While reading through James Gleick’s article on patents for the NY Times Magazine I had a screaming fit. It came when I read this little gem: “Amazon won’t say how many patents it has pending. The one-click patent isn’t its first, as it happens; Jeff Bezos got one in February 1998 for ‘a method and system for securely indicating to a customer one or more credit card numbers that a merchant has on file for the customer when communicating with the customer over a non-secure network.’ The method is this: show the customer only the last few digits of each credit-card number.” The article discusses the concept of “non-obvious”. The fact that this one got through makes me wonder how the term “non-obvious” can be applied when it has everything to do with how naturally creative someone is. When I read patents like those in Amazon’s collection (such as Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network) I get the feeling that Bezos said “Let’s just see how many of these we can get through! Heh heh heh.” (articles about him always mention how he laughs a lot.) Gleick’s article gives a fascinating look into the US patent system. I’d like someone to present ideas on what steps are needed to begin an overhaul of the system. (article via metafilter)