Comments for Amazon Patents Search Strings in URLs

Amazon Patents Search Strings in URLs

2007-10-23T17:00:24Z

One week after suffering a major blow to its infamous "1-Click" shopping patent, Amazon.com has been awarded what's sure to be seen as its latest bit of highly obnoxious IP. The company has been awarded a patent on the practice of "including a search string at the end of a URL without any special formatting."

According to the text of the patent, it covers a technology serving the following circumstances: "a user wishing to search for 'San Francisco Hotels' may do by simply accessing the URL www.domain_name/San Francisco Hotels, where domain_name is a domain name associated with the web site system."

There's smart conversation about the patent's flaws over at Slashdot, as usual, but the problems here are probably obvious. Filed in August of 2004, the practice no doubt touches on any number of "prior arts" and it's fairly obvious. Non-obviousness - which you can probably search for via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/non_obviousness (if you'll forgive me for saying so, Amazon) is a key criteria in the granting of patents.

Amazon may in the end be one of the leading factors in the eventual overhaul of the internet technology department at the US Patent office.

Comment from mike on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T17:41:14Z

link to wikipedia should read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousness

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T18:06:55Z

@Mike - that's the item page, but more importantly for this discussion I'd say is that you can search for the term via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/Non_obviousness I just got to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/search_term in cases like that and if there isn't an item page with that exact name then it's one click to go to the search results page, which is also standard with the search string in it. That method seems to fall under the Amazon patent just issued.

Comment from Mike D. on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T18:10:40Z

Funny, I launched this functionality on my own site on August 2nd 2004 and fully documented it:

http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2004/08/smart-urls-and-smarter-404s

Comment from Derek on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T18:27:01Z

If you take a trip on the WayBack machine, you'll see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art existed prior to the patent even being filed. Idiots.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art

Comment from Talking Books Librarian on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T18:29:02Z

Wow, this was news to me! What exactly will the effects of this patent be? I'm having a hard time getting my finger around all of this?

Comment from Abdur Chowdhury on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T18:53:19Z

This was a topic of much discussion on RW a few months ago. With a goal of making URLs more standard, rather than proprietary.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/standard_urls_proposal.php

But, this problem is larger than just our current patent review process. Perhaps some of the patent lawyers could provide a nice review of the issues they are dealing with in this space.

Comment from Adam Jusko on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T19:32:46Z

Who are the dorks at the patent office who believe this to be a unique feature? That's like saying I invented the practice of sitting in the shade when the sun is too hot. (Which I did, by the way, so you'd better stay in the sun or I'll be coming after you. The shade is mine, all mine.)

Comment from Benjamin Kudria on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T21:14:05Z

"Amazon may in the end be one of the leading factors in the eventual overhaul of the internet technology department at the US Patent office."

I highly suspect that may be their intention. I mean, they're a pretty cool and web-friendly company otherwise, no?

Comment from Alex Iskold on 2007-10-23

2007-10-23T23:28:19Z

This is just plain wrong.

This needs to be a standard not a patent.

Comment from mark on 2007-10-23

2007-10-24T01:13:03Z

Weird patent.

Comment from Allen Stern on 2007-10-23

2007-10-24T02:13:42Z

I have just patented using the name "Read/Write" with the usage of "Web" - please send me $2 million in unmarked bills or I will be forced to send over my powerhouse NYC attorneys :)

Comment from Chris Andrews on 2007-10-24

2007-10-24T15:46:29Z

Unbelievable. Seems like a direct attack on any REST-based architecture.

I wonder what Roy Fielding thinks about this patent. Seems like they are ripping off part of his thesis.

Comment from Chand on 2007-10-24

2007-10-24T16:42:54Z

What the hell? How can this be patented? We need to file a case against amazon for creating panic.