Amazon Scores Another Patent

theodp writes "Chalk up yet another patent for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, this time for a Method and system for conducting a discussion relating to an item."

Well now

We're all quite in the shit here at Slashdot, are we not?

Re:Well now

No, if you read a little, you'll see it only applies to an item for sale.

I'm currently offering for sale:

1997 Honda Accord Clean, 53000 m, V6, leather, sun roof, auto, air. One owner. $5500 obo.

Anyone got comments/stories/advice about this car? Post 'em here, then cease and desist.

Re:Well now

Yeah, but prior art doesn't count for crap. If you read the patent information, they give it a broad definition but a range of extremely narrow specifics. Basically no one has done exactly what they have said. So the Patent Office accepts it, figuring if they screwed up, the courts can fix it. But the courts won't. You can't sue because you think a patent is wrong. You can only take it to court when they try to impose licensing fees. Fat chance you or I can go up against Amazon (or really will ever have cause too). And those who can have routinely just paid the fees (Apple for once click shopping for one). Hell, it's just creative accounting for them. They patent shit and pay each other.

And with time, the "prior art" is dilluted. Will google have caches of everything ever? Will courts really believe that HTML file and screen shot of the product discussion at SmallCompShop.com from 1996 is legit? Afterall, this is the great visionary Bezos. How could some amateur come up with such a revolutionary idea?

This is a joke right?

How can something as trivial as this become a patent?

Re:This is a joke right?

I dunno, but if this goes trough... I'll just patent "Drinking wine by removing the cork to allow the wine to pass trough the bottleneck".

That should be a just as valid patent as I see it... Or maybe someone allready got that one pending? You never know, specially not when it comes to the USPO.

Re:This is a joke right?

No, No, the trick with these patents is:

Drinking wine by removing the cork to allow the wine to pass trough the bottleneck, on the web

Re:This is a joke right?

It's not trivial. If you read the patent (and understand it, and read all of it, not just the summary at the top), you'll see it's far from trivial.

This is like the one-click misunderstanding. One-click is only obvious after you've seen it working. Before one-click existed, it took a significant effort to innovate it. That effort should (and thankfully has been) rewarded.

If you don't think one-click is hard, consider this: the geek who was assigned to churn out the software after the creative guy had invented the concept came back with a first version that when you clicked "Buy" popped up a dialogue box saying "are you sure?" which you had to click "Yes" to. "One-click" nicely implemented with a "two-click" solution. So even the tech nerds writing the first version didn't understand it.

Slashdot did it first?

Isn't the scope of the patent something like slashdot? Comments about articles? A discussion system on the Web?

Sorry /.

Yet again, another patent looks overly broad and poorly awarded. /., be prepared to pay license fees for use of this patent.

Further Proof

That business and government do not require Common Sense. Just greed and low standards.

I'm going to patent Common Sense, but I probably won't get too much $$ out of it. Seems that there really isn't much need for it in recent times.

Not being a laywer....

It's difficult to tell. But it does look like they patented the concept of having a discussion board linked to a product.

I should probably go ahead and patent "A method for mass advertising using electronic messaging to a group of recipients" and go for the spammers. But there there isn't much money in repo'd trailer houses.

well... there is well-known prior-art

Amazon has just patented Tupperware meetings!

Prior are right here!

A method and system for conducting an electronic discussion relating to a topic. The discussion system of the present invention receives a selection of an item that is to be the topic of the discussion. The discussion system then receives comments relating to the selected item and generates a message that includes a description of the selected item and the received comments. The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion. The discussion system receives from a participant who received the generated message additional comments that are to be added to the generated message. The discussion system sends the generated message along with received additional comments to the participants of the discussion.

That describes Slashdot. Where the Item to be discussed is a news story.

BN.com links in /. book reviews are prior art

which targets merchandise (almost unlike /.)

What about Slashdot Book Reviews [slashdot.org], which include a link to purchase a copy of the book at Barnes & Noble?

.au patent office asleep at "the wheel"

Is the patent office asleep at the wheel?

I'd think the USPTO is asleep at the wheel in the figurative sense, but the Australian patent office is asleep at the wheel in the literal sense. In fact, the Australian patent office was so asleep that it granted a patent on the wheel [ipmenu.com].

You all realize...

...that we're using a method for discussing an item (in this case the item is the patent) right now don't you? :-D

Wow, maybe we can actually submit SlashDot as prior art!

(And they said this wasn't art.)

More stringent patents

Sooner or later these patents are going to strangle communications completely. This would be no different if I were to patent a method in which 'two or more people can hold a conversation over a medium which converts the spoken word of one party into a format which can be understood by the second party, and vice versa', then charge everyone the next time they want to hold a press conference, debate, meeting, etc.

WTF?

Here's a snippet from the abstract: The discussion system of the present invention receives a selection of an item that is to be the topic of the discussion. The discussion system then receives comments relating to the selected item and generates a message that includes a description of the selected item and the received comments. The discussion system then sends the generated message to participants of the discussion. It was filed in 1999. I'm sure there were 100s of sites before that doing this: letting users post comments on websites. Prior art would be abundant. Looking at all of these patents being granted by the USPTO, I get the impression that they (USPTO) have given up their responsibility of taking a critical look at the patent. They are letting the courts decide whether there was prior art or not. This begs the question: why bother with checking any prior art anyways? Why not just reduce the USPTO to a "copyright" sort of office, where anybody can file a patent for anything, and the courts decide? Obviously this patent system is not old Ben had in mind.

Metapatent

Up next Amazon is going to patent being the company to first patent common sense procedures that shouldn't be patentable in the first place.

This will save them considerable time, and automatically grandfather in everything they haven't tried to patent yet, including such classics as "Allowing full sentences to be used to describe product", "Shipping material ordered by people from our site", and "Using vowels in our company name".

(This message Patent Pending)

Can anyone say Boycott?

Step 1: This is simply yet another reason to not shop at Amazon. Show them that you don't belive in their system, don't shop there or at any of its affiliates. And make sure you tell everyone you know why you don't shop there.

Step 2: Start collecting anything that might be relevant prior art. Seeing as this was applied for in 1999 there has to be something. I personally am stunned that something this trivial is a patent, gotta love the USPTO.

YES... oh YES...

This means I can cancel all of my meetings. After all discussing things on the agenda would violate the patent and I wouldn't want that.

Oh hang on this means that its okay as long as it isn't structured around a topic. Damn you Amazon for condeming us all to a world which only contains long rambling ill focused meetings.

Heh

This has got to be the funniest of the stupid patents ever. Even beats the swinging sideways patent. Basically, the sort of comment system it describes is implemented here on /. and in a million other blogs all over the web. In fact, even many mainstream news sites allow readers to poat comments. You might want to check out a list of prior art implementations [lights.com] ;^)

Lets look at the first claim

1. A method in a computer system of a non-participant for starting a discussion relating to an item offered for sale, the method including:
This is the preamble. In most cases, the preamble does not actually limit the claim. So let look at the elements of the claim and see if they have been done before.
providing information describing a plurality of items being offered for sale;
So it is showing a bunch of items.
receiving from an originating participant a selection of one of the items being offered for sale;
The client selects one of the items.
providing to the originating participant information describing the selected item offered for sale and an indicator for starting a discussion relating to the item being offered for sale, the information and the indicator to be displayed to the originating participant;
The client gets information about one of the items and the client is told that he can start a discussion on the item.
in response to selection of the displayed indicator by the originating participant of the discussion, providing to the originating participant an initial discussion thread that includes a description of the item being offered for sale;
If the client "selects the displayed indicator" (clicks on a link) a new discussion thread is created where there is a description of the item for sell.
receiving from the originating participant comments to be added to the discussion thread;
The client adds comments.
receiving from the originating participant an indication of one or more other participants of the discussion;
The client notes that he (and perhaps others) is going to be a participant in the discussion.
providing the discussion thread, with the description of the item and the received comments added along with a link that when selected effects the placing of an order to purchase the item, to the one or more other participants, and
Now other people see a link to the discussion thread.
tracking the discussion thread as one or more of the participants add comments to the discussion.
The discussions thread is "tracked". Sending out emails as it is updated is probably enough.
The first claim is probably easily beaten. You would need to find something published or publically known on or before August 1st, 1998 which satisfies all of the above elements/limitations. Of course, there is the doctrine of obviousness (which this could probably be beaten under), but looking at the claims, it might be hard to find something that actually beats this under anticipation. This is especially true considering how limited some of these claims appear.

Send in the lawyers!

What's really needed for patent reform is the ability to penalize companies and individuals who file overly broad and bogus patents such as this. Right now, there's no reason for Amazon (or other large corporations) not to do this, and bully license fees from anybody they think would rather pay a fee than fight them in court. The burden of proof is currently on the wrong side here.

Usenet?

I would think any number of usenet *.forsale groups would provide prior art to counter this patent (epecially claim 12). Ott.forsale has been around a lot longer than Amazon.com, and provides exactly what this patent describes.

I can see where Amazon is coming from...

Rewind 8 or 9 years.

No one bought anything over the internet. E-commerce didn't quite exist.

Here comes some upstart that asks people to risk them the cash to make this new business model happen. They do something that most people would call innovative. A new business model is formed, the face of commerce completely changed. Today everyone sells over the internet.

If you're this upstart who was there since day one doing what no one else did, taking the risks back then which aren't really risks today (relatively speaking), you'd be pretty mad. Especially when your big stupid competitor finally wakes up and realizes the internet exists and copies your site almost exactly, from look to semantics, and starts eating away at your bottom line.

All of your hard work, creative energy, raising capital, the meetings, market analysis, research, etc. you put forth to make your crackpot idea a reality is now being blithely ripped off by your inferior. Through simple cloning your inferior is now your equal.

If you've been in that position before, you know how infuriating it is. So what are your options? Sadly, very few.

Amazon is getting patents because it seems like the only way to fight off their idiot copycat competitors. I think software patents are detestable, but I understand Amazon's reasoning.

It's kind of a mixed bag. It sucks that Amazon does it, but it's not going to stop me from supporting them. Why? I'll put myself in their position.

The position is one where my shareholders are screaming at me to protect their investment which they entrusted in me. A position where my customers are leaving to buy from my copycat because they can't tell the difference anymore no matter what we do. Where my employees who helped me build such a great service are worried that they might not have a job in 6 months. The choice is clear, I'd do the same thing.

Re:I can see where Amazon is coming from...

---Rewind 8 or 9 years.

REwind a thousand years...

---No one bought anything over the internet. E-commerce didn't quite exist.

Things were bough in the marketplace. Brick and mortar stores didnt exist.

---Here comes some upstart that asks people to risk them the cash to make this new business model happen. They do something that most people would call innovative. A new business model is formed, the face of commerce completely changed. Today everyone sells over the internet.

Here comes this upstart that actually builds a building for commerce and sells pieces of it for sale for others. A whole new business model is formed: selling parts of your building for sheltered 24-7 markets.

---If you're this upstart who was there since day one doing what no one else did, taking the risks back then which aren't really risks today (relatively speaking), you'd be pretty mad. Especially when your big stupid competitor finally wakes up and realizes the internet exists and copies your site almost exactly, from look to semantics, and starts eating away at your bottom line.

Same goes for then too. After a while, "ideas" are everybody's. You opened up them first, so you reap first. After such, you actually have to BE COMPETITIVE TO MAKE MONEY.

---All of your hard work, creative energy, raising capital, the meetings, market analysis, research, etc. you put forth to make your crackpot idea a reality is now being blithely ripped off by your inferior. Through simple cloning your inferior is now your equal.

And that entitles you to make money? NO. YOu juat happened to be the first to capitalise off of it.

---If you've been in that position before, you know how infuriating it is. So what are your options? Sadly, very few.

You sue for things you can win, not because "It's like mine".

---Amazon is getting patents because it seems like the only way to fight off their idiot copycat competitors. I think software patents are detestable, but I understand Amazon's reasoning.

Competitors... Like Barnes&Noble, eBay, and other online sellers? It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out you can negotiate to sell stuff on the internet. Hell, I've been buying stuff off of Usent since '93. Same "barter", "Agree", "Trade Info". And banks will do escro also, for a price. And the same ratings have been enacted far longer than what eBay has done. It's called public opinion.

---It's kind of a mixed bag. It sucks that Amazon does it, but it's not going to stop me from supporting them. Why? I'll put myself in their position.

I've already advocated instead of boycotting Amazon.com , boycott software Patents that the USPTO agrees to.

---The position is one where my shareholders are screaming at me to protect their investment which they entrusted in me. A position where my customers are leaving to buy from my copycat because they can't tell the difference anymore no matter what we do. Where my employees who helped me build such a great service are worried that they might not have a job in 6 months. The choice is clear, I'd do the same thing.

Innovate or die. That's the heart of capitalism. Whoever stagnates is left in the dust.

As bad as Amazon is.... I don't blame them

The US Patent Office is even worse! They're supposed to be the gate-keepers to prevent this kind of crap, but their job is infinitely easier if they just grant the patent. Think about it. Somebody working a 9-5 job on a government salary.

Choice 1: Go search all over the place for prior art.
Choice 2: Cash Amazon's check and stamp the application with Approval

I think we see the problem. It's time that the US Patent office be held liable for improperly granted patents.

A legitimate reason for patenting the obvious

I'm not defending Amazon or the patent process by any stretch of the imagination. I worked for an online calendaring company, and somehow got my name on the patent for the ability to share appointments online. Which of course was nonsense. I and the developers pointed out that it was nonsense, and bucked against the filing of the patent.

The lawyers convinced us that filing the patent is the only way to prevent someone else from filing a patent, covering your technology, and then suing you, forcing you to PROVE to a court (always a chancy thing) that you had created prior art. And quite frankly every innovation we made to our online calendar showed up 3 months later in someone elses calendar. In fact we even found instances where people had literally cut and pasted our code, comments and all!

So we knew that there were unscroupulous bastards out there, willing to completely rip us off. So bearing that in mind, we agreed to file for patents, not so much to enforce them, but to protect ourselves from future suits. I agree, if the system was healthy and working, we wouldn't need to have done that, but the system is already full of sharks -- I don't blame people for getting shark repellant. Applying for the patent HAS to be done nowadays. Enforcing the patents is when I start to get mad. I know it's a fine line...

Oh, the absurdity of it all...

Amazon provides a simple service. That service is mail order over the internet.

Their site is merely a medium to make that happen. Websites should not be patentable anymore than traditional paper (mail order) magazines. Amazon's business model relies on being the best in their business. Well, it should, but it seems Amazon doesn't want to compete on their merits. They just want to make it harder to others to compete with them by turning the business into a maze of patent law. There is nothing original about mail order and putting it on a web site does not constitute originality. Again, web sites should not be patentable. That's what copyright is for.

BTW, today in 1991, Tim Berners Lee presented the world with the first web browser. That means today is arguably the birthday of the world wide web.

Straight to the Source

According to the patent document, these are the people responsible for granting this patent:

Primary Examiner: Kincaid; Kristine
Assistant Examiner: Nguyen; Thomas T.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Perkins Coie LLP

Can't we just contact them and ask them how much they were paid to grant this crap? Seriously, maybe someone could ask them what they are thinking.

My 3 patents..

"Method and apparatus for the protection of methods, procedures, systems, and apparatuses by grant of exclusive rights by a governing body having executive authority over such rights" (Grant of Patent)

"Method and procedure for the dismantling of civilized society by exclusive diversion with legistative processes" (making people so busy defending themselves against lawsuits to do anything productive)

"Method and apparatus for the production of intellectual property and information by means of the exercise of a passive or active electromechanical or electronic relay or switch causing the dissipation of energy in various ceramic, plastic, semiconductor, or organic elements, causing the semi-permanent organization of atomic or subatomic particles on a dielectric, metallic, organic, semiconductor, ceramic, or plasticine substrate, also causing the luminescence of phosphorescent or electronic optoelectrical or optoelectronic elements." (use of computer)

Re:Method and system for bitching about patent law

Clicking submit? I wouldn't recommend patening that. I already have a patent a 'visual design to facilitate the submission of data over a networked video typewriter interface'.

Perhaps we can split it though. I'll take rectangular GUI-based submit buttons, and you can have image-based submit buttons.

(But please, before you send off that reply, don't forget the 50 cent royalty in the tip jar to recieve your one-use license to click 'Submit'. This also includes 'Preview'. Thank you.)

Re:Crazy patent but not as crasy as...

Don't forget the classic stupid patent [legamedia.net]. I don't see any concern for blinding the cat. I'm intrigued by this "invisible beam of light" description. True if used in a vacuum, not our house.

I'm unsure whether it's more aberrant for an applicant to expect to get a patent for something like this, or for them to actually get one. With the trend, I guess it's become the latter, though with time that will become accepted as well.