> I read recently that Amazon had patented the term "1-Click Ordering" and > that no one else could use it. I guess this is what they are trying to > prevent from happening.
They patented the method. It is simple, when you first purchase from them, they set a cookie that contains a unique customer number. When next time you click on an item and your browser sends the cookie, they know who you are and can fetch all of your address and credit card details so that you don't have to type it in again - you can buy an item just simply clicking on it, hence the name. In addition to the one-click shopping, they can and do use it for advertising. Since they know who you are, they can target all advertisement that you see in accordance to your personal profile, that they calculate based on your previous purchases. In fact, there were ideas floating around to make the price of products vary on a customer by customer basis: if they know that you are a fan of a particular genre, you are likely to be willing to pay more for that kind of thing than someone who is neutral about it. I have no idea about whether the price-changing thing ever got implemented, but the targeted ads are there. Amazon sued Barnes & Noble, for their ExpressLane (the same thing) violated Amazon's patent. B&N then challenged the patent but they lost. Being succesfully defended at court, the patent is quite solid so noone can implement a smilar system for the next maybe 16-17 years without paying licence fees to Amazon. Not in the US anyway. And in countries which "harmonise" their "legal framework to protect intellectual property" with the US. Details of the one-click patent can be found e.g.: http://www-cse.stanford.edu/classes/cs201/projects-99-00/software-patents/amazon.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/amazonpatent.html By the way, before adopting a US-style patent system, take a look at US patent 4,022,227 and think about if you want "a monopoly for a limited time" to be granted on things like that in Europe... (Even though it expires this year - it was filed 20 years ago). You can find it by typing its number (without the commas) at http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm For the associated "technical" drawings click on the Images button at the bottom of the top of the patent abstract page. Patents and copyrights are not inherently evil - they, in theory, give financial incentive/security for people who have to invest time and money to create new things that we all enjoy/profit from. The problem is the system that allows them to be abused, to protect business models, distorted markets and obscene profits of entities who do *not* actually create anything at all. The EU patent vote, as far as I can see, is more about moving towards a system of easy bogus patents and the related lawsuit-economy in general than the particular issue of SW patents. Zoltan --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
