Sunday, February 22, 2009

Amazon 1-Click Patent: Prior art claim has no final answer

The Controversial 1-Click patent has come to light again, with reports that evidence of prior art was submitted with no final answer from the USPTO. Peter Calveley, an actor who worked on Lord of the Rings, cited as prior art an earlier e-commerce patent and the Digicash electronic cash system.

The 1-Click patent refers to the technique of allowing customers to make purchases online with a single click, with payment and shipping information needed to complete the purchase previously entered. Therefore, any other online merchant must ensure that their check out procedure involves at least 2 clicks (which Barnes and Noble discovered when they tried to introduce their own version of 1-Click). According to critics, the 1-Click technology does not deserve a patent as it is not innovative, which is understandable as it really only allows users to input their shipping and billing information before rather than after purchase (hardly innovative!).

No comments: