In My Experience... | Amazon has a blogging patent? No. (1241)

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Amazon has a blogging patent? No.
[ Posted by Dan on February 26, 2003 | 5 Comments ]

Amazon, and more specifically, Jeff Bezos has a new patent under his belt that, in the simplest of terms is...

A method and system for conducting an electronic discussion relating to a topic.

When I first heard that from a friend of mine, I thought the blogosphere was the target, and that Daypop might have a new number one item. Well, as of this moment, it's not the number one item at Daypop, and the blogosphere is going to be ok, because...

What is claimed is:
1. A method in a computer system of a non-participant for starting a discussion relating to an item offered for sale...

So, as long as I don't ever offer an item for sale as a blog posting, I'll be ok? That still seems overly simplistic, doesn't it... After all, I'm just one person, and I don't have any significant sales thruput (read: none at all).

My guess is that Epinions is the one that needs to be nervous about this. The vagueness of "discussion relating to an item offered for sale" blankets the Epinions business model (even if they don't sell the stuff themselves, the discussion is related to a product for sale).

I'm amazed that Amazon can patent things like this, or more to the point, that the US Patent Office allows it to happen. The last patent that seemed absurd was one click ordering that Apple actually licensed, which no doubt is making my Macintosh habit more expensive. [via Slashdot]

I'm amazed that the public allows the US Patent Office to happen. Their system seriously needs revamped for the 21st Century.

-Posted by Joshua Kaufman on February 26, 2003 01:33 PM

I wonder...has anyone actually patented the ingress and egress from an automobine via opening and closing doors?

I should do this and make Ford, GM, etc. pay royalties for putting doors on their cars! Or else people will be having to pull a Bo & Luke Duke to avoid litigation!

Seems plausible given some recent patents issued...

-Posted by Benjy on February 26, 2003 02:34 PM

I would like to apply for a patent covering the utilization of ascii characters "0" and "1" for the display and printing of images.

-Posted by JC on February 26, 2003 02:49 PM

Just testing my custom icon...

-Posted by Joshua Kaufman on February 26, 2003 06:45 PM

Thanks for the link to DayPop. I remember discussing with someone at some point that this type of aggregation will be standard behavior in a few years. Although extreme, I can see a day where this type of thing becomes the Neilsen rating of online journalism.

And as for the patent issue, I guess it would be illegal for me to comment on it (if a patent is considered an "item")...

-Posted by Eric on February 27, 2003 03:48 AM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).