amazon is bad because they are doing what I think is wrong."

            And the problem with that is what exactly? That is why we have laws against murder, rape, fraud, and a hell of a lot of other crimes which are judged bad because the democratic entity known as "society" think they are wrong.

            In fact, there is no better reason for something to be disallowed than the moral beliefs of the people. So, drop the "moralising is a dirty word" crap or go live on an island on your own.

            TWW

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • And if they are going to fulfill their obligations to their shareholders by staying as competitive as the law allows them then they should do it some more.

        This is a bad argument if you hope to have long term investors.

        Just because it is legal to do and gains you short term gains on your quarterly income, doesn't mean it won't come back to bite you when you have a PR fiasco on your hands. Of course most CEO's don't stick around long enough to see the results of what they have done, but to commit to questiona
      • Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical. And I imagine using slave labor is also a good thing? Because that's just taking advantage of screwed up laws.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by osu-neko ( 2604 )

        I totally disagree. Amazon just did what the law allows them to do.

        Nope. If the claims here are true, it's quite possible Amazon has broken the law. It's not Amazon's fault that patent law is up the creek, but it is Amazon's fault if it deliberately submitted false or misleading information in an attempt to cover up what they know is a bogus claim.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nutcase ( 86887 )
        The argument that a business person has to work to maximize shareholder value is a common one - but it's not a good one. That business person is still a person, and still has to deal with personal ethics and values in their decisions. The fact that you have shareholders who want you to maximize the amount of money you make does not give you a free pass on doing immoral or unethical things. You are still responsible for your actions, and if you sell your soul for shareholder value you've still sold your soul

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        I totally disagree. Amazon just did what the law allows them to do.

        No, not the law. They did what the legal system allowed them to do. They law says you
        cannot patent the obvious, or prior art, but the system allowed it.
            So if you are going to accept that, you'd have to allow murder of their opponents,
        just so long as they hide the body well and don't get caught. After all, they owe it to the shareholders
        • You're right, in terms of what I wrote. I agree with you. I'm incorrect to talk purely in terms of law.

          Re-phrase what I wrote to say law/system, rather than just law.

  • Norm! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Deagol ( 323173 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @04:52PM (#18695455) Homepage
    At least they didn't submit the survey about eating beans and George Wendt.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by ScrewMaster ( 602015 )
      I believe that was the patent on a method of generating vast quantities of methane for use as an alternate vehicle fuel.

  • The Law Requires It (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JMLang ( 833136 )
    Patent applicants and their attorneys are under a legal obligation to cite ANY documents that a Patent Examiner may consider "material" to tbe patentability of the invention. If the applicant fails to cite anything that the Examiner might have found material, the patent can be held invalid by a court. But if they cite "too much," people complain that they're "burying" the patent office. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by j-pimp ( 177072 )

      But if they cite "too much," people complain that they're "burying" the patent office.

      I was unaware people complaining has any legal binding. Freedom of speech does not mean anyone has to listen.

  • The patent applicant/defender is supposed to provide information about anything that could be considered prior art. If Amazon had been lax about that, the same people screaming now would have been complaining that Amazon wasn't thorough in its filing.
    • Ever since their A9 thingy went to Windows...I've not spent a cent there. b&n.com FTW.

  • Crap (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ZOmegaZ ( 687142 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @05:46PM (#18695983) Homepage
    Amazon's one-click patent was good for one reason: it prevented other retailers from creating such an inane system!

    I once accidentally hit the one-click purchase button shortly before I had to leave my computer for the day. I couldn't cancel the order before I left, because the system hadn't processed it yet. By the time I got back later that evening, the order had already reached the point I couldn't cancel it! I had to wait for the merchandise to arrive, and then return it under a false reason.

    A good lesson in human computer interfaces: the complexity of executing a task should be proportional to the complexity of undoing it.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You're full of shit. I have cancelled one-click orders literally seconds after placing them, and they can be canceled at any time before ship.

    • Re:Crap (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hxnwix ( 652290 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @10:43PM (#18698137) Journal
      The next time this scenario evolves, you ought to have already nipped it in the bud. Don't wait until the buying process initiates itself - at some point you will realize that you have already opened a browser and typed out amazon.com and pressed enter and clicked a product and clicked buy. Then it will be too late. Don't let that one click happen. Immediately, right now, you need to:

      Turn off your computer and make sure it powers down
      Drop it in a 43-foot hole in the ground
      Bury it completely, rocks and boulders should be fine
      Then burn all the clothes you may have worn any time you were online
  • While I consider the 1-click shopping patent ridiculous and the USPTO way out of control, I believe this is (well, roughly) how it should work. It's a legal struggle (of a sort), both sides need to present their legal arguments, and Amazon would be incredibly stupid to not do so. Of course it's not balanced when the big corporations have the best lawyers and even the small players contesting the patent need to spend lots of money, but that's another issue (and tells generally about the broken American legal

    • Re:That's how it works (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @07:15PM (#18696879)
      That's roughly how it should work in regards to a question about the validity of a legitimate patent. The insane amounts of money being spent on patents (and patent defense) are a direct result of the Patent Office granting invalid patents and expecting the courts to sort it out later, and companies determined to suppress competition by legal action backed by invalid patents. That is not how it is supposed to work! The reason that we even have Patent Examiners is to try and avoid this very problem: a well-written and properly-reviewed patent should be solid and hardly worth attacking. It's the Examiner's job to make sure that's the case. Put it this way: if you're just going to let anyone claim anything and have lawyers handle the determination of validity you might as well just abolish the Patent Office right now and get it over with.

      The unfortunate truth is that the USPTO has fallen down on the job, and blame for that can be laid squarely at Congress' feet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      Congress made changes that are now being abused. USPTO is just implementing them

      Yes, Software Patents ahould be eliminated, but it is not the USPTO that makes that decesion.

      1-Click falls within the definition of a patent type. I believe there are three patent types.
      Amazon used the aptent system, and 'obvious' in the definition used by the patent system does not apply here.

      Stop being angry at USPTO. Start using that energy to help enact change.

      Ranting on a message board does nothing, Changes nothing, creates
  • Those who are curious what was on the "Norm" quote page was but are too lazy to type the URL by hand will enjoy this time saver:

    Click here [archive.org] or copy and paste http://web.archive.org/web/20010702004226/ourworld .compuserve.com/homepages/wildkingdom/normb.htm [archive.org] .

    I don't see any reference to "one click" nor "Amazon" nor anything remotely technical.

    I wonder if this story is partly a hoax. I can't imagine that lawyers would actually send someone to look at a document like that. If so, perhaps they're just seeing i

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ziegast ( 168305 )
      Mea culpa - mod me down "redundant". I should have clicked all of the links before posting.

  • I'm no fan of the 1-click patent, but Calveley's assertions are more likely to annoy the USPTO examiners than to carry any weight. Based on RTFA, I didn't see any solid points.

    To be patentable, something has to be non-onvious, novel, and useful. Amazon submitted stuff about 1-click's usefulness to establish, well, that it is useful. It doesn't have much to do with obviousness.

    As for prior art, wikipedia is a perfectly valid source of materials even if it is unreliable. What is important is that the
  • I'm going to patent the 'Double-Click', because unlike the '1-click' it didn't exist when Win95 came out. When you click once... nothing happens, but if you click again, your order is INSTANTLY placed.... gotta love the patent office.
     
    ~A
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    X's and O's for all my foes.
  • and it's no small secret that the general belief is that they're headed towards allowing the patenting of mere imaginary concepts without ever having worked out what they are. Invent something by putting two words together, like "marsupial reinspection" and no doubt within a couple years you could have Scott Adams write some very funny and clever doubletalk or just compile something from the use of one of those business phraseology generator sites, and patent it.

    Given that the faster things degrade, the fas
  • Dunno if anyone else has pointed this out, but Amazon also mentioned a date, "November 10, 1982". This date can't refer to the page itself - since there was no html back then - or to the series Cheers, since it predates that; or to the collection of quotes, since most of them postdate that. This must then be a footnote reference to a specific Norm quote. The only possible episodes are (says IMDB):

    Season 1, Episode 1: Give Me a Ring Sometime Original Air Date: 30 September 1982
    Season 1, Episode 2: Sam's Wome

  • Prior art (Score:2, Informative)

    by grandpa-geek ( 981017 )
    Part of the prior art for the Amazon one-click patent can be found in Babylonian cuneiform. The one click patent is partially based on the concept of the open account. Customer walks into store, points to an item, says "I want it. Put it on my tab," storekeeper recognizes customer, provides item, and records it on customer's tab. In ancient Babylonia, customer accounts were kept in cuneiform.

    The problem is that the Patent Office doesn't search Babylonian cuneiform for prior art on business methods. Nor
  • I think the idea of an open wiki or collaboration group with peer review for "obviousness" among other things would be great. The USPTO needs more examiners though. I don't see why they can't fund the increase by raising patent prices (could require a law). That, and maybe make them pay for researcher's time if the patent is not granted.

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