If Amazon had their way, that patent would have expired by now (as would the music thingy).
[link|http://news.com.com/Amazon+CEO+sees+solutions+in+patent+reform/2100-1017_3-237801.html|http://news.com.com/...017_3-237801.html]
In his letter, Bezos called for software and business-method patents to be limited from the current 17 years to three to five years. He also called for the limitation to be retroactive so that current patents would be enforceable for only three to five years.
In addition to the time limit on patents, Bezos proposed a public comment period before a patent is issued to allow Net users the chance to show previous examples of the potential patent.
"If done right, we'll end up with a patent system that produces fewer patents, fewer bad patents and even the good patents won't last longer than is necessary to give the innovator a reasonable return," Bezos wrote.
Bezos said in his letter he had been influenced by "several hundred" letters sent to Amazon about the issue and by O'Reilly's column.
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Thought you were razzing me about a little bug that got fixed this morning after an unhappy deployment last night.