RSS
Twitter
Microsoft Granted Pizza Delivery Patent
from the this-is-patentable? dept
theodp writes "Thanks to Microsoft, just ordering a pizza can now constitute patent infringement. Microsoft, who's been publicly whining about low-quality patents, was granted a patent Tuesday for a Method and system for providing service listings in electronic yellow pages, which grants it a 17-year exclusive right to the process of including pizza joints not physically located in a search area in search results if they'll deliver a large pepperoni-with-extra-cheese within the search area. "
Reader Comments
(Flattened / Threaded)
and?
patents are products like everything else...
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
I guess I am in for a fight Or I made a lot of $$$
we have been providing pizza zip code search online since Oct 12 1999 See web archive below http://web.archive.org/web/19991012185003/http://pizza.net/ Does anybody know a good patent attorney ?
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Grrr
It pisses me off when people make headlines like that. The headline implies that only Microsoft can deliver pizzas now and then the actual text says something completely different that has less than 1% chance of actually affecting me.
Please try integrity instead of sensationalism.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
PizzaCono Advert
LOL!
Read the ad for 'PizzaCono' (pizza in a cone you can eat with one hand...")
I think the people who named this should have checked what 'cono' means in Spanish...
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=co%F1o
Think about it.....
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: PizzaCono Advert
lol, thats is great, i like the comments about the cono on UD. They are great!!!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: PizzaCono Advert
can you guys spread the word
we have been doing this since oct 1999
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Grrr
Dude, they are doing this to piss off Google and other search engines that actually WORK! This will effect you in more ways than you realize.
First it’s pizza, then its phone service, then it’s bloody DMV records.
It's not "sensationalism", its "desensitization".
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Grrr
Someone has a sense of humor... even if it is mocking "The System"... and yes, it is.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Grrr
I guess us doing this online since oct 1999 does not matter at all.
Please Visit
Web Archive below
http://web.archive.org/web/19991012185003/http://pizza.net/
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: Grrr
It'll help you in a good way. Infrastructure like this is why there are cool things like search based pizza delivery. Google, MS, Yahoo, and the like can justify spending hundreds and thousands in salaries and infrastructure because they can get a patent.
It seems you want a world where nobody can patent processes. Fine, but your world does not have services either (I think you'll find what you are looking for northeast of Portland). For the rest of us, this stuff does not code itself up for free (Linux and Firefox have a quiver of patents as well).
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Grrr
Yeah, I like to get the whole story by just scanning the headlines instead of actually reading the articles. How dare they!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Again...
It's all part of Bill Gates' elaborate scheme to slowly take over the world. Microsoft already runs on like 95% of the worlds computers, what more can they possible want?!?!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Again...
Gates has stepped down from his role as chairman. I believe its Balmer you are hoping to chastise?
Also, 'a computer on every desktop' was, in fact, the goal of microsoft in the 90's. Their current goal is, taking some liberties with language, to make operating systems and software invisible so you can focus on what you are doing (for example, posting comments on the internet.) So what they want is for you to get access to services without ever dealing with any of the stuff in the middle. Eg: if you want a pizza, you get a pizza.
This is also precisely what Google wants, FYI. Hope that helps.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Man....
what a bunch of jerks. Google needs to let them and AOL have each other.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
No Subject Given
I read the patent and aside from all the legalese garb, I am still at a loss. What did they invent? Nothing, to me it simply sounds like they are just adding information to a database to include regional businesses. Of course their logic is flawed, because their resoning assumes that all busineses would want to be listed on the net. I am sure that some of the mobile plumbers could care less about this. We all know that word of mouth sells better than anything else.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: No Subject Given
Does it? I thought mass produced, heavily advertised crap sold best.
Guess I was mistaken...
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Sun was doing this in Mt. View 20 years ago
The local food outlets had order systems, and modems printing out orders at least in 1985 or so, and there was a demo system that would find a pizza joint based on various things, by doing a spiral search till it hit a match in the enclosed area nearly that long.
Obvious and done, so why not patent it. that seems to be what the USPTO does these days. Useless till someone with real power gets hit by one of these silly patents and stops this somehow.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Sun was doing this in Mt. View 20 years ago
we have been providing pizza searchs since oct 1999
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
a patent on pizza yellow pages search for pizza re
We have been providing online pizza searchs since October 1999
See web archive
http://web.archive.org/web/19991012185003/http://pizza.net/
I guess we either are out of business or made a lot of money today ?????
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
wtf
I was hoping for a windows live delivery or something.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Add Your Comment