Hey, the Europeans may be as dumb as the Americans when it comes to granting patents.

The European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich has recently granted a patent to Amazon which covers all computerised methods of automatically delivering a gift to a third party. This patent is a descendant of the famous "Amazon One Click Patent" granted in the USA, but with a broader claim scope than the original US version.

Read the rest of it.

Yeah. There's no prior art for giving gifts electronically, right?

I have a lot of respect for Amazon. I know good people at Amazon. I shop there more often than Yahoo! Shopping. But, damn, sometimes I really wonder.

Thanks to Justin for the link.

Posted by jzawodn at August 18, 2003 08:30 PM

Reader Comments
# Justin said:

BTW, worth noting that so far, software patents aren't actually legal in Europe, so an EPO patent isn't worth very much ;). However, there's a vote next month which will attempt to legalise them, which FFII and Eurolinux.org are fighting.

on August 18, 2003 09:15 PM
# Gerald said:

I wonder how it could be possible to make such a silly decision here in europe, and even worth, in munich. Till now I had expected that such strange things only could happen in the states, and now such an awkward decision has been made here in germany. What a shit, the first amazon patent was strange enough. Give them some more time and they will return with the patent for "selling books via internet" and subsequently with the patent for "selling something on the net".

on August 21, 2003 04:27 PM
# Joe Grossberg said:

Just because GWB is an asshole, doesn't mean we're all assholes.

Just because Amazon execs are assholes, doesn't mean all their people are assholes.

Take the analogy as far as you want to go.

on August 25, 2003 12:35 PM
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