Location Targeted Coupons: Patented
from the oh-come-on dept
I remember over a decade ago, talking with lots of folks in Silicon Valley about the idea of doing mobile coupons -- with the typical example being "imagine as you walked by a Starbucks, if it could pop up a coupon on your phone." Hell, all the way back in 2004, we were talking about this idea as being talked about for "ages." The problem was not with the basic idea. People were just waiting for the infrastructure to catch up: for GPS to become common in phones, for smartphones to hit the market, for mobile broadband to be available, etc. So it seems pretty ridiculous that, in 2005, some folks from Where Inc., applied for a patent on the concept, which has now been granted, and seems ridiculously broad (Patent number 7,848,765). The challenge was never about how to do this. That was obvious to all sorts of people. The issue was just waiting for the infrastructure to catch up. It's ridiculous that such an idea that was widely discussed way before this patent was applied for is now locked up via a patent.
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Filed Under: coupons, location based services, patents
Companies: where
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Is this another example of the patent system at work..?
Back then, SMS-CB was developed to provide create a secondary revenue stream of location-based marketing revenue for carriers. The problem wasn't the service or determining location. This could be figured using power levels, and existing site location data. The problem was that the marketing people didn't have lat/longs of their own stores to create a relevant campaign.
So while you're right-- the idea certainly isn't new. GPS is common in phones these days, it's also readily available using tools like Google Maps.
You'll also notice in the patent, the earliest cited patent reference is from 1998 for a "Computer-Aided Mapping System".
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At least patents expire
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Hello Billboards!
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prior art must be in writing
I wrote a very similar patent application in 2008 for a large telecommunications company and remember being surprised that they considered it a novel idea. However, their concept was slightly more narrow because it focused on perishable-type goods whose value changed over time. Even though their idea was more narrow, they definitely thought that the broad concept of location based coupons was patentable.
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Re: prior art must be in writing
Thanks,
Rod
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Flash forward to today - corporate dumbasses think people pay outrageous amounts for a cell phone package so that they can be interupted by useless ads targeting their location. You pay them to stalk you, it is more than creepy.
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You claim that Where Inc. applied for a patent on a concept. I invite you to visit this USPTO page on what can be patented, http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/what.htm. On that page the USPTO is clear that "A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion." A patent is granted on a specific implementation. Why do you insist on being willfully misleading?
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"America is the land of the free."
"Not always, it was founded with slavery being legal."
"Land of the free, it's in the national anthem! Why must you insist on being willfully misleading?"
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From the article. Where has not implemented the patent, thus it is still a concept.
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Every time I read that, I thought "Why not just put a sign in the window?"
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Idea vs implementation
By the logic used in this article, anyone that comes up with a WORKING time machine is out of luck on patents because of the 720 BCE reference to time travel in Mahabharata. Similarly, the original StarTrek writers, H.G. Wells, and Arthur C. Clark are going to screw a ton of scientists out of royalties from their life's work.
Perhaps you should take some time to understand patent law - or at least the difference between an idea and working implementation - before you write tomorrow's patent bashing article... and while there are certainly USPTO abuses to complain about, saying "I had this idea first" doesn't fly.
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Re: Idea vs implementation
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Re: Idea vs implementation
What the article does, is establish that this idea/concept was extremely common to anyone tangentially familiar with the industry in 2004. Techdirt isn't claiming inventorship, they are saying that the solution is obvious, no one can rightfully claim inventorship, and patents are a negative value to society in the case of "solving" the lack of mobile coupon offerings, as they now block competition but brought nothing new to the table.
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patents
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