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E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

thirtybees.com

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Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#111

Post by xxpor »

clan wrote: post #10

I have always hated the thought that retailers stored my credit card information. Seems to be very common with US based shops. If this gets any traction I will need to fight even harder to opt out. I yearn for the day I can have one off transaction codes.

I know virtual credit card numbers are a thing, but on the other hand I just solve it by having a different CC for subscription payments vs everyday transactions. If the every day card has fraud and I need to change the number, no skin off my back. If the subscription card needs to be changed, I have a convenient list of everyone I need to contact because it sees the exact same charges every month.

Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#112

Post by breck »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #38

The 1-Click patent was the genesis of a long debate between Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly about software patents. It resulted in the formation of BountyQuest, a 2000-era effort to pay bounties for prior art for bad patents. Unfortunately it didn't really work out. But the history of arguing about software patents is pretty interesting. http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly//news/patent_archiv...

This was super interesting, thanks for sharing.

I particularly liked this: http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly//news/amazon_patent...

Does anyone know what happened with Bezos' proposal for "fast patents"?

Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#113

Post by summer_steven »

devmunchies wrote: post #100
tuxxy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has a software patent, you don't want to know what it's like, as an engineer, to see your work get abstracted into generalities for a patent. By the end of it, everything was so generically described that I couldn't even recognize it anymore. This entire system needs to be reworked or thrown away entirely.

> This entire system needs to be reworked In my mind patents were made to protect inventors and the little guy so that he/she could capitalize on their invention before the market is unleashed. When multi-billion dollar companies are gaining government sanctioned exclusivity to something through a patent, something seems off. But in this example they weren't a multi-billion dollar company 20 years ago.

> In my mind patents were made to protect inventors and the little guy so that he/she could capitalize on their invention before the market is unleashed. When multi-billion dollar companies are gaining government sanctioned exclusivity to something through a patent, something seems off.

I agree. Patent laws have created for moral reasons instead of practical ones. Let this be a lesson to lawmakers to pass regulation based on facts instead of feelings.

Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#114

Post by baybal2 »

objclxt wrote: post #106
baybal2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they are trying to undercut Chinese with web payments, one part why mobile payments took off so well in China is because Tencent and Alibaba took out browser makers out of the equation. If you open a website that requests your Visa or MasterCard CC data in any Tencent product, it will be blocked unless "their special hack proof API" is used. And yes, they blocked apple pay too

> Well, they are trying to undercut Chinese with web payments Alibaba are very active participants on the Payment Request Working Group. I'm not sure they can undercut themselves. You will find several very large Chinese companies taking part: https://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/83744/status

On my memory, they were very very anxious about anything with capacity to subplant zhifubao. Paypal famously had a one click payment plugin for China, and it got banned by Alibaba nearly instantaneously.

Paypal later banned Alibaba from using Paypal outside of China

Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#115

Post by skybrian »

elboru wrote: post #33
tyrw wrote: post #6

I ran an ecommerce company for about a year, and one click checkout was the least of our concerns when it came to Amazon. The speed of delivery, prime benefits, brand recognition, and willingness to lose money on many if not most items are absolutely brutal to compete against. I'm glad one click checkout will be more broadly available, but it's probably not going to make much of a difference...

I love paper books, I love seeing them in my shelf, but since I bought a Kindle I just stopped buying paper books. It is just too easy to buy a kindle book with one click. The process goes like this, someone recommends a book in HN, they provide an Amazon link, I read a couple of reviews, at this point I'm convinced about buying the book or not, or even if I'm not totally convinced, the price, and the easiness of jus…

Better yet, you can download a sample and defer buying until you get to the end of the sample. That way you don't have to worry about books piling up that you don't get around to reading. It's a handy "books I want to read" list.

Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#116

Post by DavidAdams »

nsxwolf wrote: post #105
ballenf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found > the patent will expire and the technology behind it will be free to be used by any e-commerce site particularly specious. There is no "technology" behind it. It was a concept or busines process that the vaguaries of patent law deemed worthy of rewarding. Not to mention that any technology ("source code") Amazon used to implement the patent will remain under copyright essentially indefinitely.

Are you just quibbling about the semantics used in the article? Or are you saying nobody else can implement "1 click" even after the patent expires... because of copyright? Edit: Was an honest question, I've upvoted all the answers as I found them interesting, not understanding the barrage of downvotes shrug

I think the comment is both quibbling about semantics (the article used the term "technology" overly broadly because the value of the one-click idea isn't in the implementation but really just in the concept) but I think also voices a legitimate complaint.

The same failure of understanding that caused the author of that blog post to misidentify Amazon's one click patent as being related to a "technology" rather than just an idea is also behind the patent office's troubling tendency to issue patents to other ideas. Advocates for patent reform make a convincing case that issuing patent protection to ideas like this actually harms innovation more than it fosters it.

The fact that the actual implementation (technology) of the one click shopping idea, the source code, is protected by copyright is true but isn't particularly relevant. And to answer your second question, copyright prevents anyone from using Amazon's particular one-click source code, but that's largely irrelevant, since it's an idea that can be implemented a million ways, which is a major reason that many people feel it shouldn't be eligible for patent protection.

Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#118

Post by ssijak »

fenwick67 wrote: post #67
TheBiv wrote: post #3

NOTE that the Registered Trademark of "1-Click" will still be valid and owned by Amazon http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:d4r...

How about "one-click"?

what if you buy on a touch device?

Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#119

Post by themaveness »

nocoder wrote: post #53

Does this mean the use of the term "1-click" will no longer be exclusive to Amazon or is that a part of some trademark type stuff?

No it doesn't. That is trademarked and up for renewal around the same time. But it can be extended where a patent cannot. https://www.quora.com/When-does-Amazons-One-Click-IP-expire

Re: E-commerce will evolve next month as Amazon loses the 1-Click patent

#120

Post by YCode »

sidlls wrote: post #57
YCode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people don't realize (or maybe care?) that Amazon makes up a fair amount of that loss from screwing over distributors and third party sellers. The Walmart of the Internet, I suppose. FWIW I usually try to find more direct sources before buying on Amazon. If the other source can drop a few bucks off the Amazon price and offer free shipping I'll buy it direct from them.

Free shipping for what delivery time frame? Amazon Prime's fees are quite small compared to direct shipping costs with carriers. It depends on the product type, of course, but typically third-party sellers are already on thin margins selling on Amazon. It's very likely that "drop a few bucks off the Amazon price and offer free shipping" means they're selling to you at a loss.

I'm not generally in a rush; if they can get it here in a week or two that's fine as long as they tell me what day it'll be here.

I'm not saying it's a great deal for the company, but what can you expect consumers to do if Amazon has the cheapest price AND prime shipping you already paid for?

That said some companies at least raise their prices on purpose when posting to Amazon in order to meet their standards for things like returns and Prime shipping.

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