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Microsoft Granted Pizza Delivery Patent

Legal Issues

from the this-is-patentable? dept

Wed, Dec 7th 2005 7:39pm — Mike Masnick
theodp writes "Thanks to Microsoft, just ordering a pizza can now constitute patent infringement. Microsoft, who's been publicly whining about low-quality patents, was granted a patent Tuesday for a Method and system for providing service listings in electronic yellow pages, which grants it a 17-year exclusive right to the process of including pizza joints not physically located in a search area in search results if they'll deliver a large pepperoni-with-extra-cheese within the search area. "
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20 Comments

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  • identicon
    gates, 7 Dec 2005 @ 8:00pm

    and?

    patents are products like everything else...

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2005 @ 8:26pm

    Grrr

    It pisses me off when people make headlines like that. The headline implies that only Microsoft can deliver pizzas now and then the actual text says something completely different that has less than 1% chance of actually affecting me.

    Please try integrity instead of sensationalism.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      TechNoFear (profile), 7 Dec 2005 @ 8:46pm

      PizzaCono Advert

      LOL!
      Read the ad for 'PizzaCono' (pizza in a cone you can eat with one hand...")

      I think the people who named this should have checked what 'cono' means in Spanish...

      http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=co%F1o

      Think about it.....

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Brian Woods, 7 Dec 2005 @ 9:45pm

      Re: Grrr

      Dude, they are doing this to piss off Google and other search engines that actually WORK! This will effect you in more ways than you realize.

      First it’s pizza, then its phone service, then it’s bloody DMV records.

      It's not "sensationalism", its "desensitization".

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2005 @ 9:47pm

        Re: Grrr

        Someone has a sense of humor... even if it is mocking "The System"... and yes, it is.

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Adam Reiser, 12 Dec 2005 @ 5:59pm

        Re: Grrr

        I guess us doing this online since oct 1999 does not matter at all.

        Please Visit
        Web Archive below

        http://web.archive.org/web/19991012185003/http://pizza.net/

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        John, 6 Sep 2008 @ 1:07pm

        Re: Re: Grrr

        It'll help you in a good way. Infrastructure like this is why there are cool things like search based pizza delivery. Google, MS, Yahoo, and the like can justify spending hundreds and thousands in salaries and infrastructure because they can get a patent.

        It seems you want a world where nobody can patent processes. Fine, but your world does not have services either (I think you'll find what you are looking for northeast of Portland). For the rest of us, this stuff does not code itself up for free (Linux and Firefox have a quiver of patents as well).

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2005 @ 12:19am

      Re: Grrr

      Yeah, I like to get the whole story by just scanning the headlines instead of actually reading the articles. How dare they!

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Microsoft Hater, 7 Dec 2005 @ 10:04pm

    Again...

    It's all part of Bill Gates' elaborate scheme to slowly take over the world. Microsoft already runs on like 95% of the worlds computers, what more can they possible want?!?!

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      John Lewin, 6 Sep 2008 @ 1:14pm

      Re: Again...

      Gates has stepped down from his role as chairman. I believe its Balmer you are hoping to chastise?

      Also, 'a computer on every desktop' was, in fact, the goal of microsoft in the 90's. Their current goal is, taking some liberties with language, to make operating systems and software invisible so you can focus on what you are doing (for example, posting comments on the internet.) So what they want is for you to get access to services without ever dealing with any of the stuff in the middle. Eg: if you want a pizza, you get a pizza.

      This is also precisely what Google wants, FYI. Hope that helps.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Starvingsmith, 7 Dec 2005 @ 10:09pm

    Man....

    what a bunch of jerks. Google needs to let them and AOL have each other.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2005 @ 6:07am

    No Subject Given

    I read the patent and aside from all the legalese garb, I am still at a loss. What did they invent? Nothing, to me it simply sounds like they are just adding information to a database to include regional businesses. Of course their logic is flawed, because their resoning assumes that all busineses would want to be listed on the net. I am sure that some of the mobile plumbers could care less about this. We all know that word of mouth sells better than anything else.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Spunky, 8 Dec 2005 @ 6:23am

      Re: No Subject Given

      Does it? I thought mass produced, heavily advertised crap sold best.

      Guess I was mistaken...

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    pizza squirrel, 9 Dec 2005 @ 3:45pm

    Sun was doing this in Mt. View 20 years ago

    The local food outlets had order systems, and modems printing out orders at least in 1985 or so, and there was a demo system that would find a pizza joint based on various things, by doing a spiral search till it hit a match in the enclosed area nearly that long.

    Obvious and done, so why not patent it. that seems to be what the USPTO does these days. Useless till someone with real power gets hit by one of these silly patents and stops this somehow.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Adam Reiser, 12 Dec 2005 @ 5:46pm

    a patent on pizza yellow pages search for pizza re

    We have been providing online pizza searchs since October 1999

    See web archive
    http://web.archive.org/web/19991012185003/http://pizza.net/

    I guess we either are out of business or made a lot of money today ?????

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Nathan, 5 Nov 2006 @ 4:36pm

    wtf

    I was hoping for a windows live delivery or something.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]


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