Amazon gets patent on social networks

Amazon gets patent on social networks(networkworld.com)

19 points by ashish_0x90 15 years ago | 7 comments

tkeller 15 years ago |

Here we go yet again. They did not patent "A networked computer system [that] provides various services for assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships with, other users." That's just the abstract. Gotta read the claims, people. The claims are what tell you exactly what the patent covers.

raganwald 15 years ago | |

To put it another way, compare and contrast the following statements:

Amazon's patent covers a networked computer system [that] provides various services for assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships with, other users.

And:

Amazon's patent covers every networked computer system [that] provides various services for assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships with, other users.

tkeller 15 years ago | | |

That actually is a good way of highlighting the distinction.

what 15 years ago | |

Did you read the claims? Claim 13?

"A computer system that provides a service to users over a network, [...] providing a user interface for users to establish contact relationships with other users of the service such that each user can have one or more contacts, said user interface enabling a user to identify other users of the service, and to selectively initiate generation of requests to establish contact relationships with the identified users"

tkeller 15 years ago | | |

You can make any claim look arbitrarily broad by omitting language from it. You cut limitations out of the middle with your "[...]", and you also cut stuff off the end without even mentioning that you had done so.

Might as well have said: did you read claim 13? "A computer system . . . ." OMG THEY CLAIMED A COMPUTER SYSTEM.

maqr 15 years ago |

It sure doesn't seem like there's anything you can develop these days that isn't infringing on something; but it also doesn't seem like these kind of patents are often enforced.

So as a developer, the right thing to do with software patents is simply ignore them until someone sues you, right?