Almost...It's more like a friend calling the delivery guy every few minutes, seeing how the progress is going, comparing that to historical data on the delivery guy's reliability, then, when your friend has determined the delivery time to an acceptable estimate, letting you know. This saves you a bunch of time, is much more precise, and much more efficient. Those benefits themselves potentially make this patentable more than any other reason.

First, I've already admitted this was the wrong use in terminology (see above), and you are absolutely right.

As to this patent being absurdly generic, I disagree. If it is so generic, then why haven't you, or anyone else (according to the patent office search) invented/implemented/patented this product, using each and every step/element of the claims in this patent. To that point, would you have done that before 2007, which is when this was filed? Remember, only PRIOR art, i.e. that which existed before 2007, is what matters.

It may be bogus in your view, but technically, it is not.

You are absolutely right...that was poor wording on my part. What I meant by "claims" is actually "elements of a claim."

For those that are so quick to jump on Google about this (which I suppose is understandable these days), you would hope that one would actually read the patent, or understand that the only important part of a patent is the claims, NOT the abstract or diagram provided. Yes, Google has patented providing delivery notifications...but the important, relevant question is HOW it calculates and provides those notifications. For, example, Google has decided that it is more efficient to, during shipment, halt the queries to the shipper's computer system until the day before the expected delivery date, then resume so as to provide up-to-date notifications. It has also claimed analyzing historical data of shipping routes and times to determine, down to the minute (theoretically) estimates of an arrival time, not based on what the shipper says, but what it has demonstrated in the past. Finally, UPS or other shippers could not possibly infringe because the patent clearly provides for a "broker" computer, which is explicitly not the shipper's computer, to query the shipper's database. The point is that Google has a novel idea here, and has defined it as such. Boiled down to its essence, it provides shipping notifications just like others do. But ice and a/c units both cool air, coffee cups and vases both hold liquid, dial-up and cable both provide access to the internet. The method is what is important, not the end result. To infringe a patent, one has to infringe on all claims. While some claims may be obvious, it is the (sometimes few) non-obvious ones that actually matter. Google has provided some of those non-obvious, novel claims (at least it appears to have) and it seems to have a valid patent.

I'm also from California, where it has been illegal to drive while on a cell phone for some time now. The problem is that not only is the fine only $20, but it is also only a secondary offense, meaning that you can only be cited for cell phone use in conjunction with some other ticket, such as speeding or reckless driving. That means that even if the police see you talking while driving, they can't do anything about it short of checking if your tail lights are both working and trying to get you on that. Not only that, but it seems to me that not everyone thinks the law applies to them. Take Maria Shriver for example, she was caught by paparazzi (yes I normally hate them) talking on her cell phone, and although Arnold threatened to "punish her," I know that it certainly doesn't make me want to stop using my cell phone in the car. Maybe it's because I'm part of the younger generation who learned to drive when cell phones were already prevalent. Nothing against older people, but it seems to me that most of the accidents are caused by them on cell phones, not by the younger one that grew up with cell phones...