Thoughts and experiences from an enterprise software architect.
This is a personal weblog by Jorgen Thelin, a Senior Program Manager for Windows Live Identity Services at Microsoft in Redmond.
The opinions expressed here represent my own views and not those of my current, prior or future employer(s).
A recent PC Magazine article entitled "Has Jeff Bezos Patented E-Mail Discussion Groups?" about US patent 6,525,747 raises some interesting questions for blogs. (emphasis added)
Last Tuesday, February, 25, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a new patent to Jeff Bezos, the CEO of online retailer Amazon.com, granting him exclusive rights to "a method and system for conducting an electronic discussion relating to a topic".
The only significant difference between this patented system and existing e-mail discussion-group software is that the former is meant to facilitate e-commerce. The topic under discussion is always an item for sale, and each message contains a description of the item and a Web link that lets you purchase it.
Whether weblog postings and the follow-up comments system would fall into this patent definition is something only time and the courts will probably decide.
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