Click Here To Reject Amazon's One-Click Patent
from the getting-there... dept
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.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: obviousness, one-click, patents, prior art
Companies: amazon
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: #1
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Myself
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ain't It
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ain't It
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]