>> Two more self-contradictory statements would be hard to find. Mr. Riley is a good and honorable man who attempts to use logic and reason. Even if you disagree with him, he does not deserve that smear and making it shows your weakness, rudeness, inconsideration and disgusting stupidity. You owe an apology so you don’t look so foolish.

It seems you had no interest in reading my comment.

I mock him for calling people thief wrongly.

>> Hindsight is 20-20 but the indisputable fact is that back when Amazon came out with “one-click ordering” it revolutionized online ordering. It solved a long felt need (for quicker less cumbersome online ordering), was a resounding commercial success (gave Amazon the jump on Barnes & Noble), and was recognized widely as a major improvement. Saying it would have been obvious is easy for self-aggrandizing naysayers like many on this list, especially a decade later. However, saying it is so does not make it so, and backing up the BS with proof that it was obvious at the time it was filed is much harder.

Oh, the law is that the patent must not be obvious to a person having *ordinary* skill in the art.

This is an example of a patent that, not only violates the US Constitution on free speech and promote the progress criteria, but is fairly obvious to a lot of people having *above ordinary* skill in the art.

The 20 year monopoly granted is very sad, and I expect a lot of people will not abide by that unconstitutional patent (or have even heard of it).

>> The better argument against this patent is that Amazon likely would have come up with this technology even if there were no patent, as having one-click ordering is more efficient and makes impulse buying more likely and thus generates more sales, even if the competition could copy it.

This partly contradicts what you stated earlier that this was great for progress and “piracy” would retard progress.

Fact is that something that many independently develop now could add costs to all of those groups on account of this patent. You are taking away people’s hard independent work and copyrights by this unconstitutional patent. Many above ordinary skill developers find that “invention” rather obvious.

It’s only a matter of time before that unconstitutional patent gets recognized as such by the US Courts (at least indirectly.. and unfortunately I am making a future prediction call).

>> Amazon can hardly be faulted for using the legal system to its advantage by obtaining a patent that is proving to be quite troublesome for competitors. I recall their suit against Barnes & Noble right before the 1999 Christmas season, and how disruptive to B&N that was. In fact, B&N never recovered in their online business, which Amazon now dominates. Amazon is the number one online merchant, Barnes and Noble is 42nd.

So an unconstitutional patent distorts the market and hurts consumers by lowering competition?

Not all companies would take advantage of bad laws or nearly to the same extent as others. For example, for years, Microsoft abused a loophole in the law designed to help start-ups (stock options tax benefit). This allowed them to make free money (to the tune of 5 billion usd in 1999 alone) from taxpayers and which obviously made it more difficult for actual start-ups to compete against Microsoft who was already making profits hand over fist and had monopolies. Yes, it was badly designed law, and not every company pounced on it as did Microsoft.

>> Leaping logic. First assume there is a “problem”. Second assume there is a “failure”. Next, assume there is “easy money at stake”. Finally assume there is “injustice” in software patents. Now based on the conclusory assumptions, all arguably false, conclude the reason is greed.

“problem”: software patents stifle, abridge free speech, and twist markets hurting consumers

“failure”: I didn’t make that assumption. Reading carefully helps.

“easy money at stake”: again, reading carefully would show that I specified “for some”. I hope you don’t deny that qualified statement is true.

“injustice”: absolutely.

“greed”: for some it is very true. I don’t know Mr. Riley’s precise motivations, and that is one reason I phrased that comment as an opinion (a guess/ I “think”).

>> Now, that would really put a restraint on invention that the founders did not envision when empowering Congress to provide a reward to authors and inventors in Art. 1, Section 8, Clause 8. You see the founders recognized that “Greed is good” just as is “liberty” and “the pursuit of happiness”.

They qualified that section with “to promote the progress” and software patents are not promoting the progress.

They also amended the Constitution with the First Amendment.

See we all have some degree of greed, but we have a great many laws and regulations in place to keep greed in check. You can’t murder me just because you are greedy and want my money (to use one example of how greed must be placed in check). We need checks and balances so that everyone can be a little greedy and have something for themselves.

Amazon wants the whole market, sure, but we can’t just allow them to do whatever they want. If we allowed Barnes and Noble to have done whatever they wanted, Amazon might not even exist.

By the way, note that “greed is good” is from a movie. It is not in the Constitution. “pursuit of happiness” is in the Declaration of Independence. “Liberty” on the other hand, does appear in the Constitution proper and as amended.