We’ll find out what USPTO thinks on re-exam soon. But I’d vote against.

Again, if I may call you that, I would set the bar extremely high for patenting *any* software, as opposed to copyrighting it.

fyi: One-Click patent, United States Patent: 6907315
Abstract: A method and system for placing an order to purchase an item via the Internet. The order is placed by a purchaser at a client system and received by a server system. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system then assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the assigned client identifier with the received purchaser information. The server system sends to the client system the assigned client identifier and an HTML document identifying the item and including an order button. The client system receives and stores the assigned client identifier and receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item. The server system receives the request and combines the purchaser information associated with the client identifier of the client system to generate an order to purchase the item in accordance with the billing and shipment information whereby the purchaser effects the ordering of the product by selection of the order button.
(Spaces added to URL to allow wrap http://patft.uspto.gov/ netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&\ 1Sect2=HITOFF&\1d=PALL&\ 1p=1&\1u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&\ 1r=1&\1f=G&\1l=50&\1s1=6,907,315.PN.&\ 1OS=PN/6,907,315&\1RS=PN/6,907,315)

The overwhelming evidence says this is a tenuous position, at best.

To help start your research, we covered One-click, NTP’s SMTP for wireless patents?!?, USPTO’s weakening standards, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Patent Busting Project and the National Academy of Science position here: www.emailbattles.com/archive/battles/mobile_aadagfehig_i/.

IMHO, frivolous patents (like Amazon’s One-Click, and several of those currently plaguing mobilefolk) block innovation and create scofflaws, undermining the longterm value of legitimate Intellectual Property.

“You shouldn’t be allowed to preclude me from authoring my unique method.”

-> This may be @ the heart of our fundamental disagreement. Tell me, though, do you agree with patenting other technical innovations (like, for example, a new lite bulb?) If so, how do you distinguish software?

“As companies large and small are patenting software to preserve their ability to use their own code, it appears that few have chosen to use your “easy” prescription for patent protection.”
–> This is not the case. Spend some time on IP.com. Most companies don’t publish their source code because unnecessary, they instead describe their algorythm generally. Code, as long as human readable (not byte code) I think would do the same thing.

“In lieu of promoting progress, patent offices have turned programming into a 100% CYA op.”
–> This is overstated. There are some high quality, very ligitimate software patents out there. There is a huge tendancy within the anti-software-patent legions to cast an enormously overbroad net. I’m against invalid software patents… but I’m against all invalid patents. This is called throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater / a few bad apples / etc. But the patent system generally works, and it is arbitrary to just cut it off from the whole of software. After much discussion w/ my developer friends, I get them to admit that what they are really against is INVALID patents, not software patents per se. As to why it works, and an example of it working, see my next point below…

-> And somebody else posted the following:
“If patents were taken seriously the whole software industry would gring to a halt.”

I think w/ blackberry/RIM software patents are increasingly being taken seriously (to the tune of ~$650 million!), yet there’s never been more softare development than now.

Answer me this: Where do most large software companies call home? It ain’t in places with weak IP laws (generally). It is in the US, which allows software patents. If it were the case that they’re bad, these innovation hubs would flea the US. Places that don’t allow software patents have wee software companies (generally). They might do neat stuff, but it’s difficult for them to attract capital to expand, and a big US company inevitably aquires them and their trade secrets. If you’re familiar with the VC game, the name that game is patents, else other people rip you off.

When established software companies start flocking to those countries that disallow software patents I’ll start to believe they are bad for business and a bad idea. But in fact the opposite is true. The more established a software company gets, the more it tries to protect its ideas (just like most other tech. areas).

Patents made sense in the XIXth century. Today’s world is a crowded place where we can asphyxiate each other with patents.

This ludicrous system cannot be lived with because there is no life possible in a tangle of patents.

When the law has gone mad it cannot be abided to.

That goes for code slapped on top of database managers, too. I oughta know, having done a pretty good job of it for 20 years, with nary a patent filing, despite a ton of clever code.

Too busy programming, I guess.