Jeff Bezos’ new patent envisions tablets without processors, batteries | Hacker News Reader

Jeff Bezos’ new patent envisions tablets without processors, batteries

arstechnica.com

48 pointssk2code48 comments

Isn't it odd that this is patentable? One day, long before this patent expires, all of the technology needed for this will be commonplace, and the idea will be obvious to any four year old.

I've heard that the point of patents is to incent innovation, but it's hard to see how that's happening here. It's not the case, as with pharmaceutical research, that R&D resources had to be spent to generate the idea, demonstrate its efficacy, and prove its safety. That will be needed for the technology required to implement this, but, this patent actually reduces the incentive to spend R&D resources on the technology necessary to implement it!

It's very odd. At this point Bezos is patenting something that (probably) doesn't exist in the hopes someone does build it or his team can build it.

It would be like someone realizing that we could send out electrical signals from a transmitter and catch them on a receiver. What would the radio guys have patented? They actually built a radio, the patent is for a broad idea.

If anyone brings this to fruition this should be invalidated. Someone must've patented wireless electric transmission decades ago (maybe even Tesla?) and having wifi for the content is even less special.

EDIT: typo.

This is what annoyed me about this patent as well, its like saying "Dibs!" if someone can build this thing, we own it! Seriously? I'd write more but I'm busy writing up patents on Phase Conduits and Deflector arrays.

Actually, using patents in that way seems to have a long history - Feynman mentions something about having his name on a patent for nuclear powered aircraft in "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman".

Similar story with Sony patenting brain interface[1] . Funny thing was after watching the Matrix the first time, me and a friend were debating why people would want to insert something directly into the skull and mess around with neurons possibly. I suggested using sound waves to trigger nerve signals, he laughed at silly idea and it was forgotten . A year later saw the Sony patent on slashdot and for a few minutes i really did think they had done some work on this, till i realized they had just called 'Dibs' on the idea.

[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18624944.600-sony-pate...

At that time Feynman was filing patents on behalf of the government during wartime when there were other concerns than wildly trying to grasp any possible market. I would guess that the government was trying to ensure that individuals and corporations would not be in a position to obtain a monopoly on an invention that could gain the US a tactical/strategic advantage in the war.

Ah, the good old days, when the government would simply abuse the existing legal process to screw the little guy instead of just declaring a new process by fiat ala NSL/executive order/etc when it suits them.

This is now my go-to explanation of how patents can actually dissuade innovation.

> as with pharmaceutical research

It's also not really the case for pharmaceutical research: http://www.dklevine.com/papers/imbookfinal09.pdf (Whole book: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...)

I think it's even more ridiculous than that - this is a decades old idea. In the 80s (and probably earlier), we had light-weight computer terminals connecting to mainframes. All Bezos did was combine that with a tablet.

Good idea? Yes.

Patentable? No, thank you.

To quote the post

"Transferring power and data wirelessly to displays as described in the patent is currently infeasible"

So you can get a patent on something you actually have not invented? Just something you would like to invent - or perhaps prefer that someone else invents so you can then milk them for royalties.

The world has truly gone crazy.

I completely agree. We can argue all day long about whether or not things like software patents are good. But I think the very minimum bar to file a patent should be "we actually made a prototype of this that does what we're claiming."

At the very least, it's perfectly reasonable to expect schematics for how a prototype could be built.

It is supposed to be good enough that someone "skilled in the art" could build it after reading the patent.

That probably means that the concepts you describe have to be common knowledge to those skilled in the art... basically a commodity. But what is described in this patent is unfeasible and whoever discovers the implementation could be only one of few who could do it.

The problem is that when they say "wireless" what they mean is that they enumerated every possible wireless tech and probably any future tech.

With WiFi alone a tablet that is using the tablet equivalent of OnLive is possible.

Or maybe something you don't want invented. Patent it, then, when it is invented, charge licensing royalties so high that it can't reasonably be created.

Maybe that's the route to global peace: just imagine weapons, start patenting them, and charge trillions for licensing.

Unfortunately, once the thing can be made, it will be, somewhere. If it's not legal, but people want it, then it will be made in secret.

Well, if you don't have enough resources to develop it yourself you might have to get external funding and to make sure your backers don't steal the idea and produce it themselves you patent it. Isn't this how patents are supposed to protect small independent innovators? If it works or not I'm not qualified to answer.

Still, i think that at least some form of prototype must be available or must be demonstrated within a certain timeframe. And the patent in question here is just ridiculous. Wireless displays must exist already?

As long as the precondition is infeasible, I'm happy to let him have his 20 years of patent protection.

Or, he has safe, wireless, power distribution in his hip pocket and wants to patent all the derivatives and applications before the big reveal.

Now that I think about it, I'm really OK with that one.

"Transferring power and data wirelessly to displays as described in the patent is currently infeasible..."

So when someone does the actual work of figuring out the hard part of this idea... they won't be able to use it because of this patent?

Transferring power and data wirelessly to displays as described in the patent is currently infeasible...

No, our patent system isn't broken at all. Whereas the patent system was made to ensure knowledge was transferred, now the people getting the patents don't even have to know how to build something.

Interesting that claim 1 appears to have been cancelled for some reason, perhaps due to being insufficiently clear. That's generally the broadest claim so clearly the USPTO saw fit to narrow the patent down to an extent, just not as greatly as would seem appropriate, at least from the other comments on this thread.

It's also a continuation and claims priority from two existing applications, although unfortunately, documents are not available for those applications, at least from the system I use which is generally fairly comprehensive[1]

[1]http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDo...

Good news everyone. I just patented a way to float to work on a cloud of rainbows.

"The network is the computer." - John Gage of Sun Microsystems.

This looks like a newer version of a thin client. See the Sun Ray from '99:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray

Wireless terminals?

Logical conclusion: If you can patent a vision, without actually inventing it, then anyone can manufacture it afterwards, provided he/she doesn't envision it in the process.

So by "without processors or batteries" we mean "with a processor and a battery". Check.

So is he getting a patent on paper? How novel.

I just skimmed the article, but regardless the validity of the patent, this is where the tech world is going. When everything is connected to the cloud and all communication is ultra-fast, all you need is a device that can accept user input and output, and transfer it to a base station that processes the data. All computational functions and display data will be stored and transferred wirelessly.

So we've gone full circle to mainframe computing.

You forget one thing: latency. Nothing beats having a computer on your hand that can do some of the work.

What we're going to get is thick clients and thick servers.

I should be patenting living to 130 years old. All the 129 years old in the future would pay to my grandson through their wrinkled noses.

To heck with that, Wikipedia says the verified oldest person is alive and 115. I say you patent living to 116, and start collecting checks next year if old Jiroemon Kimura, is that lucky / unlucky.

* or you could skip verified and go with 123, but why wait?

This seems like a repetition of the many terminals to one mainframe pattern. That said, companies like eink and pervasivedisplays already have 'epaper kiosks' that mimic this pattern with a transmitter acting as a middle man between your computer (or whatever generates the image) and the screen.

[edited for clarity]

Obviously the patent is stupid.

But the idea is great, I've had this repeatedly. I carry around at minimum 2 devices that are mostly redundant. It's wasteful.

I'd like one "base device" (today it would probably be a higher-powered version of your phone) and several satellite devices.

A big screen that my phone snaps into or talks with is #1 on my list

Like the PadFone?

Does anyone else remember the Smart Displays that Microsoft tried to popularize around the time of the TabletPCs? They didn't have wireless power, but that certainly wasn't because no one has ever entertained the idea. They did rely on the processing power of a PC, though.

Congratulations to Amazon for inventing the dumb terminal. Clearly this is an original idea. /sarcasm

Not only is this not possible right now it's also a dumb idea.

So now instead of having one device that's easily portable to anywhere you want to go, you have the device plus a base station that you have to carry around. Oh boy! What an improvement!

My guess is that the base station will power many devices and be located such as routers are now. So, for instance, an office may have a base station that powers its employees' devices as they wander from room to room.

What about using it in the car? What about using it in a restaurant? A hotel room?

Are you really telling me that the Amazon base stations are going to be ubiquitous?

It's a bad design.

Just because it doesn't work in a car doesn't make it a bad design. Television doesn't work in most cars, but people still buy them.

Something doesn't have to solve every use case to be useful.

FWIW, I tend to agree with you. I think the better problem to solve would be to have electrical energy generative/storage devices. But I've been wrong about these things in the past so I try to second-guess myself.

Except this is meant to supplant a design that DOES work in the car, that's why it's stupid.

Badly phrased headline - there is no patent, yet.

This is just an application. One which, with enough public input and complaining, will hopefully never be granted.

Seriously? How could he file patent for technologies don't even exist? That's like trying to patent things appeared in a sci-fi movie.

So, kind of like TV, minus the plugs or batteries.

(...and maybe VCRs that prevent you from dubbing VHS to VHS)

This sounds like Doctor Who's psychic paper.

pretty sure this has prior art in Avatar

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