1-Click Prior Art

Listed below are the pieces of prior art, including:

Doonesbury cartoon describing "Just-Point shopping."

One-button shopping with a television remote.

A commercial e-commerce product capable of single-keystroke ordering.

1. CBSMarketwatch.com web article "Open TV Claims patent on 'one click,'" October 5, 2000.
   An excellent lead. OpenTV is challenging the Amazon.com 1-Click patent. However, the actual submission is invalid because it is dated October 5, 2000, well past the prior to date of Sept. 28, 1997. Had the Hunter gone a couple steps further to the OpenTV website, he would have come across a press release that cites the OpenTV U.S. patent at issue #5,819,034. This patent describes a 1-Click shopping procedure that closely parallels that patented by Amazon.com. In fact, a later entrant (#18 below) submitted a closely related European patent from the same company that did come close to winning.

2. Implementing a Web Shopping Cart Dr. Dobb's Journal, Sep. 1996
   This article, although pertinent to the topic, was listed on the original 1-Click patent application. It is therefore invalid. But it serves to remind Bounty Hunters that they should read the References section of the patent prior to submitting to avoid duplication of what was already known to the patent examiner at the time of the application.

3. US Patent #5963924 "System, method and article of manufacture for the use of payment instrument holders and payment instruments in network electronic commerce," filed April 26, 1996.
   The patent submitted here is an excellent lead, because the Prodigy system may well have included affiliate elements that we are looking for. However, the patent itself doesn't have the detail needed on those elements. So, it's not in itself a winner.

4. US Patent #4739310 "Keyboard control system," filed April 19, 1988.
   The patent submitted simply demonstrates the use of a single key to control a function and doesn't deal at all with shopping online. So, it doesn't come close to matching all the requirements.

5. US Patent #4734858 "Data terminal and system for placing orders," filed March 29, 1988.
   This excellent submission, dating back to the late 80s, describes the use of a remote data terminal to place orders. It was a highly relevant patent that was not cited in the original 1-Click application but probably should have been. It's a good example of how electronic shopping systems can be connected via a dial-up connection to legacy computer systems without using the Web. It also describes a simplified ordering system not dissimilar to 1-Click, as it states: "Transmission of orders is manually initiated by actuation of a function key at any time after an order is stored in the send memory." Sounds a whole lot like 1-Click shopping, doesn't it? Unfortunately it doesn't say anything about the use of HTML, the Web, and such, so it wasn't a winner. But kudos to the submitter for coming very close to the target!

6. US Patent #5303393 "Integrated radio satellite response system and method," filed April 12, 1994.
   Here's another excellent submission, this time involving a simplified way of placing an order via a two-way radio system. The consumer can respond to an on-air ad simply by saying "Order," or pushing a button or touching a touch screen on a display. It's another indication that people have developed simplified ordering systems prior to 1-Click. It fails to impact Amazon.com's patent, though, because it's not specific to the Internet.

7. US Patent #5208748 "Method and apparatus for structuring and managing human communications by explicitly defining the types of communications permitted between participants," filed on May 4, 1993.
   It's a "method for managing communications between individuals utilizing a programmed computer system," and has nothing, except perhaps peripherally to do with shopping on the Internet.

8. HTTP State Management Mechanism, Feb 1997 and Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0, Nov 1995
   These are working papers used in the establishment of the HTML standard. While example 5.1 in the HTTP paper describes a method for online purchasing involving a shopping basket and cookies. While it certainly was published prior to the filing of the 1-Click patent, it fails to go beyond a generic description of the shopping process and never describes a 1-Click approach.

9. Auction Hosting web site for auction hosting software company. Aug 1, 1997.
   It's an interesting lead. However, the submission itself tells us nothing about whether 1-Click shopping is a part of this software, or when exactly it was created.

10. Chapter 14: Ecommerce from Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, published on the Web September 1998.
    This submission clearly speaks to the issue of online shopping. However, the date of the submitted publication appears to be September 1998, meaning the submitted document itself is too late to conform to the prior to date set up in the Bounty posting. However, it is an intriguing lead. It describes a simplified online shopping system, including an "invisible shopping cart." Under the section titled "Decision 2: Shopping Baskets?" the author writes: "A user would click on a product and get an order form. After submitting it with shipping address and credit card number, a magic cookie would be written back to his browser." At that point, it appears that 1-Click shopping is turned on.

11. An article from The Forum: "The everchanging marketplace," Aug. 18, 1999.
    Probably not a serious submission. It describes the development of the shopping cart, the grocery store one, that is. It's not 1-Click shopping, but it shows that people have been working hard to simplify shopping for over 100 years. Take a look at the old photo at the top left of the page. Doesn't that look a whole lot like what Homeruns and Webvan are doing today?

12. "The web maestro: An interview with Tim Berners-Lee". MIT Technology Review July, 1996.
    An interview with the man--not Al Gore--credited with inventing the Web. While he does talk about shopping carts and cookies, he doesn't get into the details of exactly what keystrokes would be needed to make a purchase.

13. Shopping Models: A flexible Architecture for Information Commerce Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Conference on Digital Libraries, July 25-28, 1997, Philadelphia, PA, USA. ACM Press 1997, ISBN 0-89791-868-1
    This is a conference paper, which is exactly the kind of obscure documents we're looking for. Unfortunately, it never addresses 1-Click shopping at all.

14. Brochure and CD ROM from the Bank of Montreal MBANX. "Netbanxing with your PC," July 7, 1997.
    This is another example of the kind of hard-to-find documents and a CD-ROM that we love to get. This one describes banking software, and it refers to 1-Click shopping for checks. But it doesn't exactly match the requirements of the posting.

15. "Description of Shopping cart options," Descriptive Text and Computer Code from the Online Exchange, Inc. "Description of Shopping cart options," Aug 28, 1997.
    This document is a good example of underlying technology of shopping carts and how well developed the concept is, without describing 1-Click shopping. Also, the document date is later than the Prior To date cited in our Bounty posting.

16. Online Minivend Reference Guide "MiniVend -multi-catalog shopping cart and mall," March 14, 1997.
    Mike Heins, the creator of the MiniVend system (now owned by Red Hat under the name "Interchange") provided some great art. He showed us how to very easily configure his open-source system to perform single-click buying. In writing the system, he put considerable effort into saving customer session information, so that buyers would not have to reenter their information to make purchases.

    However, the submission is not a winner, because we don't have evidence that someone made those simple changes and implemented 1-Click shopping in the proper fashion before our Prior To date.

17. Simple Internet Purchase Procedure
    This is another example of the kind of obscure publications we love to receive. This is a paper the author submitted for copyright protection. There is some question of whether it could truly be considered a publicly available document. Still, it doesn't describe 1-Click shopping, so it's of little use in this particular case. Diagram of Example Operation

18. EP Patent #0680 185 A2 (US equivalent #5,819,034) "A Distributed Computer System," filed Nov 2, 1995.
    This is the most relevant submission of all. It is the European patent office companion to the U.S. patent filing. It certainly describes 1-Click shopping, in column 11, lines 35-57. Because TV viewers lack ready access to a keyboard, having billing and shipping information pre-entered is essential to TV shopping. Plus, this patent describes the display of shipping information and matches in other ways.

19. International Patent # WO 96/17466 International Application # PCT/GB95/02826 "Communications Apparatus" Dec 4, 1995
    The date is right and the patent has all kinds of description of using the Web to communicate, all the elements of purchasing online, but there simply is no clear reference to 1-Click shopping.

20. Lloyd's Coke Machine (Interact with the Coke Machine) Feb 27, 1996
    This incredibly entertaining submission describes an Internet controllable Coke machine. As the website says, "The machine allowed one to purchase Cokes on account." That sounds a lot like 1-Click shopping. However, to match our criteria it would have to also display partial shipping and payment information, which it does not.

21. Telvue 10Q Report filed Nov 7, 1995.
    This is a good example of a simplified purchasing system in another context, in this case pay-per-view TV. The buyer of a PPV event calls an 800 number and is identified through caller ID. The server, which already has the viewer's billing information on file, reads back the time and channel for the event. Especially intriguing is the Impulse Upsell feature mentioned in the press release, which allows buyers to purchase an additional movie or event simply by saying by pressing 1, or saying "Yes." It's not exactly Amazon's 1-Click system because it's not on the Web, but it sure is close. And it provides further evidence that a simplified method of shopping has been described widely in the realm of TV-commerce.

22. Doonesbury Comics "Boopsie's virtual shopping spree," May 3-8, 1993.
    So close, and so entertaining! Gary Trudeau was way ahead of Jeff Bezos when it comes to simplifying e-commerce. Watch as Boopsie, actress and wife of B.D., purchases (Oops!) a large piece of industrial machinery with a single click. She didn't even need her Visa card that information is stored. Note that in the final panel, the VR shopping system even displays her "moniker," i.e., user name and a shipping address. It's certainly 1-Click shopping, but unfortunately it's not specific to the Web, so it doesn't match all the requirements. But thanks anyway to all who submitted this astonishingly relevant series of cartoons. Made my day!
    
    
    • May 3 a "...computer generated shopping environment..."
    • May 4 Your visa card "...is already programmed in."
      
      
      
      
      
    • May 5 To buy something "You point at it."
      
      
      
      
      
    • May 6 "...the ultimate shopping experience."
    • May 7 The customer shipping address moniker.
    • May 8 Buyer's remorse...

23. Star Trek the television series. 1987-1997
    Amusing but not as on topic as Doonesbury. Turns out the crew of the Enterprise routinely place single-click orders via replicators, which were not introduced until Next Generation. Relevant to 1-Click shopping is Jean-Luc Picard's famous line: "tea, Earl Grey, hot." Although one must wonder why a 24th century computer couldn't understand normal English syntax, that is, hot Earl Grey tea. Plus, it doesn't seem to have a lot of insight into Picard's rather predictable beverage buying habits. I think even Amazon's Sun servers probably know more about your ordering habits than the Next Gen computers do . . . or will. Perhaps it was the obstructive 1-Click patent that drove them to create such an arcane system?
    While this submission didn't match all our requirements, it could be that the right episode might indeed contain all the elements. So, have another look through your Star Trek files, and make it so.

24. Norm on Cheers Television Show Nov 10, 1982.
    It's true, Norm had simplified shopping figured out early, to wit this exchange.
    Coach: How are you doing Norm?
    Norm: Cut the small talk and give me a beer.

    The 1-Click is "give me a beer," while the server is Coach. Partial shipping information is not displayed, nor is it required, as the server always delivers the product to the same spot along the bar.

25. ISPF V4R2.0 User's Guide "Interactive System Productivity" Oct 9, 1995.
    This document certainly shows that IBM engineers worked long and hard on all sorts of technology used in shopping and payment systems, without ever describing 1-Click shopping.

Terrific Submissions on 1-Click Patent

There was no outright winner, mainly because the 1-Click patent is specific to the Web and describes not just a single-mouse-click system of ordering but also many technical details including the presentation of a user name and partial shipping and billing information. Even so, many of the submissions, which Bounty Poster Tim O'Reilly has graciously allowed us to post online, do indicate that others have described ways of simplifying shopping.

Have a look at submission #5, which details an intriguing handheld, in-store shopping device that allows single-key ordering. Submission #18 describes a method of one-button shopping with a TV remote control, while #6 demonstrates a method for single-action shopping via interactive radio. What's also interesting, though, is the number of submissions that talk about simplifying the buying process on the Web without actually inventing 1-Click shopping. Look at submission #25 to see how much work some IBM engineers did on the subject of digital shopping without actually inventing 1-Click.

As you troll through the submissions and commentary over on the left, be sure not to overlook Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau's visionary look ahead at the future of e-commerce in "Boopsie's Virtual Shopping Spree." Also check out the Star Trek: Next Generation submissions, referencing Jean-Luc Picard's penchant for "Tea, Earl Grey, hot." And, of course, there's Cheers' Norm, who simplified the process of one-sip shopping long before Amazon.com.