[LINK] FC: Patent office so laughable that it's been Dilbertized

[Rick Welykochy]

Would a patent on "one-click shopping" be granted in Australia?
I believe Amazon.com in the USA ha a patent pending on this.

...............................................................


Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 12:58:00 -0800
To: farber@cis.upenn.edu (Dave Farber), freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor),
Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
From: Jim Warren <jwarren@well.com>
Subject: fwd: Patents and Dilbert

The PTO has so little software patent credibility that it has
been Dilbertized.  Monday's Dilbert comic reads as follows, with Dogbert
talking to Dilbert:

      Dogbert:  My patent for no-click shopping was granted.

      Dogbert:  I'm sure some whiners will say it's an obvious idea.

      Dogbert:  You'd better click something or I have to ship you
                some books.

Which begs the question that will never be answered - if someone actually
applied for a no-click shopping patent, would near-zero-obviousness-levels
PTO allow it in light of no-indication needed book/record/CD-of-the-month
club notices which unless you send back checked off, leads to the automatic
shipment to you of that month's selection?  Would the PTO be the Patent
Office or the Rejection Office?

Greg Aharonian
Internet Patent News Service

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------