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Filed under: Business, News, Search

Amazon get patent for URL search string

Amazon Search String patent
It must be a strange week to be an intellectual property lawyer for Amazon. Days after the US Patent Office threw out a patent for "one-click" checkout button, the USPTO has granted Amazon a patent for something that seems at least as obvious: placing a "search string at the end of a URL without any special formatting."

Wait, that can't possibly mean what we think it means. They have a patent on URLS like "www.a9.com/San Francisco Hotels"? Yup, that's exactly what it means. Amazon claims that what differentiates these URLs from others is the lack of special formatting language like "search?q=."

Now, there are at least two basic problems with this as far as we can tell:
  1. Generally you're only supposed to be able to get a patent for things that aren't obvious.
  2. We're pretty sure there will be a lot of companies who can show "prior art," meaning they had URLs following this format long before Amazon filed for the patent in 2004.
Anyone want to predict how long it will take Amazon to try patenting a system for ordering products online using a keyboard and mouse?
[via Slashdot]

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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