from the can-we-patent-being-asleep-at-the-switch? dept
Just as it looks like Amazon may be
losing its infamous "one-click" patent (though, there's still an appeals process to wait through), the company may have just received yet another ridiculous patent. As pointed out by
Slashdot, Amazon has been granted a patent on
adding a search string at the end of a URL, without having to include additional characters like "&q=search+query." This technique, of course, was first seen at Amazon's search subsidiary A9 when it
launched. At the time, we thought it was neat, but it hardly seems deserving of a patent. This is clearly not what the patent system was designed to protect. It's for major breakthroughs, not how you happen to set things up. This would be like allowing a restaurant to patent the idea of hanging a menu in the window. It's a nice idea, but what's wrong with letting others do it as well without having to pay up first?
Filed Under: patents
Companies: a9, amazon
