31 ms·
E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- samsonradu 9y agoInteresting to find out such a patent even exists. Does this mean the sites on which I have seen the one-click feature implemented were until now breaking the patent?
- masthead 9y agoStill can't believe that this was a patent!
- StevePerkins 9y agoStill can't believe Amazon's been around for 20 years now.
- ams6110 9y agoI remember "enterprise" IT types kind of turning up their noses at Amazon as "just an online bookstore" back in those days.
- tuxxy 9y agoAs someone who has a software patent, you don't want to know what it's like, as an engineer, to see your work get abstracted into generalities for a patent. By the end of it, everything was so generically described that I couldn't even recognize it anymore. This entire system needs to be reworked or thrown away entirely.
- Cyph0n 9y agoSoftware patents may be "strange", but patents are very useful in the rest of the engineering world.
- BatFastard 9y agoAgreed, years of research and brilliant ideas should be protected. However one click shopping is a bit obvious.
- gizmodo59 9y agoNot to sound condescending but the following phrase "years of research and brilliant ideas should be protected" can never adequately define what must be patented and what must not be. An brilliant idea need not take years of research. Even the interpretation of the word brilliant is debatable. PS: I'm not taking any stance with respect to patents. Just saying that it's not black and white.
- BatFastard 9y agoAgreed, no issue I know of is black and white. I think the grammar is correct though, or should I have said "years of research OR brilliant ideas"? Would you have preferred "insightful ideas"
- svachalek 9y agoPatents are required to be both "novel" (no one has done it before) and "non-obvious" (a typical software engineer wouldn't have thought of it). These seem to cover it pretty well to me, except that novelty is trivial to find in the software world and the bar for obviousness seems to be completely ignored; I've never heard of a software patent so obvious it was rejected.
- icelancer 9y agoAgreed. Many things sound obvious in plain English but when you ask someone to write an actual law that everyone will abide by (and will survive committees and constitutionality challenges), it becomes quite a bit more difficult.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- BatFastard 9y agoI agree about how broken it is. But for a patent attorney, it is gold, if you can extend the idea. If I had more money to defend one back in 2000 I would own mesh networks...
- wyager 9y ago> If I had more money to defend one back in 2000 I would own mesh networks... Then no one would use mesh networks instead of almost no one!
- devmunchies 9y ago> This entire system needs to be reworked In my mind patents were made to protect inventors and the little guy so that he/she could capitalize on their invention before the market is unleashed. When multi-billion dollar companies are gaining government sanctioned exclusivity to something through a patent, something seems off. But in this example they weren't a multi-billion dollar company 20 years ago.
- summer_steven 9y ago> In my mind patents were made to protect inventors and the little guy so that he/she could capitalize on their invention before the market is unleashed. When multi-billion dollar companies are gaining government sanctioned exclusivity to something through a patent, something seems off. I agree. Patent laws have created for moral reasons instead of practical ones. Let this be a lesson to lawmakers to pass regulation based on facts instead of feelings.
- Invictus0 9y ago> When multi-billion dollar companies are gaining government sanctioned exclusivity to something through a patent, something seems off. So, in your world, why would a medical research lab spend billions researching and developing new drugs, spend years going through regulatory approval and testing, only to have their drug be sold for pennies as a generic?
- 27182818284 9y agoThis comes up as an example a lot. The solution is not to eliminate patents, but just to get rid of a one-size-fits-all patent. Medical patents shouldn't be on the same footing as a software patent. For example, you could maybe ask for a FDA-Approved-Drug-Patent which would be different than new-roller-skates patent.
- paulddraper 9y agoThis is by design. Patent lawyers are paid to obtain the most generic patent possible.
- ams6110 9y agoAgreed, it seems quite obvious even if there was no prior art (which I doubt, even in 1997, and security issues aside, sites using PHP or ASP or Perl could have been storing credit card data for express checkout functionality). I also don't see the huge advantage of this. I never use one-click checkout on Amazon. I like to review everything before I buy. I guess for totally impulse purchases it helps eliminate a step at which the buyer might reconsider a purchase. But I don't like to shop that way.
- Grue3 9y ago>I guess for totally impulse purchases it helps eliminate a step for the buyer to reconsider a purchase. AFAIK (I only ever used one-click checkout on amazon.co.jp) there's a 15-minute or so window where you can review and modify/cancel your order, so the step is still there (though most people would probably ignore it). I found it convenient to use because domestic shipping was free, and I'm already seeing the price of the product, which is the only thing I'm buying, so there's nothing else to review.
- Liron 9y agoYou can review everything on the receipt screen and easily undo if you don't like it. This is the same UX as discarding a draft in Gmail - it's done, but you can undo.
- kbutler 9y agoAs liron said, one-click is optimizing the user flow, but allowing easy undo. It is good UI design: Optimize the common flow (buy the item) and provide easy undo (from the post-purchase confirmation page, and in the delay before shipping). But I've still only used it a couple of times - the psychological barrier, wanting to include an add-on item, etc.
- Liron 9y agoI read somewhere that when Bezos told his team to build one click, they came back to him with a 4-click flow. So he told them no, I want one click, and they came back with two clicks (gotta have a confirmation in case that first click was accidental, right?) So maybe it really was a nontrivial invention for its time.
- Retric 9y agoThe nontrivial bit is it starts a timer which allows users to cancel after a click. This works because delivery is far from instant and is fairly insightful, IMO.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago> This works because delivery is far from instant Not quite. They apply the same approach even when delivery is instant; you can order a kindle book, download it, and cancel the order.
- hyperbovine 9y agoStill can't believe it was 17 years ago!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- djsumdog 9y agoSo NZ banned software patents. Does that mean a NZ company that hosted everything outside the US would have been exempt (even if they had a drop shipping market in the US?)
- oh_sigh 9y agoI wish I had thought of patenting a half click patent. If a click is a mouse button down and up, how about something 50% more efficient - order immediately on mouse button down? Surely that is non-obvious!
- TheBiv 9y agoNOTE that the Registered Trademark of "1-Click" will still be valid and owned by Amazon http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:d4rhro.7.7 http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:d4r...
- Moter8 9y ago>This search session has expired. Please start a search session again by clicking on the TRADEMARK icon, if you wish to continue.
- m12k 9y agoQuick, register "1-Tap" as a trademark! We're gonna be rich, boys!
- benmowa 9y agothanks done. What do you mean we? /s
- fenwick67 9y agoHow about "one-click"?
- preordained 9y agoHaha. Single-click. 1-click-buy. The things you can claim rights to...utterly absurd.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoA "merely descriptive" mark can't infringe another trademark, so "1-click" as a trademark is nearly impossible to enforce. You could enforce it with additional restrictions, like color / size / font / layout, but the text "1-click" can freely be used to describe processes that require 1 click.
- ssijak 9y agowhat if you buy on a touch device?
- jaymzcampbell 9y agoSetting aside the madness that is the patent itself ever being granted, what I found most interesting on that post was that this could now (possibly) become an actual web standard in the future: > the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has started writing a draft proposal for one click buying methods. The W3C site itself has a number of web payment related proposals in progress[1]. The Payment Request API, in particular, looks pretty interesting (updated 2017-08-17). I wonder what a difference something like that would've made back in the day when I was bathed in Paypal SOAP. [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/#tr_Web_Payments https://www.w3.org/TR/#tr_Web_Payments
- ballenf 9y agoI found > the patent will expire and the technology behind it will be free to be used by any e-commerce site particularly specious. There is no "technology" behind it. It was a concept or busines process that the vaguaries of patent law deemed worthy of rewarding. Not to mention that any technology ("source code") Amazon used to implement the patent will remain under copyright essentially indefinitely.
- tenkeyless 9y agothis is nonsense
- tokenizerrr 9y agoExplain?
- nsxwolf 9y agoAre you just quibbling about the semantics used in the article? Or are you saying nobody else can implement "1 click" even after the patent expires... because of copyright? Edit: Was an honest question, I've upvoted all the answers as I found them interesting, not understanding the barrage of downvotes shrug
- derefr 9y ago
- tyrw 9y agoI ran an ecommerce company for about a year, and one click checkout was the least of our concerns when it came to Amazon. The speed of delivery, prime benefits, brand recognition, and willingness to lose money on many if not most items are absolutely brutal to compete against. I'm glad one click checkout will be more broadly available, but it's probably not going to make much of a difference...
- andrepd 9y agoAbsolutely. They have the capital and the scale to outcompete you and anyone that tries to go against them. Bar regulations to protect competition, you have no chance.
- wbl 9y agoThat's great for consumers.
- sidlls 9y agoNot necessarily. It could easily lead to inferior products as every point on the pipeline from manufacturers to distributors cut costs. It can, in addition, lead to a monopoly situation providing for relatively unconstrained pricing.
- oceanplexian 9y agoI've heard this, but I honestly don't see it in practice. If you've been to a Costco recently you may be surprised to find that they're much less expensive than Amazon. They have more buying power and stronger vendor relationships that AMZN simply doesn't have. Prime Day 2017 was also a huge disappointment (Mostly overpriced junk like bluetooth speakers). Honestly I think the only thing that works in Amazon's favor is the convenience, and their private distribution/delivery network. Beyond that they're nothing more than a generic online marketplace.
- YCode 9y agoA lot of people don't realize (or maybe care?) that Amazon makes up a fair amount of that loss from screwing over distributors and third party sellers. The Walmart of the Internet, I suppose. FWIW I usually try to find more direct sources before buying on Amazon. If the other source can drop a few bucks off the Amazon price and offer free shipping I'll buy it direct from them.
- romanhn 9y ago"E-commerce will change forever" ... strong words. Amazon has features that are a much bigger value proposition than one-click purchases. I don't see this changing the landscape in any significant way.
- clan 9y agoI have always hated the thought that retailers stored my credit card information. Seems to be very common with US based shops. If this gets any traction I will need to fight even harder to opt out. I yearn for the day I can have one off transaction codes.
- ams6110 9y agoThese days the retailers don't (or shouldn't) store it. They store a token that the payment processor (e.g. Stripe) uses as a key to the card data that they store. If you as a retailer have your checkout page set up properly, the actual card data never hits your server.
- clan 9y agoThat only makes it slightly better. It is still stored at payment provider. Hopefully they are better at safeguarding my data. But if I only supplied a token. with a value I determined I would not have to worry.
- shimon 9y agoIf you're sufficiently motivated, you can do this today with Virtual Credit Card Numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number#Virtual_credit_card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number#Virt...
- owenmarshall 9y ago> But if I only supplied a token. with a value I determined I would not have to worry. You mean the username and password for the site you've logged on to? ;-)
- thaumasiotes 9y agoNo, your credentials don't have a defined monetary value. A temporary card number can be configured with a fixed value you specify; most banks provide the service for free. You can also buy a Visa or AmEx gift card, and use that.
- chaffe2 9y agoWas it really that revolutionary? I used to build e-commerce sites years ago and not a single client asked for one-click buying. And it wasn't because they knew it was patented. I myself have probably used Amazon's one click maybe 3 times ever. Useless filler article.
- dpflan 9y agoWhen the news about Soundcloud's future emerged, discussions turned through some thoughts about how to help SC keep its roots and grow into what it can be rather than be a Spotify competitor. The Amazon One-Click patent was brought up about how to allow buying the song / supporting the artist/record label you're enjoying. Perhaps there is a chance now for SC (and others) to use this? (It'd be interesting to see how often the patent thwarted any business decisions. Also, I wonder if this was considering in the funding round...) Here is the comment: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14991938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14991938 Here is the parent HN post: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990911
- dboreham 9y agoI have been buying from Amazon for 20 years and have not once used 1-Click.
- fps 9y agoI've used it a few times but only because I know amazon's costs and shipping policies are consistent, and they give you enough information up front on the item page to make a fully informed purchase decision. Other ecommerce sites frequently have so many additional/hidden charges that I would never want to click "buy" right from the item page. I abandon so many carts when I get to the checkout page because there's $20 in shipping charges on a $8 item, or they've tacked on a $5 handling fee, or they wait until the very end of the process to tell you that the item will ship in 8 weeks.
- bby 9y agoOr that the item is "digital" and no physical item will be shipped. I had this happen to me on several Bangladeshi e-commerce websites.
- beejiu 9y agoMaybe it is different in the US, but in the UK the charges being inconsistent is the reason I do not use One Click. (Amazon UK not being as good seems to be a theme in these comments.)
- djhworld 9y agoI don't think that's the case for Amazon Prime (UK customer) In my experience the price shown and delivery time estimate is always accurate, and as a Prime customer the delivery fee is included in your subscription
- blibble 9y agoit very rarely works... you click it and then it asks to update your credit card details (even though I've been buying using that card for years)
- pishpash 9y agoThis patent prevented a nefarious checkout pattern across myriad potentially unscrupulous store fronts for more than a decade so was it really so bad? ;) Some days I feel Amazon was not only the world's largest non-profit organization but also among its most beneficent!
- delecti 9y agoThat's actually a really depressing thought. Now we'll all have to start being even more vigilant to make sure that the "checkout" buttons are "start the multi-step checkout process" buttons, and not "gimme this item with whatever payment information is on file" buttons. On the plus side, most sites I'd be really worried about probably don't have my checkout information anyway.
- 0xffff2 9y agoReally? Are there really so many sites that you don't trust, yet have they have your credit card info? I can't think of a single site that fits that bill for me. If one did nefariously charge me for something an make it a hassle to cancel, a chargeback would be an easy solution; it's not likely I want to maintain a business relationship with them anyway.
- delecti 9y agoDid you read my second line?
- philfrasty 9y ago„...e-commerce will change forever...“ Simply from a legal standpoint this is BS. In some countries you have to display the customer a whole bunch of information and terms before he can make the purchase. Just because Amazon ignores this due to their size and $$$ doesn't mean everyone can.
- NelsonMinar 9y agoThe 1-Click patent was the genesis of a long debate between Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly about software patents. It resulted in the formation of BountyQuest, a 2000-era effort to pay bounties for prior art for bad patents. Unfortunately it didn't really work out. But the history of arguing about software patents is pretty interesting. http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly//news/patent_archive.html http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly//news/patent_archiv...
- breck 9y agoThis was super interesting, thanks for sharing. I particularly liked this: http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly//news/amazon_patents.html http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly//news/amazon_patent... Does anyone know what happened with Bezos' proposal for "fast patents"?
- slim 9y agoIt got patented
- pdog 9y ago> No one knows what Apple paid to license the technology [from Amazon]... This is factually incorrect. Of course, there are executives at Amazon and Apple who know how much was paid to license the one-click patent.
- abiox 9y ago'No one knows' here is idiomatic. Your response seems fallacious; you are equivocating by representing the words as literal, rather than addressing the idiomatic meaning.
- sadlyNess 9y agoHope its going to be added to the payments ISO standards. If that's a fitting home along with the W3C move, is it?
- nocoder 9y agoDoes this mean the use of the term "1-click" will no longer be exclusive to Amazon or is that a part of some trademark type stuff?
- themaveness 9y agoNo it doesn't. That is trademarked and up for renewal around the same time. But it can be extended where a patent cannot. https://www.quora.com/When-does-Amazons-One-Click-IP-expire https://www.quora.com/When-does-Amazons-One-Click-IP-expire
- pwinnski 9y agoThe term is trademarked, so it's only the functionality that will become unencumbered.
- benmowa 9y ago"These are the ones [credit card processors] we have worked with in the past that we know use a card vault. Others likely support it too" Note The more common term is credit card Tokenization, not just Vaulting, and is not required for 1-click if the merchant is retaining CC numbers. - although this is not recommended due to PCI and breach liability.
- vnchr 9y agoWould anyone like something built to take advantage of this? I'm open next week between contracts (full-stack JS), maybe there is a browser extension or CMS plugin that would make this feature easy to implement?
- jwildeboer 9y agoAs a former core developer of OSCommerce, where our users were threatened with patent infringement over exactly this, I will order a nice glas of whiskey, celebrating this thing is finally over. This one patent made me join the fight against software patents in Europe, which we sort of won in 2005.
- drcube 9y agoThis is a "feature" I actively avoid. Why in the world would anyone want to buy something online without a chance to review their purchase? Other web pages don't even let you leave the page without asking "are you sure?".
- justin_oaks 9y agoBecause you can always "undo" the purchase by canceling it.
- abiox 9y agoit's been a while since i've bought from amazon, but i recall that one-click orders have a delay before being 'executed'. this lets you use one-click multiple times and have items bundled to save shipping, as well as review and cancel.
- HNNoLikey 9y ago> the technique of allowing customers to make online purchases with a single click, with the payment information needed to complete the purchase having been entered by the user previously I remember reading about this in the Bezos bio - One click - and thinking I must have missed something because of how ridiculous such a patent is. I'm still convinced I'm missing something. I'm all about copyright protection but come-the-fuck-on! Isn't this alottle too trivial. People get paid to work on this (patent) and they're happy with themselves?
- Jumziey 9y agoRetarded, fuck patents
- kiflay 9y agoInteresting
- summer_steven 9y agoThis is almost like a patent on cars that go above 60 MPH. Or a website that takes less than 50 ms to load. They have a patent on the RESULT of technology. The patent SHOULD be on THEIR VERY SPECIFIC IMPLEMENTATION of 1-click checkout, but instead it is on all implementations that result in 1-click checkout. Patents really are not meant for the internet...
- ThomPete 9y agoSo quick product idea. Make a Magento integration that allow ecommerce sites to implement it?
- 10000100001010 9y agoI have never used one-click but I have relatives that compusively purchase off Amazon with one-click all of the time. It is almost a drug to them because they click a button and then stuff shows up at their door. For some users, removing all barriers except for a click is sufficient to get them to buy.
- tomc1985 9y agoOh joy, now everyone's going to have that stupid impulse buy button. Yay consumerism, please, take my firstborn...
- likelynew 9y agoHas there been any court case for the validity of this patent?
- mseebach 9y agoThe space (from my online shopping experience) seems to be divided between Amazon (with one click checkout, fast delivery etc) and everyone else (42 click checkout and one week delivery, if you're lucky). If the one-click patent was a major inhibitor of competition, I'd basically expect to see a lot of two-click check out options. Instead I find myself creating a million redundant user accounts, telling people that my mothers maidenname is "khhsyebg" (she's got some Dothraki blood, it seems) and parsing "don't not uncheck the box if you wish to prevent us from causing the absence of non-delivery of our newsletter and also not abstaining from passing on your details to third parties".
- mk89 9y ago> The space (from my online shopping experience) seems to be divided between Amazon (with one click checkout, fast delivery etc) and everyone else (42 click checkout and one week delivery, if you're lucky). Ahaha, you are so damn right!!
- dingaling 9y ago> and everyone else (42 click checkout and one week delivery, if you're lucky) Certianly in the UK the friction of buying from "non-Amazon" websites exists ( create an account, enter payment etc ) but Amazon just uses the same delivery networks as everyone else. In fact a small company often dispatches faster in my experience than Amazon; for non-Prime at least they've been stretching the 'Dispatching Soon' timelines to nearly a week[0]. Of course once it's in that status you can't cancel the order. [0] As a third-party seller through Amazon I am required to dispatch within two working days. One rule for them and another for the little folk.
- mseebach 9y agoThe issues I've had (in the UK, indeed) has not been with the delivery time itself (which is often stated, correctly, as "next day" or "2-3 days") but with the time to process my order, some times taking several days. Most severely, two months, as they had neglected to account for the time it takes to customs process a container from China. But the items did arrive one week (plus two months) after the order was placed. But yes, a lot of small vendors do ship very quickly. They do still generally require me to create an account and unsubscribe from their newsletter, regardless of unticking the box during signup.
- novaleaf 9y agoanecdote: I use Amazon for practically all of my shopping, only supplementing it by going to a brick-and-mortar for food. I have never used the "buy now" feature, so honestly I think it's impact is a bit overblown. Here are my reasons I never use it: 1) I do a lot of comparison shopping, so I like to review my orders before the final purchase. (in case I put something in my cart and then later added something better) 2) I want to make sure I don't order something under $35 and get stuck paying for expedited shipping (which is free for prime members over $35 in purchases) 3) I have a few addresses and cards on file, and want to make sure the order will use the right one. 4) I use the cart as a temporary list, anything that looks interesting during my shopping session gets thrown in there (or perhaps another browser window if doing comparisons).
- twothamendment 9y agoYes. I live an hour from big box stores so I know my UPS driver by name. 5) I use my cart as a queue of things to buy that I don't need "right now". I'll let things pile up in there until I do need something. I think it is a waste of fuel, boxes, etc. to place an order every day of the week instead of one box a week.
- radicaldreamer 9y agoAnyone know if a company other than Apple currently licenses 1-Click?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wheaties 9y ago"They have proposed ways of storing cards and address data in the browser..." Oh hell no! Just what we need, yet another reason for people to attack your browser. Don't we already suggest to never use the "remember your password" button? Now, it's "remember your credit card." No. Please, just no.
- komali2 9y agoChrome already has an option to remember your credit card. I love it. It means I can be in line for a show, see that the venue has another one coming up, pull up the purchase page on my phone, and have tickets in second. Or my partner can buy tickets to the theater on the way to the theater, seamlessly. Etc. TLDR It's super convenient, and if my credit card details get stolen or whatever, that's Chase's problem, not mine.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago> Don't we already suggest to never use the "remember your password" button? The "remember your password" functionality is awful if your threat model is "I don't want my passwords to be stolen", but it's terrific if your threat model includes "I don't want to be phished".
- dajohnson89 9y agoThe # of returns are surely higher for 1-click purchases -- wrong address, wrong CC#, no chance to double-check you have the right size/color, etc.
- minton 9y agoPlease stop calling this technology.
- amelius 9y agoReminds me of the joke I read somewhere about a "half-click patent", where the purchase is done on mousedown instead of on click.
- yuhong 9y agoI remember the history on Slashdot about it.
- perseusprime11 9y agoAmazon is eating the world.The loss of this patent will have zero sum impact.
- stretchwithme 9y agoBuying things with 1 click is not an Amazon feature I've ever cared to use. The right product at the right price, fast. That's what matters.
- wodenokoto 9y agoDoes Amazon even use this themselves? I have fewer clicks going product page to purchase confirmation on Aliexpress.com than on Amazon.com
- ComodoHacker 9y agoI'm sure Amazon has already filed an application for "Zero-click checkout". Something like "swipe over a product image in a 'V' pattern to checkout", etc.
- blairanderson 9y agoBusinesses use that shit. They don't have time and often don't care about the little details. Businesses are the customers you want.
- drumttocs8 9y agoHuh? 1-Click patent? Does this mean I can literally patent a design choice?