USPTO Rejects Amazon's One-Click Patent 166
igdmlgd writes "A while ago I filed a reexamination request for the Amazon.com one-click patent and recently checked out the USPTO online file wrapper -it seems they have rejected all the claims I requested they look at and more!" And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer.
Register Article (Score:5, Informative)
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Eight of them did fall, in fact, from a Steven
Re:Register Article (Score:4, Informative)
Also, "copyright attaches when pen goes to paper". What you meant was that a good way to keep the obvious from being patented is is to have an expression of the idea published published first. The prior art has to be published and available. It also helps if the published work is a printed one. I'm currently trying to get some videos admitted as prior art, but am not sure how it will go.
Interesting, but not great (Score:3, Interesting)
What was interesting, to me, is that there were so many 102 (novelty) rejections. In patents, novelty rejections mean "super obvious". Oh well, claim 1 got rejected on a 102
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And it only took, what, like, half the lifetime of the patent for the USPTO to discover and reject them...I'd hate to see what they do with the merely "plainly obvious"
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But, won't all those FOSS developers who get distracted by searching for prior art result in a reduction of the amount/quality/functionality of FOSS?
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Re:Apple gets a refund ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The company that liscensed the patent goes "It's all the PTO's fault!!11 one", and there's not much anyone can do. If the liscence involved a per-device fee, you can stop paying that, but anything you've already paid is gone.
IANAL
Re:Apple gets a refund ? (Score:5, Interesting)
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IMHO, fixing that would go a long way towards fixing the patent situation. If the patent holder had to pay back all licensing and attorney fees for a patent ruled invalid, the patent holders themselves would be far more careful in asserting rights for "inventions" that are not likely to stand up to scrutiny.
Sorry, that one is simply too easy to dodge. Just set up a separate corporation for each patent, and if your patent is found invalid, then fold that particular corporation.
The only way this would work is if the licensing fees were held in escrow for the entire lifetime of the patent. Which would effectively kill most licensing of patents (why bother if you have to wait up to 17 years before you can actually touch the money?).
Also note that the licensee can potentially negotiate a "repayment of fees if vo
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Like the problems
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I agree. In fact, I would go so far as to say that patent holders would be terrified of asserting their rights to collect licensing fees period. Think about it: would you take a job if your contract said
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If the patent holder knew that the patent was invalid when it filed it, e.g. if it failed to disclose prior art, then the licensee could presumably sue for fraud.
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It's not like Amazon never had a patent, only that (some?) of its claims have now been rejected. If Apple used 1-Click in its Apple Store without licensing the patent from Amazon, Amazon would have every right to sue.
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Depends on the license/contract I believe - I seem to remember that Hitachi(?) had a clause in their patent license with Rambus that if Rambus' patents ever got thrown out, Hitachi got their money back.
But I imagine that's tricky to get into a contract.
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Given that 'one click' was under heavy attack for obviousness, I think Apple would be pretty dim not to have included a 'pay us back if it's invalidated' clause in the deal.
Don't forget that the terms of Apple's deal with Amazon were never made public. Apple may well have said 'here's $1, give us a license and we'll shut up about all this prior art our lawyers found, so you can go on pursuing other companies, ok?'.
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
I read that there was a rejection review during which the rejection examiner found prior art that was obvious. This however was not the case and so the rejection was rejected and now I hear this guy making claims that some of his obvious prior art is infact obvious and should be counted on so the patent is now invalid.
What I don't understand is What is a Wookie doing on Endor?
Can someone give me one thing I can click which will explain this whole thing?
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Huh, no-click answers. I should patent that...
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
I could, but I'd have to get your promise that you'd click twice to get to it...at least until this whole thing blows over.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
You can take a look at the original patent [gnu.org], too, but that would require a second click.
Re:Click me!!! (Score:2)
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Child Continuity Data
09/151,617 filed on 09-11-1998 which is Patented claims the benefit of 08/928,951
09/318,447 filed on 05-25-1999 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
10/194,602 filed on 07-12-2002 which is Patented claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/410,998 filed on 04-25-2006 which is Abandoned claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/610,619 filed on 12-14-2006 which is Abandoned claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/618,452 filed on 12-29-2006 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
11/751,483 filed on 05-21-2007 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
90/007,946 filed on 02-16-2006 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
PCT/US98/18926 filed on 09-10-1998 which is Pending claims the benefit of 08/928,951
I bolded the application the article you linked refers to. Also read about continuing patent applications [wikipedia.org] which this history represents.
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It's still babble no matter how you format it.
Living close to his food source... (Score:2)
It's an Ewok farm.
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Ewoks are Soylent Furry!!!!
Apologies,
Strat
If you're an Ewok, what could be more sinister (Score:2)
Yeah, I can't find where the USPTO said "Rejected" (Score:2)
I did as requested, and just got a status screen that said, "We have taken action. It's not final." It doesn't say what the action is. Another tab shows a timeline of action, such as "Checked the data from the re-exam requester," etc. but doesn't say what the result is. It looks like some of those links are to a file that might s
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Not quite... (Score:5, Informative)
Items 1 and 11 (Score:3)
I'm not sure what claims 1 and 11 are though. Maybe someone else can ferret that out.
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Obvious... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, I think it's unreasonable that patents can so greatly reduce people's freedom to create things, for fear that some of it may infringe upon some fairly trivial patent... Obvious or not, it places an unreasonable burden on developers, to use what they've learned except for those things they've learned about which are patented.
But was Amazon One-Click really "obvious" before they adopted it? I mean, the whole idea of
1: Storing user information (pretty obvious and common)
2: Launching a user order as soon as they click "buy it" (Not too challenging, except for the other issues that #3 solves)
3: Ensuring that situations where a user accidentally orders something can be readily corrected by the user (basically boils down to giving them the opportunity to back out)
It's easy to say the idea is obvious once someone else has thought of it and presented it to you - but was it "obvious" to people before Amazon did it? If so, then why was Amazon the first?
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hindsight (Score:2)
thats the problem examiners have, particularly if they look at applications 5+ years after filing.
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User thinks "Buy that". GUI and database go kachunk kachunk kachunk.
In the programmer's view, ANY button click will call many functions, almost every time.
Where does the programmer stop calling functions? Why, when the app has done everyth
I think you forget how OLD Amazon is. (Score:2)
When I first started using Amazon, I never even ordered books from them. I was too chicken. I had never ordered anything electronically before. I'm ashamed to say that I just used them as a handy online way to access Books In Print and look up ISBN num
Re:Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
People trot out this same argument every time a bogus patent gets discussed. The main reason in this case was that Amazon was one of the first businesses that was involved in Internet transactions. Nobody did it before because nobody needed to solve that exact problem. That still doesn't mean that the solution wasn't obvious; it just means that the problem didn't exist. You don't deserve a monopoly just because you're one of the first people in a new market.
IMO, the laws for patentability ought to be changed to fix this problem anyway. I say that if something is obvious, even in hindsight, then it shouldn't be patentable. There are plenty of patent claims that I understand after seeing, but which certainly can't be called obvious, even in hindsight. That should be where the bar is set.
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The shaving cream can was challenged as obvious. The court agreed that it was, *in hindsight*, obvious, but the fact that the competitors had spent *millions* trying and failing to achieve the same thing showed that it was not obvious.
hawk
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So should we therefore conclude that if nobody has spent money trying to achieve something, and the patent owner just thought up an idea one day and then patented it (without doing any real research), that it's obvious and the patent is invalid?
I ask, because pretty damn near
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However, the shaving cream case made it pretty clear that "obviousness" can be difficult to figure out.
hawk
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Patents-on-a-problem should not be allowed. Once you've found yourself in need of a solution, the proble
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Re:Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone is first to do everything, and that includes obvious things.
Re:Obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Managers submit problems to engineers.
Engineers find a solution to solve the problem.
Only bad engineers solve obvious problems. Give two good engineers the same problem, there is a high probability that they will come up with the same solution.
The idea that only the first one to solve the problem is allowed to use the solution is just nonsense.
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Re: Obvious... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's easy to say the idea is obvious once someone else has thought of it and presented it to you - but was it "obvious" to people before Amazon did it? If so, then why was Amazon the first?
This is one of those "... on the internet." obvious bogus patents. The only difference between this and something that was common many, many years ago is doing it on the internet. You walked into the General Store, said hello to the owner, picked out items, told the owner to put the items on your tab/bill and walk out with those items.
Re:It's an idea, obviousness shouldn't matter (Score:2)
I wouldn't care if Amazon's implementation of this got patented (they'd be better of with copyright anyway). But they managed to patent something like 'Transporting people between A and B really fast' (obvious) or 'Moving people from A to B in exactly 34592804723.2 seconds' (not obvious), an idea. This is the prime example of why so called software patents (I have yet to see one actually containing software) are bad.
You are afraid of a tempest in a teapot (Score:2)
I think "fear of infringing a patent" is a BS excuse not to get to work and make s
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Patent was for a result, not a process or design (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Patent was for a result, not a process or desig (Score:3, Interesting)
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computers operate in a way completely unimagined by those who drafted the Constitution.
Logically? Which is the opposite of how humans typically operate.
Consider the Constitution being written in a time before guns. Suddenly guns come along. Do you write up new laws saying "Don't kill someone with a gun?" One would assume killing in general to be wrong.
What usually happens is legislating computers and their use is less about serving the public good and instead about propping up a businesses bottom line. Outside that, I see little to "legislate" computer use. Computer fraud is fraud, copyright
Re:Patent was for a result, not a process or desig (Score:4, Insightful)
That is probably the best summation of what can go wrong with software patents I've heard in a while. I find nothing wrong with a guy who invents a more efficent algorithim getting compensated, but most patent applications are not "a specific method to solve the travelling salesman problem that happens to be O(n)," but instead "the concept of solving the travelling salesman problem in O(n), an example of which is given."
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IANAPL (I am not a patent lawyer), but my understanding is that a patent is supposed to cover "how to do something", not "doing something".
In software, it's like the difference between requirements and design. Requirements is "what" -- the idea. Design is "how", the implementation. IIUC, patents are supposed to cover the "how" only.
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Damn (Score:3, Funny)
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Does this mean (Score:3, Funny)
well yes and errr, no (Score:5, Interesting)
I helped to start Amazon (I was the 2nd employee there). I've spoken out against the 1 click patent in the past. However, this comment "And it only took many many years to remove what would have been obvious to the most incompetent web developer" is not the reason why the patent should be permanently rejected. 1 click shopping was "new" at the time - if it was obvious, we would have done it right from the beginning on the web site. The issue with 1 click is not whether or not it was obvious to a web developer. It is whether or not business method patents that fundamentally simply map a practice in the non-online world ("put this on my account") to the online world ("1 click") should be permitted.
I don't believe that they should, and I am glad to see the patent struck down.
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Re:well yes and errr, no (Score:4, Interesting)
First, you claim that 1 click shopping is not obvious. Then (in the same paragraph even!) go on to say that it's been done in the "non-online" world as a "business practice". I would agree that as a business practice it is unpatentable. BUT, I would also say that even if didn't fall under that category, it's obvious. I mean, how much more obvious can you get than - "Dude, someone's already doing that!"
And, no, teh answer is not "But THIS is using a computer!1!!! OMG ponies!".
It's as if there is this mysterious divide between "being done with a computer" and "being done without a computer", which seems to me completely specious yet so pervasive that even someone such as yourself seems to fall for it.
You fail at patent posting, please stop. (Score:2)
So "But THIS is using a computer"
is a perfectly valid.
However, 1-click is a business method, something that should not be patentable and is against the spirit of the patent law.
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No business method or software patents should be allowed whether online or not. Problem solved.
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If you look for ways to power an electric-assist bicycle, all the standard ones are recently patented (in-wheel motor, chain drive motor, etc.) They were all not only obvious -- they were already done with motorcycles, self-propeled equipment, and such.
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I was intimately involved with many aspects of getting this new company started. I left, despite significant stock and other inducements to remain, because I am a technical person and had little interest in playing a role in the growth of the company. I was intimately involved with many aspects of getting this now-extremely successful company started.
Wow. I know some hardcore nerds, but you, sir, top them all.
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Obvious to the most incompetent web devloper... (Score:2)
IMHO, the real test is "Could they use this technology without revealing how it worked?". The thing you get from the patent office should be an exchange. We give you this funny monopoly right, you tell everybody in plain English how it works. If there is no exchange, no monopoly right should be granted. Amazon's 1-click patent fails that test completely. There is no way they can use this technology at all without it becoming obvious to the world what's up.
Many things seem obvious after you learn about
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In that case the explanation would have been:
Using someone else's invention (cookies) to do specifically what that invention was designed to do (recognise returning customers) is not something that even the most retarded patent examiner should have considered for a second.
EVERYONE knew how 1-click worked as soon as they heard of it
Now make them pay back the licensing fees (Score:2)
Bravo! We need NEW technology. Not Patent wars. (Score:2)
Oh crap ... (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Sucks to be Steve Jobs and Apple and realize that you've been licensing 1-click for iTMS for years now when it wasn't even a valid patent...
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Why? The licensing costs were probably cheaper than the litigation over Amazon's patent would have been, and they quite possibly wouldn't have been awarded costs even if they had won such a challenge. Meanwhile, the Amazon patent raised cost barriers that kept out iTMS competitors. Given the success iTMS experienced in those circumstances and no doubt in part because of
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Apple sold over 1 billion tracks on iTMS. They were paying at least X cents a song to use 1-click. You do the math. Even if X is only 1 cent that's still a lot of pennies. It's about the same as saying "Gee, I'm sure glad we just bought those 10,000 SCO Linux right-to-use licenses for $699 a piece," after w
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X may have been a fraction of a cent. Or the licensing arrangement may not have been based on a linear function of sales. Even if it was, the cost of negotiating the license (as well as teh cost of the license) was a barrier to iTMS competitors. How much was it worth to Apple to keep competitors with as-easy-to-use systems out of the mark
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I'd never ask you to go to great expense or inconvenience on a project.... I might even pay you something and lend you a few tools to get the job done
Yes I am a cold-hearted bastard who will twist your words so far around you'll think that I was the one who came up with them and that you've somehow broken the law by repeating them.... = you can use that BTW (I *promise I won't sue) *promises made on
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It's a new millennium (Score:2)
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In fact if something is obvious why do i need to publish or do anything with the idea, its obvious. The requirement that everything that is obvious should either be in some public archive or already patented is laughable.
Are you a patent lawyer by any chance?
Re:Whine enuf and you win (Score:5, Informative)
Its a bad idea for exactly the same reason that most erase features of most operating systems erase to a clipboard or a trash folder of some sort.
See, people click on and mis-operate all sorts of things in all sorts of circumstances.
Amazon is simply big and slow enough to be able to afford to do a ship-and-return or a block-that-order action when the customer screws up. It was also well-funded enough that it could operate at a loss for something like three years from startup and not die outright.
Smaller, more responsive, less funded business would have gone bankrupt long ago. And such businesses could never have survived under the onslaught of "I didn't order this $3,000.00 flat screen so you credit back my card immediately and I'll get this back to you once you send me a shipping label" type calls.
One Click Shopping is bad business in most uses, so people didn't design their web pages that way till the "big players" came in with a lot of financial ballast.
"Do it in fewer steps" (e.g. in one step, e.g. without asking "are you sure") is _always_ obvious and is almost _never_ implemented because people screw up. And when it is implemented someone usually gets fired because its hard to teach people that they _should_ slow down and double check before they do something (a) expensive, (b) irreversible, or (c) embarrassing.
Consider: Didn't you think to double-check that order before you just (a) fired the nuke, (b) ordered a whole shipping container of toilet paper for a one-stall bathroom, (c) sold off the entire calculator division of HP, (d) fired everyone in human resources. (etc.)
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"Method for entertaining a cat" is patentable. "Whether or not to entertain a cat with this method" is not.
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back then, no programmer would ever sell a thing with one click
The way you say no programmer would ever do it suggests to me that every programmer knew and understood the concept (i.e. the idea was obvious and widespread), but that companies judged it unwise to do so. So maybe Amazon had the courage to try it, but that's not what patents are for. You get a patent for inventing a clever new kind of parachute; you don't get a patent for being the first one to jump with it.
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Even if it wasn't obvious that it would work as well as it did, its existence in itself was not extraordinary or unique or so worthwhile that it deserved a patent.
In answer to your sig, perhaps it's because monospace fonts are more common on the internet.