
Amazon has patented the milkman, etc. - DanielHimmelein
https://plus.google.com/104716271353648708358/posts/Q7xrJaMru93
======
monochromatic
No, that's just the abstract. Claim 1, for example, reads as follows:

    
    
        1. A computer-implemented method for providing recurring delivery of
        products, the method comprising performing instructions under the control of
        a computer system for:
    
        receiving at the computer system a designation of a delivery slot and
        a recurring delivery list comprising one or more list items, each of
        the one or more list items identifying a product, a quantity to deliver,
        and a frequency of delivery;
    
        periodically generating, by the computer system, an order having a date
        and time for delivery based on a next occurrence of the delivery slot, the
        order being generated in advance of the date and time for delivery such that
        the order has a period of time of pendency prior to the delivery;
    
        creating, by the computer system, one or more order items for the order
        based on a last delivery date and the frequency of delivery of each
        list item in the recurring delivery list;
    
        receiving at the computer system a change made to a first list item of the
        recurring delivery list during the period of time of pendency of the order;
    
        in response to receiving the change, determining, by the computer system,
        whether the order includes an order item corresponding to the first list item;
    
        in response to determining that the order includes an order item corresponding
        to the first list item, modifying, by the computer system, the order
        item corresponding to the first list item based on the change made to the
        first list item of the recurring delivery list; and
    
        providing, by the computer system, the order to an order fulfillment system
        capable of causing the one or more order items to be delivered
        substantially on the date and time for delivery.
    

Now, I consider myself a creative person. But I would have a hell of a time
trying to read that claim on a fucking milkman.

Learn to read patents, people.

edit: Formatting is really hard apparently.

~~~
j-g-faustus
It still doesn't sound very impressive if you translate it to plain English:

    
    
        A computer-implemented method for providing recurring delivery of products, 
        the method comprising performing instructions under the control of a computer
        system for:
    

Create a list on a computer.

    
    
        receiving at the computer system a designation of a delivery slot and
        a recurring delivery list comprising one or more list items, each of 
        the one or more list items identifying a product, a 
        quantity to deliver, and a frequency of delivery;
    

Listing where, what and how often to deliver.

    
    
        periodically generating, by the computer system, an order having
        a date and time for delivery based on a next occurrence of the 
        delivery slot, the order being generated in advance of the date 
        and time for delivery such that the order has a period of time of
        pendency prior to the delivery;
    

Each day, create a list of the deliveries to be made today

    
    
        creating, by the computer system, one or more order items for the order 
        based on a last delivery date and the frequency of delivery of each 
        list item in the recurring delivery list;
    

For each delivery, list which items to deliver.

    
    
        receiving at the computer system a change made to a first list item 
        of the recurring delivery list during the period of time of pendency 
        of the order;
    

If the customer updates their order, change the delivery.

    
    
        in response to receiving the change, determining, by the computer system,
        whether the order includes an order item corresponding to the first 
        list item;
    

Compare the customer update to the delivery stored in the system.

    
    
        in response to determining that the order includes an order item 
        corresponding to the first list item, modifying, by the computer 
        system, the order item corresponding to the first list item based
        on the change made to the first list item of the recurring 
        delivery list; and
    

Change the deliverly list in the system to reflect the customer update.

    
    
        providing, by the computer system, the order to an order fulfillment
        system capable of causing the one or more order items to be delivered 
        substantially on the date and time for delivery.
    

Give the list of "today's deliveries" to someone who can actually make the
delivery.

I still fail to see how this differs dramatically from pretty much every
delivery service ever. The delivery guys may not create these lists
themselves, but their dispatchers do.

The only thing that differs from say UPS is the 'recurring order' part - say
"send me three lettuce every Friday". But grocery deliveries have worked like
this for quite a while.

~~~
notintokyo
Also, wouldn't all those hundreds of "box of the month"-style subscription
sites where you can pick a product to send and get it periodically be prior
art?

~~~
j-g-faustus
I believe patents work by making the description impenetrable enough to make
the examiner's eyes glaze over.

So they approve the patent in self-defense, and don't notice that it's just a
list of trivialities.

~~~
monochromatic
Do you believe this based on anything in particular?

~~~
drcube
The OP.

~~~
monochromatic
Yeah, but we already discussed how the OP doesn't know what he's talking
about.

------
comex
@FOSSpatents tweeted about this:

"The grant of this patent to Amazon renders me speechless.
<http://t.co/bMh7qwkh> "Recurring Delivery of Products". prior art = milkman"

Usually he's rather supportive of most of the tech patents HN likes to deem
"obvious", so if even he finds this astonishing, perhaps there really is
something wrong here :)

~~~
jlgreco
Florian Müller finally admitted a few months ago that he is a paid shill.

~~~
ketralnis
Source? Relevance?

~~~
jlgreco
FOSSPatents == Florian

And sources:
[http://www.dailytech.com/Top+AntiAndroid+Blogger+Florian+Mue...](http://www.dailytech.com/Top+AntiAndroid+Blogger+Florian+Mueller+is+Being+Paid+by+Oracle/article24633.htm)
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57440902-94/microsoft-
legal...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57440902-94/microsoft-legal-win-
over-google-may-signal-ceasefire/?tag=mncol;morePosts)

As fair as I am concerned, anything he says he is saying because he is being
paid, wants to be paid to continue saying it, or wants to be paid to stop
saying it. Well, that or because he is bored and hasn't harassed PJ recently;
his obsession with Pamela Jones is rather unnerving.

[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Florian+dis...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Florian+disclose)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2428809>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2428141>

~~~
rayiner
"Has done legal consulting work for Microsoft" == "paid shill"

I'd love to live on your planet and see what color the sky is...

~~~
DannyBee
So you don't believe the "legal consulting" was "posting legal analysis on his
blog"?

I wonder what you think it is, since he has literally no legal background at
all. He also finally admitted he was engaged by oracle to do roughly the same.

------
cynwoody
There is abundant prior art on this one.

E.g., one casualty of the dot-com bubble was Streamline, an online grocery
delivery company. They called their version of the invention Don't Run Out.
Fast Company raved about it in this article dated July 31, 1998:

    
    
        What happens when customers depend on you - and you deliver?
        They decide to depend on you even more. One of Streamline's most
        popular services is called Don't Run Out. Families identify
        their must-have items - milk, toilet paper, diapers, pet food -
        and authorize the company to replenish their stock of each item
        automatically. Today almost every Streamline household uses
        Don't Run Out. The average household has standing orders for
        more than 10 items. "It's extraordinary," says [Gina] Wilcox. "The
        consumer makes a purchase decision once, and we fill the order
        throughout the year. It redefines brand loyalty. It redefines
        marketing."
    

<http://www.fastcompany.com/34524/streamline-delivers-goods>

------
newishuser
If there was ever an argument against broad software patents it's this. Also
if there ever was an argument that the patent system is a money making sham,
it's this.

Prepending existing ideas with, "A computer-implemented method" does not make
them patent-worthy and everyone in the entire world knows it.

~~~
ewillbefull
Enjoy what a federal judge hearing CLS Bank v. Alice thinks:

> Judge: Why don't we actually look at a claim? Why don't we start with claim
> 26 of the 375' patent. It begins, "a data processing system to enable the
> exchange of obligations between parties, the systems comprising: a
> communications controller, a first-party device coupled to said
> communications controller, a data storage unit having information stored, a
> computer coupled to said data storage unit, said communications controller
> that is configured to do the following"

> Judge: That doesn't just sound like somebody saying a "method" with maybe a
> computer, I mean there are four separate physical tangible components of a
> system articulated.

> Lawyer: Your Honor, you're right. There's a computer, a hard drive, and a
> telephone.

------
robot
I think the inventors listed should be matched with likes of Edison and
mocked. If society mocks them the social pressure might work better than legal
means to avoid such non-sense.

So better make a web page with Amazon's hall of fame of inventors and add them
to this list.

------
noonespecial
So we're at the point where the actual patents are entirely pretext. The words
written on them are now completely irrelevant. They're just proxies for money.

~~~
monochromatic
No, we're still at the point where alarmist headlines from people who don't
know how to read a patent get lots of karma. We've been here for a long time
now.

~~~
CamperBob2
You seem rather strident in your defense of this patent. What _exactly_ are
they claiming, beyond scheduling milkman-like deliveries with the added text
"with a computer"?

If that's all there is to it, then why would you defend such an outrageous
patent? If that's not all there is to it, what else is there?

~~~
monochromatic
I don't have a dog in this fight. This is the first I've seen of this patent,
and I've only just barely glanced at claim 1. I'm not here to argue the
merits, which could easily take hours and pages.

What I have a problem with (and what happens so depressingly often) is people
saying "OMG they got a patent for {what the abstract says}! I can think of so
much prior art, the examiner must be brain dead!"

Now, various examiners do work all along the quality spectrum. But it is
_almost never_ that simple, and this ignorant, arrogant shit has got to go.

------
Fargren
"What is claimed is:

1\. A computer-implemented method(...)"

Mmm, I'm to young to have seen an actual milkman, but television never
depicted them as "computer-implemented"

~~~
itsprofitbaron
Yet if you carry on reading that section it also says, _"identifying a
product, a quantity to deliver, and a frequency of delivery"_ [1] - all
delivery systems do that on a computer, even the milkman.

The patent they've been granted is extremely broad especially when you
consider that a majority of delivery companies actually do what the patent
says.

For instance, you can request a delivery slot and the majority of delivery
systems identify the product, the quantity to deliver and the frequency of
delivery. The patent they have been granted covers all aspects of that.

[1] [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8,370,271.PN.&OS=PN/8,370,271&RS=PN/8,370,271)

------
MrQuincle
The big question is, how to solve it? How to improve the communication between
programmers and lawyers? How to lessen the burden on the people that provide
patents? How to involve the vote of the general public? Can there be a class
of 'defending' patents instead of 'attacking' ones with which you can sue? Can
there be specific IT judge educations?

------
ChuckMcM
An actual milkman would be great, Berkeley Farms makes the _best_ Eggnog (my
opinion) but trying to find it in stores is getting harder with the Safeway
monopoly. I emailed their bizdev team in hopes of establishing a way to get
deliveries but alas, to no avail.

------
Nux
fuck patents.

------
rohern
Thus a public system intended to engender fairness and creative behavior
profitable to all society is made its own negation.

------
Samuel_Michon
And yet, Amazon only sells condensed milk and powdered milk, not fresh milk.
[1]

I really do like their 'Subscribe & Save' service though [2] (which is what
the patent describes).

[1] <http://amzn.to/14KeLIH>

[2] <http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and-save/details/>

~~~
_dark_matter_
I don't know, this milk is pretty amazing.

[http://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Whole-Milk-
Gallon-128/dp/B00032...](http://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Whole-Milk-
Gallon-128/dp/B00032G1S0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top)

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Doesn't appear to be eligible for 'Subscribe & Save', but I love the meme
anyways.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09milk.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09milk.html?_r=0)

------
adamnemecek
A lot of companies file patents to cover their asses against patent trolls,
not to enforce them. I would imagine that this is something similar.

~~~
rgbrenner
I disagree. Amazon has a history of enforcing terrible patents they own - ie
the one-click patent.

~~~
Pfhreak
Can you provide another example? A single large suit over 10 years ago doesn't
really indicate a 'history of enforcing patents'...

~~~
onlyup
It still suggests not to trust them

