Amazon Patents Showing You Your Own Books

from the well,-thank-goodness-for-that dept

Wed, Feb 7th 2007 9:09pm — Mike Masnick

theodp writes "Thanks to a patent the USPTO granted to Amazon Tuesday for a Method and system for access to electronic images of text based on user ownership of corresponding physical text (aka Amazon Upgrade), showing you images of pages from a book you've purchased may someday trigger a patent infringement lawsuit."

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13 Comments

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Buzz, 7 Feb 2007 @ 10:14pm

OMG...
I'm going to patent the way I walk. You all better cross-examine your walking style, or I might see you and sue you accordingly.
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Craig, 7 Feb 2007 @ 10:23pm

But only if...
...you do it using the same method Amazon has patented.

It's all ridiculous, but let's not pull a straw man fallacy, here.
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Ben(damnit), 7 Feb 2007 @ 10:34pm

dibs
Alright, I got dibs on the patent for a Method and system for translating abstract ideas and concepts into arrangements of phonics to convey a meaning.

a.k.a. language. Then someone else can add 'on the net', and 'in writing' and we can team up and corner the market.

Seriously though, how do we go about changing this patent system? Can we start a petition, do we protest, should i write nasty letters to the people in office, or is there even a better, more functional (i use that term loosely as our current system hardly qualifies as adequate) system out there?

Sadly, i think the only hope any of us would really have would be to win the powerball, hire a lobbying firm, and make some serious campaign contributions. And even then, it would be locked up in committee for years.
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zcat, 7 Feb 2007 @ 10:36pm

mp3.com
Wasn't this the basis of mp3.com's business model; giving you streaming access to your music anywhere once you had reasonably demonstrated that you had the physical CD at home...?
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Enrico Suarve, 8 Feb 2007 @ 4:27am

Eureka!
I'm going to patent a system which allows the recording of a vague idea in order to halt innovation and which is designed to work on a first come first served basis, so that the first person to submit an idea gets all the credit rather than the person who first created it

The system should obviously also have special bonuses built in for obvious submissions
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Vermin Slayer, 8 Feb 2007 @ 5:37am

Solution
If someone would just patent the process of patenting ridiculous patents this patent insanity will solve itself.
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flamsmark (profile), 8 Feb 2007 @ 6:00am

Patent Wit
Jokes about patenting obvious things, or things directly related to the patent system just get funnier and funnier after every patent story.
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Peter Bromberg, 8 Feb 2007 @ 8:11am

Re: dibs
Yah, but we have to change it, no matter how long it takes. We need to:
1) Train the bureaucrats who review the patent apps.
2) Give the PTO enough funds to do it right.
3) Streamline the review and appeals process.
4) Make it resemble reality so patent-parking scams no longer are profitable.
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csven, 8 Feb 2007 @ 8:23am

"Wasn't this the basis of mp3.com's business model; giving you streaming access to your music anywhere once you had reasonably demonstrated that you had the physical CD at home...?"
Sure sounds like it. However, there *is* a difference. While it was mp3.com's business model, this is Amazon's *method* for putting this into practice and a potential business model. If Amazon were to get permission from publishers, there might not be any issues. iirc, the music industry wasn't interested in giving mp3.com permission (and I wonder if they're now wishing they'd have worked with them on that).

I agree that this might be a straw man issue. I've not read the patent, but suspect it's specific in how they plan to do it. However, if the patent is well-written, it'll cover a lot of options.
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Enrico Suarve, 8 Feb 2007 @ 9:30am

Re: Patent Wit
True but its been a long day and the patents get more and more dubious

My way of saying "please sir he started it sir" ;0)
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JJ, 8 Feb 2007 @ 11:21am

Hey mike, did you know that ars technica seems to be ripping off your posts:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070208-8798.html
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|333173|3|_||3, 8 Feb 2007 @ 8:17pm

Re:
He lets them, unnofficially. I assume since you postdd that you're new around here. He generally comments that if they have to copy him,word will get around and people will come here for the original instead, especially if someone posts a link to here on thier page.

Mike has found plenty of sites which copy/paste techdirt, but he ignores it because they get less traffic than he does.
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Deirdre' Straughan, 9 Feb 2007 @ 6:53am

Amazon patent
I don't know whether it's patentable, but I think it's a good idea - in fact, I suggested this very thing to Amazon a few years ago, when I first saw their "search inside the book" feature.

I own a lot of books that I'd love to be able to do a full-text search on. To do such a search, I would have to have scanned all my books. But Amazon has already done that for many of the books I own (in fact, I've bought a few books from them because I knew from the "search inside" that those books contained material I needed).

So, since they already give me (limited) access to the insides of books before I buy them, why not give me full access to the insides of books I already own? Naturally, they would need some sort of proof that I own the book.

Seems sensible enough to me.
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