.Dust

I have gone through this doc­u­ment from the US Patent & Trade­mark Office.

It describes the recent patent obtained by Google for SMS payment.

Let’s just have a look at the abstract:

A computer-​implemented method of effec­tu­at­ing an elec­tronic on-​line pay­ment includes receiv­ing at a com­puter server sys­tem a text mes­sage from a payor con­tain­ing a pay­ment request rep­re­sent­ing a pay­ment amount sent by a payor device oper­at­ing inde­pen­dently of the com­puter server sys­tem, deter­min­ing a pay­ment amount asso­ci­ated with the text mes­sage and deb­it­ing a payor account for an amount cor­re­spond­ing to the amount of the pay­ment request, and cred­it­ing an account of a payee that is inde­pen­dent of the com­puter server system.

I am start­ing to think that the US Patent mech­a­nism has some­thing wrong.

If you have time you should try to read that doc­u­ment and won­der how this could happen.

Just to be clear. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Google for being able to obtain this patent but read­ing it I think there is noth­ing new in the con­cept. So, why do they want to do that?

Well, I think there are many options to be considered:

• They may want to get this patent before any other of their com­peti­tor will do the same.
• On the other side we may think that they are try­ing to cash out with the patent system.

There is one sin­gle detail that makes me think that the Patent sys­tem is some­how wrong. If you look at the doc­u­ment there is a crys­tal clear sen­tence that says:

This inven­tion relates to computer-​enabled pay­ment sys­tems and meth­ods, and more par­tic­u­larly to pay­ment sys­tems that make use of text messaging.

I would like to focus on the word “inven­tion”. Let’s have a look at the Patent Office def­i­n­i­tion of invention:

 a new, use­ful process, machine, improve­ment, etc., that did not exist pre­vi­ously and that is rec­og­nized as the prod­uct of some unique intu­ition or genius, as dis­tin­guished from ordi­nary mechan­i­cal skill or craftsmanship.

Ok. Is the inven­tion described in the patent new and not exist­ing before ?

Why do I blog this? Patents should be rejected if they are already proven to be common.

Related posts:

1. The Fight for the Idle Screen
2. The def­i­n­i­tion of Smartphone
3. links for 2007-​01-​10
4. Con­trol your home from your mobile phone
5. What If Thieves Were Social Too?