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Amazon Sues B&N over Software Patent
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Fri Oct 22, 1999 10:00 AM
from the one-click-technology dept.
from the one-click-technology dept.
TuneUp writes "Amazon is suing Barnes and Noble over it's 1-Click "technology" which allows you to enter your credit info only once, then shop to your hearts content. Time to see if these ridiculous patents will hold up. " We reported on
the patent a few weeks ago. By far my favorite bit is how this feature took "Thousands of Hours" to implement. I'm having a really hard time with this patent, since to a computer saving your VISA number and shipping address is no different then saving, say, your Slashdot Nickname and preferred threshold. Well, except one probably ought to be a bit more secure...
Related Stories
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Your Rights Online: Amazon One-Click Patent to be Re-Examined 132 comments
timrichardson writes "A New Zealand actor, frustrated by a poor shopping experience, has successfully requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review the correctness of Amazon's infamous One-Click patent. An examiner for the agency ruled that the re-examination requested by Peter Calveley had raised a 'substantial new question of patentability' affecting Amazon's patent, according to a document outlining the agency's decision."
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Amazon Sues B&N over Software Patent
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Hopefully we won't get sued... (Score:4)
The good and the bad (Score:4)
Two companies which nearly define "deep pockets" are going to fight it out here. Instead of the little guy being picked on by the big guy, two evenly sized competitors will be going at it- which means that maybe something other than money will determine the outcome of the case.
The bad:
It will still be IP lawyers determining the outcome. What do you think the odds are of B&N's guys saying "all software patents are crap!"? That tack might lead to a useful outcome, but no... they'll be arguing that "this particular patent is crap... of course, all of ours are brilliant and original, so don't touch those." They'd never jeopardize their incomes by pushing for a ruling that would have expansive and much needed impact.
My conclusion:
While this case might be interesting, it won't change anything, because of the vested interests of the lawyers who will end up controlling the case. Patents won't really fall in the courts until a little guy is attacked by a big guy, and defended by a lawyer who does pro bono work and is thus willing to attack the system from within. Until that time, corporate IP lawyers will continue fighting small battles while making very sure they don't win the war.
Remember, BN is no saint (Score:3)
Hopefully as little will come of this patent case as came of that.
What I find most sad about this whole thing is that to me, as a potential customer, the "1-Click ordering" is one of the least interesting features of their site. It is like a brick-and-morter store acting as if their cash register were the most crucial part of their business.
Protest: get out of affiliate program (Score:3)
Duking it out, lawyer-style (Score:3)
But the trouble is, a good idea has a way to spread, and it ends up being futile to try to cling on to it. Not only that, it deprives consumers of quality service. In the end, companies doing this try to cling to an artificially maintained consummer base, but it ends up eroding up and the idea spreads around.
I think Amazon realises that. There's plenty of other companies doing this also, and certainly not just online bookstores. I know Chapters.ca does it (they store your credit card info, so you only have to enter it once; buying a book takes one click, and you're processing to checkout.)
I think what Amazon is doing is trying to hurt the competition by dragging them into a lawsuit. I don't think they care if they win or not. They're projecting the image that they invented a novel system, and that BnN is copying them for their success.
So, let's not expect a dramatic turn of events; either they settle this out of court, as a way to calm the flames, or Amazon wins. But no one, not the CEO's, not the lawyers, not the judges, will once realise the concept of software patent is crap. They'll just use it as law fodder, and be happy with it.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
QUICK! (Score:3)
Here's another one (a freebie).
Patent Pending:
First post.
A method of annoying both posters and readers by posting to Slashdot with first post in the subject line. Post must have very little content and not mention Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified (no gifs because of patent problems).
if you don't like it, don't buy from them (Score:3)
I view Amazon's behavior as being rather similar to a neighborhood polluter: their emissions may be under the legal limit, but they are still a nuisance; would you buy from them and support them? (Actually, from an economic point of view, bad patents and the lawsuits they engender are quite similar to pollution as well.)
My letter to Amazon... (Score:5)
Dear Sir / Madam,
I am writing to complain about Amazon's use of overreaching software patents.
Patent No. 5960411 for 1-Click, is an example of a patent that has been awarded completely out of place. The concept that lies behind 1-Click is in no way new to Amazon, or unique. Using such a patent simply to harass your business competitors is in my opinion an extremely low way of doing business. Such patents serve simply to supress programmers from finding more effective solutions to problems.
Do you really expect that anyone who wishes to develop such a system must come to you for permission before commencing programming? Especially when there are so many existing versions of this system on the net?
It is a shame that a company who symbolise for many the success of the Web as a business medium feel compelled to resort to such low tactics to stay ahead in the race for market share.
I hope that the use of this patent by Amazon will result in so much negative publicity, that you will not be tempted to use such crass measures in the future. How much more positive it would have been if Amazon could instead have joined in lobbying the US Patent Office against the granting of such broad patents.
Yours sincerely
Steve Cook
Re:Has anyone actually read this patent? (Score:4)
It is as bad as it seems.
Patent number 5,960,411 [164.195.100.11]-- you can read the entire patent document from this link.
Claim 1 (of 26):
1. A method of placing an order for an item comprising: under control of a client system, displaying information identifying the item; and in response to only a single action being performed, sending a request to order the item along with an identifier of a purchaser of the item to a server system; under control of a single-action ordering component of the server system, receiving the request; retrieving additional information previously stored for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request; and generating an order to purchase the requested item for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request using the retrieved additional information; and fulfilling the generated order to complete purchase of the item whereby the item is ordered without using a shopping cart ordering model.
Whew! Talk about a run-on sentence. Good thing legalese != English.
It'll be interesting to see how this works out. Normally in these kind of cases, it's a Big Boy going after someone without the resources to defend themselves. Barnes and Noble certainly has the wherewithall to bring this to court if their lawyers think they have a chance. However, I suspect that they'll just roll over and pay royalties to Amazon.
Very sad.
For those of you with higher thresholds.... (Score:4)
>I say we get a class action lawsuit put together
>against the US patent office for negligence in >what patents they allow to be registered.
IANAL and don't know how feasible this is, or realistic, but given patenets such as this, who knows? Someone moderate that up....
itachi
Thousands of hours? (Score:3)
Install rh6 (w/ apache). ~35m
Add ssl support,recompile. ~20m
Install mod_php3 ~1m
Install pgsql ~15m + setup
Setup permissions, verify setup - ~20m
Use cookie support in php3 to store any user data, or optionally use http authentication. ~0m use, ~3hr/devel (if you don't know about FM)
Webpage setup - could take up to a week, ~40h
There you have it.. a total of up to 50 hrs. Now Amazon thinks it spent thousands of hours on that? How many meetings did they force their developers to sit in on instead of doing real work? :) And about that "single-click" shopping - see also the whole point of http cookies - to store persistent information on a remote machine! This meets two of the criterion mentioned in a recent /. article - obviousness and prior work. I bet I could prove both. :^)
--
Don't do either. (Score:3)
my letter to Amazon (Score:3)
This is so sad, but it was probably inevitable. Amazon is a big company now, which means it's controlled by the lawyers. Remember, kids: big companies don't innovate!
I'm good friends with the guy who implemented one-click shopping (he refers to it as ``the money vaccuum.'') But I won't let that stop me -- I'm still not shopping there any more.
Here's the letter I sent them. I encourage all of you to send letters of your own. (But don't just cut-and-paste someone else's letter, they can tell...)
---------------------------------
Subject: patent suit ==> losing customers
You have finally gone too far.
When you started spamming me, I was irritated, but didn't much care, since at least you gave me a way to unsubscribe. When you started selling your customers' private information down the river, I was irritated, but didn't much care, because I'm not overly concerned about my privacy. But now you've finally lost me as a customer.
Why? Because you asked for, and were awarded, a 17-year monopoly on the concept of "one-click shopping", because that idea is apparently such an innovation, such a breakthrough, that you never would have gone into business without the incentive of federally-mandated exclusive rights.
As if that wasn't bad enough, now you are sueing Barnes and Noble for adding a similar feature to their web site. So much for the bullshit apology one often hears of "we only have patents for defensive purposes, in case someone bigger and stronger sues us for patent infringement first."
Amazon.com is a great web site, far better than any other online store I've used. But I will not be using it again. I will either use other web sites, or make more trips to physical stores from now on.
Convenience is nice, but I don't feel good giving my money to anticompetitive parasites who succeed because of their lawyers rather than the quality of their products and services.
The real shame of it is that your services are *good*. You don't need to compete this way. It's sad, and sickening.
Software patents are far more of a threat to competition and innovation than anything Microsoft has ever done.
Goodbye.
Prior Art (Score:3)
The client system is a VT-series dumb terminal. The single action is the act of logging in (not one click, but still...work with me here). The additional information previously stored is the /etc/passwd file and various other sysadminly trivia.
The product? CPU cycles. Remember when you had to pay by the clock for mainframe use?