eBay Patents 10-Click Checkout
San Jose, CA (Reuters) — Online auctions cartel eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and its collections and incarceration arm PayPal announced that on July 21, 2011, the two companies had jointly been awarded United States Patent No. 105960411 for their innovative 10-click �Buy it Now� purchasing pipeline.
The newly-patented buying system guides users through an intuitive, step-by-step process of clicking �Buy It Now�, entering your password, logging in because they signed your sorry ass out again, getting upsold shit you don�t want, continuing to your original destination, accepting the default quantity of 1 (otherwise known as �It�), committing to buy, clicking "Pay Now", entering a different password than your first one, clicking "Log In" again god dammit, declining to borrow money from eBay�s usury department, reviewing the goddamn purchase details since by now you�ve completely forgotten what the hell you were buying, and finally confirming the god damned payment already.
The 10-click checkout system, known colloquially as 10CLICKFU -- which many loyal users believe stands for �10 Clicks For You� -- was recently awarded top honors by the National Alliance of Reconstructive Hand Surgeons. 10CLICKFU incorporates a variable number of clicks ranging from eight to upwards of fifteen, but eBay�s patent stipulates that any purchasing system that lies to you at least nine times about the �Now� part of �Buy It Now� is covered by their invention.
The patent award came as a surprise to many analysts, since several of eBay�s related patent attempts had been rejected on the basis of prior art. In one well-publicized filing, eBay had tried to patent a purely decorative, non-operational �Keep me signed in� checkbox, but Sony�s PlayStation Network already had one just like it. And another eBay patent claim for excruciating page load times was rejected because the iPad App Store is still loading.
But eBay�s boldest and potentially furthest-reaching patent attempt was for �100% Inaccurate Button Text�. The invention claim was based on several of their UI elements, but rested primarily on the �Buy It Now� button, which eBay claims contains enough inaccuracies to render it "complete bullshit." Their patent was rejected by the US Patent Office review committee on the grounds that the Firefox browser�s �Do this automatically from now on� checkbox has been complete bullshit for over fifteen years. eBay says they will appeal the ruling because the checkbox is not technically a button.
eBay�s spokesperson Paula Smugworth announced that eBay will continue to innovate on ways to remind their users that monopolies can do whatever the hell they want. �Not that eBay is a monopoly,� she added. �But if we were a monopoly, then we could do whatever the hell we wanted. I�m just sayin�.�
eBay�s stock rose on the news, driven largely by anonymous shill bidders.
The newly-patented buying system guides users through an intuitive, step-by-step process of clicking �Buy It Now�, entering your password, logging in because they signed your sorry ass out again, getting upsold shit you don�t want, continuing to your original destination, accepting the default quantity of 1 (otherwise known as �It�), committing to buy, clicking "Pay Now", entering a different password than your first one, clicking "Log In" again god dammit, declining to borrow money from eBay�s usury department, reviewing the goddamn purchase details since by now you�ve completely forgotten what the hell you were buying, and finally confirming the god damned payment already.
The 10-click checkout system, known colloquially as 10CLICKFU -- which many loyal users believe stands for �10 Clicks For You� -- was recently awarded top honors by the National Alliance of Reconstructive Hand Surgeons. 10CLICKFU incorporates a variable number of clicks ranging from eight to upwards of fifteen, but eBay�s patent stipulates that any purchasing system that lies to you at least nine times about the �Now� part of �Buy It Now� is covered by their invention.
The patent award came as a surprise to many analysts, since several of eBay�s related patent attempts had been rejected on the basis of prior art. In one well-publicized filing, eBay had tried to patent a purely decorative, non-operational �Keep me signed in� checkbox, but Sony�s PlayStation Network already had one just like it. And another eBay patent claim for excruciating page load times was rejected because the iPad App Store is still loading.
But eBay�s boldest and potentially furthest-reaching patent attempt was for �100% Inaccurate Button Text�. The invention claim was based on several of their UI elements, but rested primarily on the �Buy It Now� button, which eBay claims contains enough inaccuracies to render it "complete bullshit." Their patent was rejected by the US Patent Office review committee on the grounds that the Firefox browser�s �Do this automatically from now on� checkbox has been complete bullshit for over fifteen years. eBay says they will appeal the ruling because the checkbox is not technically a button.
eBay�s spokesperson Paula Smugworth announced that eBay will continue to innovate on ways to remind their users that monopolies can do whatever the hell they want. �Not that eBay is a monopoly,� she added. �But if we were a monopoly, then we could do whatever the hell we wanted. I�m just sayin�.�
eBay�s stock rose on the news, driven largely by anonymous shill bidders.
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