Eric, I agree. The PTO (www.uspto.gov) was created to promote invention and protect inventors and companies who create novel processes or designs that are not in the public domain or in use and that are not obvious to someone "versed in the art" in the area the patent applies.
I've looked at the Amazon.com patent and find, IMO, that the PTO erred in granting it on several grounds. The Amazon patent describes a simple process using information stored on a server site computer, such as customer credit card and shipping address information and combining that with client side generated information derived from a single click response such as for product selection to directly enter a purchase order. It differentiates itself from the "shopping cart" analog by circumventing intermediate steps between product selection and product check out or initiation of the fulfillment process.
Maybe Amazon.com implemented this first on the Internet, but IMO, this neither fulfills the requirement of being an invention that was not in the public domain or that was not obvious to almost any idiot versed in the art. Earlier forms of simplified purchasing for pre-qualified customers have long been established in EDI systems. EDI stands for Electronic Data Interchange, a category of systems that companies and the government has been using for years to enable automated purchasing. Once the user has been properly registered into some systems, they just order away without any thought of a 'shopping cart' check out and verification system. So what makes the Internet unique except for the tons of hype? Does the fact that the consumer can access it with a common, non-proprietary system make what you do on the Internet unique? That is ridiculous. That's like saying an Internet software patent is only good if you run it on a PC platform and someone is free to patent the same thing if they design the same functionality to run on a MacIntosh.
I haven't spent hours researching precedent beyond what I know from personal experience and prior research on the subject that dates back well before Amazon?s use of the 1 click 'technology'. I do know that in such public groups as the W3C organization and various user groups had long ago (in Internet time) discussed and formulated methods for storing common user information so that it would not need to be re-entered to perform such tasks as purchase verification and consumer routing. Various formats for using Open Profiling Standards information and Platform for Privacy information was openly discussed and classified. This 'technology' was considered in a public forum with the Internet that it be openly available to all who wished to use it.
Years ago, I had discussed the single click method with programmers of shopping cart and merchant systems software. A few of these early programmers said that it was possible to fairly easily set up a site to do single click purchasing, tract customer referrals and other techniques that are now practiced widely. Easy because it was a common capability to gather shipping, payment or billing preferences in the process of registering potential customers and also of storing a cookie so that the particular customer can be identified to the server system upon re-visiting the site. Pulling up the information keyed by the cookie to combine it with specific order input was not just an obvious extension of current practice but was often discussed as an objective and prospect for implementation. The mere fact that Amazon.com was among the first to seize on the opportunity does not merit the distinction of uniqueness of invention, IMO.
Another area of 'prior art' that probably conflicts with this 'invention' is found in the work of on-line credit or e-card providers and with 'wallet' systems. In the e-card case, customer information can be stored on the servers of the credit clearing company or provider such that the customer does not have to re-enter the information at each vendor or shopping incident. Use of these systems has included the 1 (single) click modality popularized by Amazon.com. In the case of 'wallet' type systems, the customer information is typically stored on the customers (client side) computer and rendered to the site requesting it. The purpose of these systems is at least partly to reduce repetitive entry and simplify the users experience.
I find it utterly fantastic that the PTO granted Amazon.com a patent in the first place (congrats Perkins Coie for a fine job sleeping with the PTO!) and even more incredulous that Bezos has the gumption to state that he deserves the patent in order to protect his large investment in developing it. Yea right - more like his large investment hiring the muscle of attorneys to pursue the patent.
The purpose of the PTO is not to turn property in the public domain into the exclusive property of a few large corporations. sure the PTO has turned into a training ground for attorneys who latter make a killing working for corporations - just antother example how power (money) corrupts. Is this what the Internet is all about? I think this is a clash between the corporate state and the emerging new world order made possible, if not inevitable, by the decentralized nature of the Internet. IMO, this amounts to robbery from the American (international) public of the worst kind! Keep the net stay free and equal access the way it was intended. We don't need robber baron moguls lording their control over it.
What I find even more fantastic is the attitude of the beloved Jeffrey (Daumer) Besos who spouts off stuff about looking after consumers best interests and providing them with great user experiences yet flagrantly want to plagiarize others works. Robber barons should be run off the Internet as the antithesis to free enterprise. All these are just my frail personal opinions of course. |
