Amazon Patents Product Bundles?
from the oh-come-on dept
theodp writes "Apparently dazzled by examples that showed how to buy one's mother a birthday present, the USPTO awarded Amazon.com a patent Tuesday for assisting a user of an item purchasing service in giving groups of related items to recipients." Again, we have to ask how can this possibly be patentable? Basically, it's a patent for link together a group of products so they can all be bought in a single bundle. It's a nice idea, but deserving of patent protection? If I run a gift shop on the corner, and decide to bundle up a bunch of little gifts into a gift basket, can I patent that idea so no other stores can do the same?
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No Subject Given
Oh, wait. I've been buying flowers and chocolates there every year since Jeff was shitting in his Huggies. So, Jeff is the evil infringing bastard!
Oh, wait. I use to deliver papers and shovel driveways and charge once price.
Jeff - STFU!
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LOL
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Re: No Subject Given
But it doesn't just stop there! There's a prepackaged meal that includes TOYS! I'm about to go there for breakfast, not only do are they suggesting I get breakfast food, but now gourmet espresso drinks and pastries :O
They even include NAPKINS in the bags, FREE OF CHARGE. Someone must hear about this. Napkin supply stores, Toy stores, Coke, Starbucks, Heinze, and the French are all being exploited by McDonald's infringement on Amazon.com's patent. For shame!
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FUCK YOU AMAZON!
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No Subject Given
Inventors: Agarwal; Amit D. (Seattle, WA)
Assignee: Amazon.com, Inc. (Seattle, WA)
Appl. No.: 699244
Filed: October 27, 2000
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No Subject Given
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why so i can flip out even more? 75 claims? and the last one saying how it'll tell me how many other people picked the bundle? how is this not thrown out by prior art? the patent is over electronic means, but i'm sure that since the beginning of ebusiness people have been creating bundled goods as a way of upselling merchandise (see also: THE REST OF THE BUSINESS WORLD). will this never ending line of bad patent approvals ever cease? i think that those approving patents should be held liable (firing, fines) for giant mistakes like this.
i also like how many steps the process uses--"The subroutine then continues to step 1195 and returns"
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No Subject Given
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No Subject Given
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Not what they had in mind?
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Why patent then?
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Re: Why patent then?
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Amazon
Asses need a bitch slap from RMS, Stallman SMASH
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