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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

#201

Post by wernercd »

ipqk wrote: post #158
twothamendment wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course - if nobody used it Amazon would remove the button. I doubt that adding 1-click to some other site will greatly increase their sales - that is all I'm saying.

Well, you would be wrong. Every step between a customer and completing an order is a loss of sales.

If Google can measure how many people they lose by a millisecond of added time between a question and a response ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2012/12/04/fast-sit... )...

Then there has to be some sort of measurement out there on how each step causes cart abandonment (or whatever it's called).

Its the same reason sites add Single-Sign-On... click click, I'm on a website... vs filling out forms, verification, etc...

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

#202

Post by CamperBob2 »

derefr wrote: post #107
nsxwolf wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They're saying that, unlike usual patents, the content of the one-click patent filing does not serve as a useful basis for anyone else's implementation of a one-click shopping cart. This is the whole point of patents: to publicize a trade-secret process in exchange for protection. If your patent can't be used by your competitors to (make it easier to) start doing the thing you're doing, then you didn't really file a…

Exactly. If the teachings in the patent aren't necessary or even useful to future developers, then what was the point of granting a 20-year monopoly in the first place? No research expenses needed to be recouped, and there was never any danger that some arcane knowledge would be locked away forever as a trade secret.

Many patents don't reward the first person who solves a given problem, so much as they reward the first person to encounter a given problem. That person adopts a trivial, obvious solution and the USPTO cheerfully rubber-stamps it at everyone else's expense. This was clearly one of those patents. It cost Amazon essentially nothing to research, nothing to develop, and nothing to implement, but the rewards were immense.

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

#203

Post by slim »

breck wrote: post #112
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"?

It got patented

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

#204

Post by dexterdog »

bduerst wrote: post #78
elboru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm kind of the same. I would definitely kill to be able to buy DRM-free epub books from someone else other than Amazon and have it 1-click integrate with my kindle. Maybe some epub sellers could email it to your kindle with 1-click purchasing now?

Buy from Amazon. Remove DRM w/ Calibre.

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

#206

Post by robryan »

hobofan wrote: post #178
concede_pluto wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon can't undercut manufacturers (not without becoming a manufacturer). If they undercut middlemen who weren't adding any value, what do I care?

The middlemen are adding value by making niche items available on the marketplace. If they are gone the diversity of products will shrink.

But either Amazon will have the product or it will still be valuable to another middle man.

Amazon have a lot but are a long way off having everything. Health and Beauty for example, they may have the top 50k sales ranks pretty well covered but at least the top 100k are probably worth a middle mans time.

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

#207

Post by thaumasiotes »

Retric wrote: post #16
Liron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere that when Bezos told his team to build one click, they came back to him with a 4-click flow. So he told them no, I want one click, and they came back with two clicks (gotta have a confirmation in case that first click was accidental, right?) So maybe it really was a nontrivial invention for its time.

The nontrivial bit is it starts a timer which allows users to cancel after a click. This works because delivery is far from instant and is fairly insightful, IMO.

> This works because delivery is far from instant

Not quite. They apply the same approach even when delivery is instant; you can order a kindle book, download it, and cancel the order.

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

#208

Post by thaumasiotes »

preordained wrote: post #84
fenwick67 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "one-click"?

Haha. Single-click. 1-click-buy. The things you can claim rights to...utterly absurd.

A "merely descriptive" mark can't infringe another trademark, so "1-click" as a trademark is nearly impossible to enforce.

You could enforce it with additional restrictions, like color / size / font / layout, but the text "1-click" can freely be used to describe processes that require 1 click.

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

#209

Post by thaumasiotes »

wheaties wrote: post #148

"They have proposed ways of storing cards and address data in the browser..." Oh hell no! Just what we need, yet another reason for people to attack your browser. Don't we already suggest to never use the "remember your password" button? Now, it's "remember your credit card." No. Please, just no.

> Don't we already suggest to never use the "remember your password" button?

The "remember your password" functionality is awful if your threat model is "I don't want my passwords to be stolen", but it's terrific if your threat model includes "I don't want to be phished".

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

#210

Post by thaumasiotes »

owenmarshall wrote: post #97
clan wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only makes it slightly better. It is still stored at payment provider. Hopefully they are better at safeguarding my data. But if I only supplied a token. with a value I determined I would not have to worry.

> But if I only supplied a token. with a value I determined I would not have to worry. You mean the username and password for the site you've logged on to? ;-)

No, your credentials don't have a defined monetary value.

A temporary card number can be configured with a fixed value you specify; most banks provide the service for free.

You can also buy a Visa or AmEx gift card, and use that.

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