BountyQuest, a web site offering payments to those who can prove or
disprove patent claims, has failed in its search for someone able
to disprove the controversial 1-Click shopping patent owned by
Amazon.com.
The challenge was launched last October on the site by Tim
O'Reilly, a publisher and long-time critic of Amazon.com’s business
method patent. O'Reilly offered a $10,000 reward to anyone who
could provide evidence demonstrating that certain elements in the
1-Click patent were invented before Amazon.com’s patent filing
date.
While nobody submitted an exact match to win the reward,
BountyQuest claims that there were many submissions relevant to the
patent, which it believes may have a bearing on Amazon's ability to
enforce their patent.
The 1-Click patent has been the subject of controversy ever
since Amazon.com enforced it against rival Barnes & Noble.com
during the Christmas season of 1999. 1-Click quickly became a
poster child for the raging controversy over internet and business
method patents, prompting O'Reilly, a proponent of open internet
standards, to post an open letter to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff
Bezos, asking him to relinquish rights to the patent on the grounds
that 1-Click shopping was obvious. Bezos stood by the 1-Click
patent but agreed with O'Reilly that meaningful reform of the
patent system is necessary. Both invested in BountyQuest to support
a market-based way to test patent validity.
BountyQuest received 30 submissions for the 1-Click posting,
including evidence that was not discovered by the USPTO or by the
litigants in the Barnes & Noble case. Among the more
imaginative submissions were episodes of Star Trek (use of
“replicators” to place single-click orders) and Cheers (Norm
ordering beer). There was also a 1993 Doonesbury comic strip
describing "Boopsie's virtual shopping spree," with its “Just-Point
Shopping" which bills your credit card when you point at an
item.
The most relevant submission was a European and US patent filed
in 1995 that describes a system of TV shopping with billing and
delivery information pre-entered.
"We were astonished by the breadth and quality of the prior art
evidence that we received for the 1-Click posting," said Charles
Cella, founder and CEO of BountyQuest. "Try looking for evidence
like a CD-ROM , an out-of-print conference paper, or a foreign
language document using an on-line search engine. Ask any patent
attorney, and they will tell you how costly and difficult it is to
locate foreign and off-line literature."
BountyQuest has paid $50,000 in cash rewards to scientists,
academics, and engineers who track down hard-to-find literature,
known in the patent field as prior art.
