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Then if its not innovative - show me the prior art ? There is none - so it's innovative under law - regardless of whether I agree or not. Amazon patented an inn

by timmyd 14y ago

Then if its not innovative - show me the prior art ? There is none - so it's innovative under law - regardless of whether I agree or not. Amazon patented an innovative process unthought of at the time - the fact you apply retrospectivity to it now and look at it as ridiculous does nothing to prove it was not innovative back in 1998. If you thought of this process - would you be happy not to charge Amazon if you patented it ? Lets assume you didn't patent it and now its used by everyone on the planet - would you sit back and think "I wish I had of patented this so I could make millions" ? Again, they're the questions you need to ask because in my view it's a capitalist question over and above hating patent rights. If you didn't choose to patent it and someone took advantage of you - then in every country but America - they would have the rights (as has happened before). America relies on first to invent - but its a big ask and its being abolished in changes passed by congress to fall in line with first-to-file.

danmaz74 14y ago
Nope. The patent should be granted only if it is "not obvious to a skilled practitioner skilled in the art", not just if nobody published the same exact thing before. 1-click WAS obvious in 1998 to any skilled practitioner who knew about cookies.
- timmyd 14y ago
  Again, this patent has been litigated over and over and over - so it has been deemed not to be obvious to a person skilled in the art at the time of filing relevant to the claims. You can't state "it WAS obvious" - because literally millions has been spent on PROVING it wasn't. Even if some of the claims have been subsequently rejected - there are still components that are patentable.
  - danmaz74 14y ago
    You're talking about the US. The patent was never granted in the first place here in the EU. So yes, I can state that it WAS obvious - at least in Europe.
    - timmyd 14y ago
      And as a result Europe produces the Samwer brothers - who just copy everything from the United States and open it in Europe. I'm not arguing that patent law is perfect (per my first post) but rather that it does have a function and the original article conveys the view its entirely pointless. EU patent law has its problems as well and its a long post to discuss it - but without any protection you just get outright copies (Airbnb, Stripe and so on and so on) and that does nothing for innovation.
      - danmaz74 14y ago
        Are you serious? The Samwer brothers don't do anything different from thousands of US startups and big companies that try to imitate new ideas that have success in the market. How many venture capitalists in the US finance exactly that kind of ventures? The only difference is that they evidently found a good formula to do it with repeated successes by focusing on early localization on European (and especially German) market, and so became famous. By the way, I'm in favor of patents in general, but with very stringent non-obviousness requirements. IIRC the USPTO changed its attitude not so many years ago here, going from a "reject as much as possible" one to a "accept as much as possible" one.
      - pgeorgi 14y ago
        It's funny to have to state this on a site where a common mantra is that "execution matters": If US entrepreneurs suck at serving a global market (and they do - failing even with covering Canada and Mexico for years, their direct neighbors), someone else is bound to fill the niche. Instead of whining about the Samwers, how about expanding as soon as possible? Either there's money to be had abroad (then go and get it) or there's not (then why aren't Samwers bankrupt by now, at least thrice?).
        timmyd 14y ago
        I totally agree with you that execution does matter. But the Samwer's don't execute - they outright copy. From reverse engineering, to out right cloning the CSS style sheets and design UI's which is totally wrong. That's not innovation in any sense and I wholeheartedly disagree if you are defending the cloning of a product completely. I'm not "whining" about the Samwers - I am bringing them into the larger context of this debate. That is - with patent protection - their outright clones would not exist. You draw a completely different imputation by comparing it to business strategy of expanding faster and cloning a product. I am not against, in any sense, taking an idea (groupon) and making it work in a different part of the world - as long as it adds something to it - a different UI and so on. The Samwers don't add that and that's what is detestable. If your startup worked hard, built a product with a great UI that is commented upon and then a competitor clones it outright in a different market - are you suggesting you wouldn't be pissed ? Because that's exactly what the Samwers do. And sometimes it's not so easy to just "expand as soon as possible" - payments is a whole massive legal headache (in the case of stripe). Verification systems, financial approval and so on and so on per country and many others. Plus, expanding quickly involves local offices, larger teams, greater strategic planning, more investment capital which then dilutes existing people more and so on and so on. So it's not a simple matter of "expand as quickly as possible" but sometimes that's just not feasible.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    This attitude frankly disgusts me. The legal system is all kinds of screwed up and its verdicts don't necessarily have any relation to reality. It's an intellectual cop-out: I don't have to actually put thought into the issue, because a bunch of expensive lawyers already did, and I can just parrot them!
csallen 14y ago
You're overly-focused on the existence of prior art. Simply being the first to do something shouldn't automatically give you the right to prevent anyone else from doing it. That philosophy, applied consistently, would lead to ridiculousness.
- timmyd 14y ago
  Because that is what patent law is focused on. And yes - that's exactly why is ISNT applied consistently because only things worth patenting are filed. If you think you have a billion dollar idea (and you may have) - and no one has thought of it - are you suggesting you simply tell the world and expect everyone to play nice ? The only way to prove something is unique is if nothing is available in the public domain or nothing is filed before hand. I'm in no way suggesting the patent system is great (read above) - but removing it entirely like this article suggests is also wrong.
  - csallen 14y ago
    Yes, but so what if I have a "billion dollar" idea? An idea is merely a thought inside the mind. Just because an idea can be used to make money shouldn't give me (or anyone else) the right to own it. If you don't want others having access to your idea, then keep it to yourself. Thomas Jefferson put it far better than I ever could: If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. I like to think of it like this: At some point in the past, two ancient humans were sitting in the rain. One of them -- let's call him CavemanA -- was smart enough to construct a shelter. That certainly would have been a unique and valuable idea at the time. But do you really think that CavemanA should then have the power to tell CavemanB that he's not allowed to build a shelter? Ideas are not property. Allowing people to own them is extremely harmful, and should only be done to prevent even more harmful situations from arising. We certainly shouldn't give someone ownership of an idea for no other reason than to reward them for having it first.
icebraining 14y ago
In October, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected 21 of the 26 claims of Amazon's famous patent after an Auckland patent enthusiast, Peter Calveley, produced evidence of prior art. http://web.archive.org/web/20081211093025/http://www.out-law.com/page-8659 http://web.archive.org/web/20081211093025/http://www.out-law... Of course, this was only after Amazon bullied others, including B&N, using the bogus patent.
Vivtek 14y ago
In the case of one-click, it's first important to note that in addition to prior art, a patent must also pass the obviousness test. One-click does not. You may not be a developer, I don't know, but I know any developer here could implement one-click in a day. Patents are not intended to be a lottery rewarding insight. Patents protect development effort. One-click fails that test. But in terms of prior art, Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly backed BountyQuest in 2001 as a forum for researching prior art for patents. They couldn't monetize it, so it shut down in 2003 - but not before O'Reilly received what he calls a "killer piece of prior art" on the one-click patent, which he has on his bookshelf in case "Amazon loses its senses and sues someone". [http://openp2p.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2003/bountyquest_1003.html http://openp2p.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2003/bountyquest_10...] The point here is not that your example is wrong. Where you go wrong is assuming that a patent granted on software is anything like a useful mechanism to support innovation.
- timmyd 14y ago
  But again - "i know any developer her could implement one-click in a day" and indeed a huge number of inventions could be implemented in a day. But you are again applying retrospecitivity (at least in my mind) - you need to remove that. Just because something is simple - doesnt mean it is not innovative. You contend that simply because something is simple that therefore it fails the test of obviousness - but that is not true and it's right that it's not true. The test is asking whether the invention is an adequate distance beyond or above the state of the art. The state of the art at the time had no idea of such a simple one-click method - if it did - why wasn't it invented ? The fact it can be implemented so easily is irrelevant to fundamental idea that its innovative, non-obvious and unique. The best ideas are usually the ones no one see's and yes I am a front-end dev so I deal with more interaction components than anything. Patents do not protect development effort - they protect novel, non-obvious and useful concept's. If they protected development effort - it would be a requirement to actually develop the idea and there is no such requirement and indeed many inventions wouldn't be possible to protect if such a requirement existed - that is, you must fully develop the invention before being granted protection. You're contention that because something is simple infers that its not patentable is incorrect in my mind.

by timmyd 14y ago

danmaz74 14y ago

Nope. The patent should be granted only if it is "not obvious to a skilled practitioner skilled in the art", not just if nobody published the same exact thing before. 1-click WAS obvious in 1998 to any skilled practitioner who knew about cookies.

timmyd 14y ago
Again, this patent has been litigated over and over and over - so it has been deemed not to be obvious to a person skilled in the art at the time of filing relevant to the claims. You can't state "it WAS obvious" - because literally millions has been spent on PROVING it wasn't. Even if some of the claims have been subsequently rejected - there are still components that are patentable.
- danmaz74 14y ago
  You're talking about the US. The patent was never granted in the first place here in the EU. So yes, I can state that it WAS obvious - at least in Europe.
  - timmyd 14y ago
    And as a result Europe produces the Samwer brothers - who just copy everything from the United States and open it in Europe. I'm not arguing that patent law is perfect (per my first post) but rather that it does have a function and the original article conveys the view its entirely pointless. EU patent law has its problems as well and its a long post to discuss it - but without any protection you just get outright copies (Airbnb, Stripe and so on and so on) and that does nothing for innovation.
    - danmaz74 14y ago
      Are you serious? The Samwer brothers don't do anything different from thousands of US startups and big companies that try to imitate new ideas that have success in the market. How many venture capitalists in the US finance exactly that kind of ventures? The only difference is that they evidently found a good formula to do it with repeated successes by focusing on early localization on European (and especially German) market, and so became famous. By the way, I'm in favor of patents in general, but with very stringent non-obviousness requirements. IIRC the USPTO changed its attitude not so many years ago here, going from a "reject as much as possible" one to a "accept as much as possible" one.
    - pgeorgi 14y ago
      It's funny to have to state this on a site where a common mantra is that "execution matters": If US entrepreneurs suck at serving a global market (and they do - failing even with covering Canada and Mexico for years, their direct neighbors), someone else is bound to fill the niche. Instead of whining about the Samwers, how about expanding as soon as possible? Either there's money to be had abroad (then go and get it) or there's not (then why aren't Samwers bankrupt by now, at least thrice?).
      - timmyd 14y ago
        I totally agree with you that execution does matter. But the Samwer's don't execute - they outright copy. From reverse engineering, to out right cloning the CSS style sheets and design UI's which is totally wrong. That's not innovation in any sense and I wholeheartedly disagree if you are defending the cloning of a product completely. I'm not "whining" about the Samwers - I am bringing them into the larger context of this debate. That is - with patent protection - their outright clones would not exist. You draw a completely different imputation by comparing it to business strategy of expanding faster and cloning a product. I am not against, in any sense, taking an idea (groupon) and making it work in a different part of the world - as long as it adds something to it - a different UI and so on. The Samwers don't add that and that's what is detestable. If your startup worked hard, built a product with a great UI that is commented upon and then a competitor clones it outright in a different market - are you suggesting you wouldn't be pissed ? Because that's exactly what the Samwers do. And sometimes it's not so easy to just "expand as soon as possible" - payments is a whole massive legal headache (in the case of stripe). Verification systems, financial approval and so on and so on per country and many others. Plus, expanding quickly involves local offices, larger teams, greater strategic planning, more investment capital which then dilutes existing people more and so on and so on. So it's not a simple matter of "expand as quickly as possible" but sometimes that's just not feasible.
- mikeash 14y ago
  This attitude frankly disgusts me. The legal system is all kinds of screwed up and its verdicts don't necessarily have any relation to reality. It's an intellectual cop-out: I don't have to actually put thought into the issue, because a bunch of expensive lawyers already did, and I can just parrot them!

csallen 14y ago

You're overly-focused on the existence of prior art. Simply being the first to do something shouldn't automatically give you the right to prevent anyone else from doing it. That philosophy, applied consistently, would lead to ridiculousness.

timmyd 14y ago
Because that is what patent law is focused on. And yes - that's exactly why is ISNT applied consistently because only things worth patenting are filed. If you think you have a billion dollar idea (and you may have) - and no one has thought of it - are you suggesting you simply tell the world and expect everyone to play nice ? The only way to prove something is unique is if nothing is available in the public domain or nothing is filed before hand. I'm in no way suggesting the patent system is great (read above) - but removing it entirely like this article suggests is also wrong.
- csallen 14y ago
  Yes, but so what if I have a "billion dollar" idea? An idea is merely a thought inside the mind. Just because an idea can be used to make money shouldn't give me (or anyone else) the right to own it. If you don't want others having access to your idea, then keep it to yourself. Thomas Jefferson put it far better than I ever could: If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. I like to think of it like this: At some point in the past, two ancient humans were sitting in the rain. One of them -- let's call him CavemanA -- was smart enough to construct a shelter. That certainly would have been a unique and valuable idea at the time. But do you really think that CavemanA should then have the power to tell CavemanB that he's not allowed to build a shelter? Ideas are not property. Allowing people to own them is extremely harmful, and should only be done to prevent even more harmful situations from arising. We certainly shouldn't give someone ownership of an idea for no other reason than to reward them for having it first.

icebraining 14y ago

In October, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected 21 of the 26 claims of Amazon's famous patent after an Auckland patent enthusiast, Peter Calveley, produced evidence of prior art. http://web.archive.org/web/20081211093025/http://www.out-law.com/page-8659 http://web.archive.org/web/20081211093025/http://www.out-law... Of course, this was only after Amazon bullied others, including B&N, using the bogus patent.

Vivtek 14y ago

In the case of one-click, it's first important to note that in addition to prior art, a patent must also pass the obviousness test. One-click does not. You may not be a developer, I don't know, but I know any developer here could implement one-click in a day. Patents are not intended to be a lottery rewarding insight. Patents protect development effort. One-click fails that test. But in terms of prior art, Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly backed BountyQuest in 2001 as a forum for researching prior art for patents. They couldn't monetize it, so it shut down in 2003 - but not before O'Reilly received what he calls a "killer piece of prior art" on the one-click patent, which he has on his bookshelf in case "Amazon loses its senses and sues someone". [http://openp2p.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2003/bountyquest_1003.html http://openp2p.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2003/bountyquest_10...] The point here is not that your example is wrong. Where you go wrong is assuming that a patent granted on software is anything like a useful mechanism to support innovation.

timmyd 14y ago
But again - "i know any developer her could implement one-click in a day" and indeed a huge number of inventions could be implemented in a day. But you are again applying retrospecitivity (at least in my mind) - you need to remove that. Just because something is simple - doesnt mean it is not innovative. You contend that simply because something is simple that therefore it fails the test of obviousness - but that is not true and it's right that it's not true. The test is asking whether the invention is an adequate distance beyond or above the state of the art. The state of the art at the time had no idea of such a simple one-click method - if it did - why wasn't it invented ? The fact it can be implemented so easily is irrelevant to fundamental idea that its innovative, non-obvious and unique. The best ideas are usually the ones no one see's and yes I am a front-end dev so I deal with more interaction components than anything. Patents do not protect development effort - they protect novel, non-obvious and useful concept's. If they protected development effort - it would be a requirement to actually develop the idea and there is no such requirement and indeed many inventions wouldn't be possible to protect if such a requirement existed - that is, you must fully develop the invention before being granted protection. You're contention that because something is simple infers that its not patentable is incorrect in my mind.