Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Spawn of the Devil?

Author:Gary Robinson
Posted:7/25/2000; 6:07:04 AM
Topic:Spawn of the Devil?
Msg #:19003
Prev/Next:19002 / 19004

Instead of arguing that Jeff Bezos is the spawn of the Devil, maybe it would make sense to see whether he'd be willing to license the affiliate patent or one-click patent for a nominal charge? Amazon and B&N are in a struggle that is very significant for both companies, so the example occuring there may not be representitive of what would happen if, say, Userland approached Bezos for a license on the affiliate patent.

I tend to guess that most of the companies badmouthing Amazon now have made no such attempt.

Bezos has shareholders who have invested a lot of money in his company, and if he unilaterally disarmed (as he puts it) in his struggle with B&N, I would be very pissed if I were one of those shareholders. On an ethical level, it is very arguable that he has no choice but to do what he's doing. To voluntarily choose to allow B&N to copy its one-click strategy, thus strengthening his most powerful direct competitor, when he has the ability and legal means NOT to do so, would be very irresponsible from a shareholder's perspective, perhaps even drawing a shareholder lawsuit. The same argument broadens to defend his pursuit of patents in general. (For that reason, I, too, apply for patents on ideas I have that I believe are truly unique.)

Internet patents should not last 20 years, though. It just doesn't take the same amount of R&D to come up with an Internet business method as it does to come up a radically new and effective drug.

Bezos agrees that the lifetimes of these patents should be much shorter. Rather than attacking Amazon and Bezos, mightn't it be far more productive to work with him toward getting the law changed? He will help to make that happen by stating his belief, in his respected position of Times Magazine's "Man Of The Year," that the time period should be shortened to 3 to 5 years. He has also offered to help fund a real prior art database. In a number of ways, he might be more valuable as a friend than an enemy.

A problem to be overcome is that all patents last the same amount of time, and if an exception were to be made for software, every other category which could argue for special treatment would do so, which could lead to a huge mess. Still, the Internet is extremely important to the economy and to the future, so putting energy into lobbying, and working together in that effort, it may be possible to achieve the goal of very drastically reducing the timespan for software patents.

By the way, whatever become of the idea of a database of prior art? Is anyone working on something that Bezos and other interested parties could help build or fund? Anyone heard from O'Reilly or anyone else on this? If done right, that's something else that could make a big difference.

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:55:49 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.