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Re: Wordsworth
I have such a different take on the whole Amazon.com patent thing. I agree with Jeff Bezos that given that the USPTO system is screwed up they are practically obligated to their shareholders and business model to pursue patents that are prima facie absurd, but are de facto patentable because the USPTO says they are! Okay, my logic may be circular. But anything the USPTO says is a is a patent until a court rules otherwise or the office changes its mind in some legally binding manner. For Amazon.com to not pursue limited innovations - and let's be clear on that - in the realm of business model patents is for them to throw away a current economic advantage. I don't like it. But it's the current reality. Now on the limited innovation front, I am really sick and tired of reading about the "associates" patent and "one-click" patent as if they are monolithic. They are not. Read the patents. The supported claims involve a fairly discrete and specific set of steps as befits a patent. Amazon.com claims innovation, uniqueness, and non-obviousness about certain methods of implementation of these two ideas. It doesn't matter who came up with them first. Many many many patents rely on expanding prior art in non-obvious ways. (For instance, NO ONE had or has a patent on the paper clip. There were original patents followed by reams and reams of new ones over the last 100-plus years. Does a square paper clip truly innovate? Dunno. But it's patentable, and it's a reasonable case to be made that it's discrete and non-obvious.) Anyway, I want to urge clarity of thought and expression over this matter. I believe Amazon.com is acting correctly within the constraints of current USPTO guidelines coupled with a capitalist economy. I also think that Jeff Bezos is a kind, decent, smart guy, whose intellect and ethics I respect, so it's hard for me to see him as a ravening fiend devouring business left and right. That's my bias. But his move to work with Tim O'Reilly and others to try to essentially remove the current benefit of business model patents and to increase the amount of available prior art are both good faith efforts to change the system from within. I own maybe 10 shares of Amazon.com in an IRA. As a tiny tiny tiny shareholder, I *do* want them to pursue these patents even as I want the system to change to prevent it from happening again. There are responses to this message:
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