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Amazon Granted 1-Hour Offer Patent
from the order-now! dept
theodp writes "Amazon was awarded a patent Tuesday for its Interactive Time-Limited Merchandising Program and Method for Improved Online Cross-Selling, which appears to be lawyer-speak for presenting customers with one limited-time offer after another until they finally bite on one or decline them all. So be careful - the next time you offer folks 10% off on a garden rake if they purchase it within sixty minutes after declining to buy a saucepan, you could be guilty of patent infringement!"
Reader Comments
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Been There Done That
Fails on prior use timed deals were done at K-Mart in the seventies. Anyone remember a Blue light special?
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Re: Been There Done That
But...but...Amazon is doing it *ONLINE*!
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Re: Been There Done That
"Anyone remember a Blue light special?"
Or the "Limited time offer! Call now!" commercials that have been around since at least that long? (Granted, I doubt they actually time those, but the concept is clearly there.)
Where the hell do they find these patent examiners?
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Re: Re: Been There Done That
the zoo pays them to take away the ugly monkeys.
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No More WootOffs?
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Re:
I was thinking the samething
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Sorry...
I have patented the idea of patenting obvious ideas. They are clearly infringing!
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woot
The woot off is not dependant on whether you take action on a previous item, and it is not time dependent, it is product availability dependant.
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Patents in general
I personally think all software-based patents should be dissolved. For one thing, like this one, they tend to be way too general. Seriously, offering a new item up for sale on a cyclical basis? How is that a unique idea?
Further, I think any patent covering an item that is not currently in production should be dissolved. Patenting an idea to prevent it from being formed by someone else, while doing nothing with said patent is a practice that should be stopped.
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The patent covers a system and method that is much more nuanced than simply a string of time limited offers (e.g., HSN, QVC).
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software patent?
is this a software or a business method patent? i'm not super-knowledgeable, but it kinda walks the line b/w the two.
the code to offer sales is a little obvious, but the idea of doing it is kinda sorta not so much so.
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Read the patent details...
... and you will see that it's fairly well defined and pertains to their use of goldbox daily deals which I think is unique and patent-worthy. They put a lot of time and research into developing it, and I don't think it would be fair for other online e-commerce entities to straight copy it.
Yes I agree that there are some software patents that are so generically defined that they are meaningless, but in fairness, I don't think this is one of them.
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Re: Read the patent details...
You know what else was innovative and worthy of a patent by those standards? The online shopping cart, rubber wheels, pneumatic tires, a digital volume control, speedometers that show both MP/h and KM/h.
OOH! I'll patent the fuel gauge that shows both gallons and liters so you know how much you'd be getting screwed if you had to pay by the liter.
This is fun. I'm going to find other things that people are doing, but a minor, but fairly obvious twist on it and patent the hell out of it...or stop trolling...whichever.
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Re: Re: Read the patent details...
"Strawman" is an apt moniker since you appear to be quite adept at creating irrelevant and inaccurate strawmen.
As the subject title notes, try reading the patent before waxing poetic on what you seem to feel are failings of the current law.
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Re: Re: Re: Read the patent details...
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Re: Read the patent details...
Goldbox Daily Deals?
What is that, like, "free nude pic of the day"?
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Re: Read the patent details...
Oh yeah they put millions of hours into taking another persons idea that's been around for a long time and expanding on it.
Don't get me wrong I have found myself almost solely relying on Amazon for a large portion of things I buy and even have Prime. It just amazes me that there are Kool-Aid drinkers in every crowd even Amazons.
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