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Amazon one-click patent confirmed

updated 04:10 pm EST, Wed March 10, 2010

 

Amazon 1-click patent confirmed after four years


Amazon's controversial 1-click patent has been approved, after nearly four years of re-examination. The USPTO approved the online retailer's patent but added a limitation that requires the one-click system to operate in conjunction with a shopping cart model. Other e-commerce retailers would need to use both a shopping cart model, likely to be of the non-1-click variety, as well as a 1-click version. Because most online retailers use shopping carts, the limitation should have little impact on the patent's power.

Critics questioned if such a broad technology as Amazon is patenting with the 1-click model should be patented.

The 1-click patent has to do with the process by which online shoppers make purchases with a single click, after previously entering and saving their payment and shipping information. The patent will expire in 2017.

The patent indirectly affects Apple as it's currently the only major company to license 1-click purchasing from Amazon. It uses the feature both on its web-based store as well as in the App Store, iPhoto and iTunes. [via Patently-O]





By Electronista Staff

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Amazon, patents, industry, Apple

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Previous Comments

  1. malax

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2006

    +2
    03/10, 04:41pm | report spam | reply

    Wow

    Something is wrong when the legal effort to file for, approve, defend, license, etc. a patent exceeds the original effort required to "invent" the concept by a factor of a million.


  1. Geoduck

    Junior Member

    Joined: Jan 2010

    0
    03/10, 05:05pm | report spam | reply

    Sorry but

    I'll say the same thing I said when this first came up years ago.

    Why isn't this "obvious"? You can't patent something that has prior art or is "obvious". To me having a button to complete the order is obvious. You're logged into a web site where you've previously saved your information, select an item, click the Place Order button and your order is placed and the site returns a web page with your order information and number. Duh! I honestly don't see why this is patentable. There's no other way you can run a store on the web.

    Am I missing something about how this works? All the descriptions I've read and Fig 3 above all look like something so bloody obvious I do not see how it's patentable.


  1. ricardogf

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2003

    +1
    03/10, 05:39pm | report spam | reply

    Huh?

    Well, USPTO's stupidity is notorious when it comes to granting frivolous software patents...enough said.


  1. Bobfozz

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2008

    0
    03/10, 06:12pm | report spam | reply

    Frivolous patent

    Perhaps this only applies to items for a shopping cart... still, it's a stupid patent--why should people make multiple clicks with a mouse which probably started out as ONE click even at Xerox Parc?

    Multi touch gestures in Apple products is different because before then there were no multi-gestures, just repeated button pushing. And it takes a considerable amount of engineering to make this work in a piece of hardware and software... HUGE difference. It takes no engineering to push a mouse button once or twice.

    Perhaps soon the USPTP office will start limiting the amount of time for patents to expire. All patents. That would improve innovation among the original patent holders! (yeah, right!)


  1. Feathers

    Grizzled Veteran

    Joined: Oct 1999

    0
    03/10, 07:16pm | report spam | reply

    three click?

    Can I patent purchasing with two clicks, or three, or four? This is beyond stupid!


  1. aardman

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2009

    -2
    03/11, 12:10am | report spam | reply

    The patent system needs to be nuked then rebuilt

    Software patents should be abolished. We should go back to basics. Patents should be awarded only to inventions embodied in a physical object, either a device or a substance/material. Otherwise, you are basically patenting knowledge or ideas.


  1. testudo

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +1
    03/11, 11:12am | report spam | reply

    Re: Frivilous patent

    Multi touch gestures in Apple products is different because before then there were no multi-gestures, just repeated button pushing. And it takes a considerable amount of engineering to make this work in a piece of hardware and software... HUGE difference. It takes no engineering to push a mouse button once or twice.

    That's a bunch of c***. Apple did NOT invent multi-touch. They didn't invent multi-touch screens, nor did they invent 'gestures'. People have been using gestures with computers for years. I had a program 15 years ago that would throw up a menu if I swooshed my mouse to the right. So then Apple's "different" invention is "we're using fingers!".

    And even that isn't original. Look it up on wikipedia:

    "A breakthrough occurred in 1991, when Pierre Wellner published a paper on his multi-touch “Digital Desk”, which supported multi-finger and pinching motions.[6][7]"

    Which not only means prior art to 'pinching motions', but also indicates the theory and concepts have been around for ages.

    But I'm sure you'll tell us all how this is 'different' than all those other patents out there that are obvious or have prior art.


  1. testudo

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Aug 2001

    0
    03/11, 11:27am | report spam | reply

    Re: Sorry but...

    Why isn't this "obvious"?

    Just because it seems 'obvious' doesn't mean it is obvious. You think it's obvious because you're so used to it now, probably from using the iTMS.

    To me having a button to complete the order is obvious.

    And that would be obvious. Except that's not what was patented.

    You're logged into a web site where you've previously saved your information, select an item, click the Place Order button and your order is placed and the site returns a web page with your order information and number. Duh! I honestly don't see why this is patentable. There's no other way you can run a store on the web.

    Except no store does that. Every store on the web worked (and most still do) by doing exactly what you do in a store. Add stuff to a cart. Then check out.

    This is patenting a different idea. You see an item, you say "Buy now" and it's purchased. No other confirmations, no entering in addresses, no adding it to a cart then placing your order. It's "One Click".

    This is exactly how the iTMS works now (esp. since version 9, which removed the shopping cart).


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