Click Here To Reject Amazon's One-Click Patent

from the getting-there... dept

Wed, Oct 17th 2007 10:41am — Mike Masnick

Amazon's "one-click patent" has been one of the rallying points for those who feel that software and business model patents are truly problematic. In 2001, the patent was challenged through BountyQuest, but that challenge was rejected by the patent office. In 2005, however, a guy in New Zealand began his own quest to invalidate the patent, successfully convincing the patent office to review the patent based on new prior art he had turned up. While there was a setback last month, when a 3-judge panel questioned an examiner's ruling that many of the claims should have been rejected as obvious, it appears that the prior art has now been found much more convincing. The patent office has now issued an initial rejection of 21 of 26 claims in the patent. Of course, while some are already celebrating this win, the case is far from over. As we've seen many times before, the early rejections from the patent office don't necessarily mean all that much, as the patent holder has a chance to respond and many things can happen before the validity of the patent is finally established. Still, it's certainly better than the patent office sticking by the original patent completely.

Filed Under: obviousness, one-click, patents, prior art
Companies: amazon

6 Comments

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Joel Coehoorn, 17 Oct 2007 @ 11:08am

And when this patent goes away, what will the patent reform supporters use for a rallying cry?
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 17 Oct 2007 @ 11:11am

Re: #1
One of the plethora of other stupid pointless obvious patents. I apologize but I would have thought that was slightly ovbious.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 17 Oct 2007 @ 11:12am

Myself
About as obvious as my previous type /cry
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Obvious, 17 Oct 2007 @ 1:45pm

Ain't It
Who has the patent on using "readable text" on webpages to enhance the web experience? Wow, everyone is abusing that guy's patent!
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Oct 2007 @ 2:57pm

The effort required to invalidate this obviously obvious patent is amazing.
It seems so much easier to get a patent on an obvious idea than it is to invalidate a patent on an obvious idea.
So there is an incentive to apply for patents on obvious ideas.
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Random Thoughts, 17 Oct 2007 @ 2:58pm

Re: Ain't It
One would think that the basic concept of text being readable would be pretty darned obvious. If such is not the case, then I shall promptly patent 'unreadable text'. After all, where is the fun in life if lawyers aren't able to use unreadable text to trick you and protect their clients.

I probably should apply for two patents. One for using my unreadable text concept in webpages providing the policy information for web sites. And the second one for politicians wishing to use it for adding earmarks to necessary legislation and explaining their own serious short-comings.
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