Amazon Patents Deducing Religion From Gift Wrap 164
theodp writes "If you're the giver or recipient of presents gift-wrapped by Amazon, you may want to take a gander at U.S. Patent No. 8,060,463, granted to Amazon last month for Mining of User Event Data to Identify Users with Common Interests. Among other things, Amazon explains the invention can be used to identify recipients of gifts as Christian or Jewish based on wrapping paper. From the patent: 'The gift wrap used by such other users when purchasing gifts for this user, such as when the gift wrap evidences the user's religion (in the case of Christmas or Hanukkah gift wrap, for example.)'"
Re:Right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Religion of giver? (Score:3, Insightful)
Shouldn't that be the religion of the receiver ?
(Unless it is really unimaginable for Amazon that people give presents across religious and ethnical boundaries.)
Re:Right... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's about determining what kind of crap a person will buy; they really don't care why they are buying it. If a Jew buys Christians presents on Amazon then there is a good chance they will be interested in buying more Christians presents on Amazon in the future and marketing can help make that happen.
Ermm... (Score:5, Insightful)
... you can really patent something that basically reads, "Using a feature to help in set classification"?
About ready to say scrap the entire patent system - at least when it comes to software. It's not like it protects the actual inventors any more at all.
Re:Non-obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly, deducing that somebody is Jewish because they bought Hanukkah wrapping paper is a brilliant invention worthy of the full protective power of the United States government and international intellectual property treaties. How else is America going to survive in the information age?
Let me restate: figuring out that somebody is Jewish because they bought wrapping paper with Jewish stars on it IS STEALING. You wouldn't steal a car or a DVD, would you?
Other Amazon Patents... (Score:5, Insightful)
Determining religion by presence or absence of circumcision.
Determining gender by presence or lack of a penis.
Determining age by birth date.
Determining quantity by how many of an item is present.
and my favorite...
Determining the failure of the US patent system by filing stupid patents.
Re:Religious symbolism? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then why is there a Bible verse banning them?