Posts Tagged: "Amazon.com"

Amazon.com, Inc. has billed parents and other account holders for millions of dollars in unauthorized in-app charges incurred by children, according to a Federal Trade Commission complaint filed today in federal court… The complaint alleges that in early 2013, Amazon updated its in-app charge process to require password entry for some charges in a way that functioned differently in different contexts. According to the complaint, even when a parent was prompted for a password to authorize a single in-app charge made by a child, that single authorization often opened an undisclosed window of 15 minutes to an hour during which the child could then make unlimited charges without further authorization.

The featured application describes a system of registering a fleet of electronic devices when purchased by an organizational administrator. These devices can be authorized for use by organizational members or employees, while also allowing members to connect their own personal electronic devices to the organization’s mobile network. We also discuss one patent application that would protect a system of determining temporary pickup locations for users who purchase material items through Amazon.com, as well as some Kindle device improvements. Our look at Amazon’s patented technologies focuses heavily on the shopping experience that online users encounter on their website, or their ability to view content in innovative ways. One patent protects a gaze-based technology for eBook scrolling on a reading device. Another couple of patents we feature protect innovative ways of providing consumer feedback for digital content, such as chapter reviews within an eBook or methods of soliciting feedback from users based on their catalog searches.

With Black Friday later this week, we take a closer look at one of the companies that has drastically changed the current reality of retail. As you can see, Amazon is busy finding new and more effective ways of putting consumers in touch with useful multimedia. Today’s featured patent application would protect a software widget for handheld electronic devices that allows playback of Amazon digital files. This widget would save system resources that typically get drained when users open multiple applications for video and audio playback or eBook reading. A couple of other patent applications discuss improved delivery systems for physical copies of media, including a system of creating custom shipping containers. Another patent application allows handheld electronic devices to conserve energy typically used by touchscreen operations.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton while there are similarities in the names of the digital application storefronts, Apple has not proved that Amazon has in fact tried to pass itself off as an official Apple app store. In her order to dismiss the claim, Hamilton wrote, “There is no evidence that a consumer who accesses the Amazon Appstore would expect that it would be identical to the Apple App Store, particularly given that the Apple App Store sells apps solely for Apple devices, while the Amazon Appstore sells apps solely for Android and Kindle devices. Further, the integration of Apple devices has more to do with Apple’s technology than it does with the nature, characteristics, or qualities of the App Store.”

Christmas is just around the corner and many are already done with their Christmas shopping. There are folks who are not, and we confess to be among those who still have one or more things to pick up for one or more people. But there is no need to panic! You can still get gifts via Amazon.com in time for Christmas, so it can’t really be the last minute, can it? For those looking for those last minute, hard to find gifts for the geek in your life — perhaps a beloved patent attorney or maybe an engineer, scientist or inventor — here are a few can’t miss gifts for your consideration. As of the time of publication all are still available to be received before Christmas.

The new reality is that content creators are getting squeezed all around. Increasingly many want things to be free and don’t care whether they copy a public domain work or whether it is something that is copyrighted. They don’t see it as wrong, but this makes it difficult to make a living for content creators. Truthfully, for some content creators it is darn near impossible. Yet everywhere you turn content creators are getting the short end of the stick. If it isn’t blatant and wanton copyright infringement online (which I have to deal with all the time), it is authors getting pennies on the dollar for eBooks or musicians who worked with Pandora to help the company get off the ground taken to Congress so the U.S. government can step in and take from creators for the benefit of the company they helped create. Even the name of the bill supported by Pandora — the Internet Radio Fairness Act — is insulting and misleading.

As pointed out astutely by RMail is that the Supreme Court jurisprudence on patent-eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 have primarily involved ex parte prosecution appeals from the USPTO. There are only two instances involving patent litigation I’m aware of where the Supreme Court squarely determined patent-eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101: the recent case of Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. (ruling that the claimed method was patent-ineligible under the “law of nature” doctrine); and the 2001 case of Pioneer Hi-Bred International v. JEM AG Supply (which ruled that sexually reproduced plants qualified as either “manufactures” or “compositions of matter” under 35 U.S.C. § 101). But as RMail correctly observed, no one seems to have pointed out to the Supreme Court this important threshold issue of statutory construction, and statutory limitations on the powers of the federal courts. Accordingly, Prometheus does not bar this Court from issuing a correct ruling in the present adversarial context.

On May 22, 2012, STEC IP brought separate patent infringement lawsuits against Apple, Amazon and Oracle. Little information about STEC IP seems available. In the complaints filed they explain only that they are a Delaware limited liability company having a principle place of business in Greensboro, North Carolina. Under Delaware law Members of the LLC (i.e., owners) may remain anonymous, therefore, those who are behind STEC IP may remain a mystery. Of course, it is known that STEC IP is being represented by Richard Kirk of Bayard and Mark Hogge of SNR Denton, both of whom are listed as attorneys for STEC IP in the respective filings. Each of the patents asserted by STEC IP are now undergoing review by the Article One Partner’s research community.

With the advent and rise of the Internet, digital property rights have become an increasingly hot-topic in the Board rooms and Executive Offices of major companies, particularly those in the hi-tech industry. Much like the information protected under intellectual property rights, digital products provide their creators with certain protections under the law. The problems and legal challenges facing major companies like Yahoo and Facebook will help better define the laws surrounding digital property rights, and likely present opportunities as well as a whole host of new legal questions.

Jerk.com is one of those sites on the Internet that is the poster-child for everything wrong with the Internet and the anonymous communications that are so commonplace. The Internet is the refuge for cowards that wouldn’t have the guts to approach someone and say what they really feel to their face. Shrouded in secrecy provided by the Internet anonymous cowards become emboldened to say vile things and stoop to ridiculous lows — even publishing pictures of young children and asking the Internet community to vote on whether the minor is a jerk.