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So simple anyone could have done it, right?

• danudey 17y ago
  This is the key point. Many inventions are 'obvious in retrospect'. The Amazon 1-click patent is one of those annoying things where it seems obvious, but no one had ever done it and it's a huge boon to businesses (it makes impulse buying almost automatic). For many of these patents, people will say it's obvious, but it's only obvious now that we've seen it all. No one else had ever done it before, so what's obvious about it?
  • rbanffy 17y ago
    Nobody could have done that much earlier because the pieces were not in place. No web technology was invented before the web. 1-click appeared pretty much at the same time someone had the idea of storing credit card information on a web server.
• orangecat 17y ago
  Yes. Before Amazon, if you asked any software developer of average competence to create a one click order process, they'd have it for you in a few days. Yes it was a clever idea, but ideas by themselves are not supposed to be patentable.