Amazon e-Book Patent Applications: Dilbert may have Copyright
Read on slashdot: how Amazon is still filing patents on the obvious, hoping to get a last few into the USPTO before the patent officers are finally told to reject this kind of “fluff”:
A method of providing fixed computer-displayable content in response to a consumer request for content, the method comprising:obtaining a digital image corresponding to the requested content;selecting an advertisement to be included in an on-demand electronic content corresponding to the requested content;including the advertisement the digital image corresponding to the requested content;generating fixed computer-displayable content corresponding to the requested content; andproviding the computer-displayable content to the consumer.
Nothing in there would be new in any way shape or form, if it were not for the word “fixed”. So basically the patent applications are on the idea that you have an electronic book with pre-allocated spaces for advertisement. When you order your e-book, the publisher (Amazon) plugs in ads-du-jour, tailored to your interests/profiles/secret-Amazon-file.
This idea is a hybrid between newspaper advertisement and adsense. There are so many examples of publications that come so close to Amazon’s patent claims, that it is hard to imagine how they could get through the patent examiner’s net, especially given the current crack-down on “business method” patents. If all goes well, soon this kind of patent application will be a dying breed; and our children will laugh at us for letting this kind of thing happen in the first place.
Shame on Amazon for filing this literal piece of c**p. I hope none of their claims make it through; it will be such a waste of money and intelligence to challenge them — and yet surely win.
Shame on the inventors, Zhou; Hanning; (Seattle, WA) ; Liang; Jian; (Seattle, WA) ; Yacoub; Sherif M.; (Seattle, WA).
I personally would not write home about having “invented” anything here. The way it happened is probably something like this: 3 guys had a meeting, someone said “hey let’s make e-books with ads in them”, another one said “yeah right, just like AdSense but with books, and then we target users with ads based on their profiles, right?” and the third one said “let’s file a patent on it”.
I wonder if one of these guys has a tie that curls up in a funny way, another one is bald and wears square glasses, and the third one has pointed hair on each side of his head. Because this story might have been copyrighted by Scott Adams already. Or perhaps they licensed the rights.
