back to article Google lands patent for, um, estimating shipment time

Four months and nine days after April Fools' Day, Google was granted a patent for telling a customer when a product shipment will arrive. The patent, entitled "Electronic shipping notifications" and awarded this Tuesday, covers the calculation of the estimated time of a shipment's arrival based on an order's status and "other …

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    1. Tom Wood

      Still, prior art.

      *phone shop*

      "Have you shipped my thingy yet?"

      "No"

      *wait a bit*

      *phone shop*

      "Have you shipped my thingy yet?"

      "No"

      *wait a bit*

      *phone shop*

      "Have you shipped my thingy yet?"

      "No, but we'll send it next Thursday"

      *wait till next Wednesday*

      *phone shop*

      "Have you shipped my thingy yet?"

      "Yes. First class. It should be there tomorrow."

      *wait till tomorrow morning*

      *phone postman*

      "Have you got a thingy addressed to me"

      "Yes. I'll be round about 11"

      *stop*

    2. MrCheese
      Stop

      A short point made long

      That's merely the expression of the following; build SMS server which queries delivery partner's database (for a myriad obvious shipping details) and once requested information is passed back to SMS server forward SMS (or other) response to customer.

      The lack of simplicity comes from the legalese description of an otherwise obviousa and simple process and not the process itself; any halfwitted sysadmin could knock up a system like that in day, it's no different from network server monitor software other than you;re monitoring someone else's database

    3. Marco van Beek
      Facepalm

      ...the bit they are really patenting

      Is that only they will be able to set up a third party service. So presumably the idea is to add a function to Google Apps / Dashboard / browser that tracks all my packages. Which, of course will require me to tell them what I am shipping from where. At which point I will get diverted to an entirely different website that sells tries to sell me the same bit of kit, or more likely, something entirely different.

  1. Stephen Moll
    Joke

    it is...

    "patently ridiculous"

  2. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Most accurate

    The most accurate method of estimating delivery time would be to have the delivery driver phone up the recipient as they set off from the previous delivery point. Patent #1,234,567,890

  3. Pshoot
    Mushroom

    Why let...

    Why let the facts get in the way of a good story!?! If you actually take a look at their claims to patent monopoly you'll see that this is a far more complex system than the very broad flow chart chosen to illustrate the "good story".

    Why are people so quick to dismiss patents as the spawn of Satan? Without the patent system many companies would not exist, indeed could not exist!

    1. MrCheese
      Mushroom

      No one here hate patents...

      ...Just illegimate patents covering yet-to-be-realised concepts; if Google have this in operation now then I will fully recind all negative statements made about this patent but otherwise granting a patent to cover a methodology IS EXACTLY what stifles innovation and prevents real competetions from new players.

      The next time an awesome little startup with an awesome idea gets borged by one of the blue chips it'll most likely be as a result of patent hoarding/trolling by G$$gle, M$ or Crapple and that's all the USPTO's good for.

    2. jake Silver badge

      @Pshoot

      "Why are people so quick to dismiss patents as the spawn of Satan? Without the patent system many companies would not exist, indeed could not exist!"

      Your point was ... what, exactly?

  4. Lamont Cranston
    FAIL

    Nevermind the patent,

    does the Google system work, or is it the same old "6-hour window" job that everyone else uses?

    I get the feeling that examples of prior art won't be hard to find.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Here's the actual patent claim...

    - Remember, it's *the claim* that is what is actually protected by a patent, not some dumb figure:

    1. A method of providing notification of impending delivery of a shipment shipped by a shipper to a shipping address specified by a customer, comprising: periodically querying, by a broker computer system independent of the shipper and a merchant and which enabled the customer to purchase an item contained in the shipment from the merchant, a shipper computer system to obtain status information for the shipment with each query, wherein a periodic query of the shipment computer system comprises: requesting status information from the shipper computer system by providing a shipment identifier of the shipment to the shipper computer system; and receiving status information in response thereto; responsive to status information obtained with a periodic query indicating an estimated delivery date for the shipment, halting, by the broker computer system, the periodic queries and scheduling the restart of periodic queries of the shipper computer system a day prior to the estimated delivery date; restarting, by the broker computer system, periodic queries of the shipper computer system the day prior to the estimated delivery date to obtain updated status information with each query; responsive to updated status information obtained with a periodic query indicating that the shipment is out for delivery to the customer, halting, by the broker computer system, the periodic queries and calculating an estimated delivery time for the shipment based at least in part on the status information; and sending, by the broker computer system, an electronic message including the estimated delivery time to the customer.

    - It seems to be about periodic delivery status checks and suspending periodic status checks based on delivery estimates, in addition to any final notification. It's still not rocket science but it's a lot more specific than the article suggests... though of course there would be no article (or frothing commentary) without some willful misinterpretation.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Its still bullshit

      Despite your detailed description it still isn't worth patenting as these systems already exist and are in use daily by companies such as DHL, Parcel force, Fedex etc etc and the customer gets to track their parcel every step of the way. How is this patent bringing anything new?

    2. Fresnel
      FAIL

      Still BS

      Standard patentese waffle. Dressing up a simple idea so it sounds complex and innovative - to a moron (or a lawyer)...

    3. MrCheese
      Boffin

      More Concise

      That can all condensed down to: poll delivery company's shipping systems and forward responses to customer.

      Pretty standard to me, you could use off the shelf software to do it too and as for accuracy it'll only be as good as the delivery company's shipping system (or the level of access granted).

      I could see it being of real value if/when product packaging starts including smart security tags, which among other things can be tracked via GPS but that'll an innovation that's nothing to do with G$$gle.

  6. Graham Lerant
    FAIL

    It's time to stop

    reporting on these feeble Patent stories.

    Second thoughts - I think I'll patent 'sitting down to take a dump'.

    I may not have been the first person to think of it, I may not have been the first person to have done it, but I'll patent it anyway.

    1. Tom 7

      By the time you reach the crapper

      you will owe me zillions for breaching my bipedal mechanism for reaching destinations for the performing of actions of the bleeding obvious.

    2. The Fuzzy Wotnot
      Happy

      I claim prior art from when I got up this morning!

      Hmmm....patent trolls!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can hear

    I can hear a few IP lawyers rubbing their hands together in glee. It seems all the American system is good for is making such people a lot of money while stifling innovation and competition.

  8. Old Tom
    Headmaster

    I declare it void due to poor spelling

    It refers to 'compact disks' [sic] and 'writeable compact disk (CD)' [sic]. Such crass mistakes should always render such documents null and void.

    Apart from that, the entire document seems to consist of incoherent waffle.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are they protecting themselves ...

    ... from someone else who has a patent on full-stops and paragraphs?

    A method of providing notification of impending delivery of a shipment shipped by a shipper to a shipping address specified by a customer, comprising: periodically querying, by a broker computer system independent of the shipper and a merchant and which enabled the customer to purchase an item contained in the shipment from the merchant, a shipper computer system to obtain status information for the shipment with each query, wherein a periodic query of the shipment computer system comprises: requesting status information from the shipper computer system by providing a shipment identifier of the shipment to the shipper computer system; and receiving status information in response thereto; responsive to status information obtained with a periodic query indicating an estimated delivery date for the shipment, halting, by the broker computer system, the periodic queries and scheduling the restart of periodic queries of the shipper computer system a day prior to the estimated delivery date; restarting, by the broker computer system, periodic queries of the shipper computer system the day prior to the estimated delivery date to obtain updated status information with each query; responsive to updated status information obtained with a periodic query indicating that the shipment is out for delivery to the customer, halting, by the broker computer system, the periodic queries and calculating an estimated delivery time for the shipment based at least in part on the status information; and sending, by the broker computer system, an electronic message including the estimated delivery time to the customer.

  10. Nick Galloway
    Paris Hilton

    Emigrate to the US...

    ... and patent a chair. I think I could probably make a lot of money claiming compensation from all those people out there infriginging on my 'idea'.

    I thought the UN and the Olympic committee were losing relevance but the USPTO really has entered a whole new world of fantasy that makes the other look very muc in touch with the real world!

  11. Suburban Inmate
    WTF?

    WTF next?

    Electronic Error Notification?

    <homer> MMMMmmmmm...... Blue Screen Of Dosh! </homer>

  12. bertino
    Pint

    A Method To Fix The US Patent System.

    I am patenting this, so if they implement it I should get money for every patent application....

    The US patent office only gets paid when they REJECT the patent application. This will force them do some research and find a reason to not to grant the patent in order to get paid.

    Now this may result in no patents being granted at all, but hey ho........

    Trebles all round!

  13. Shane Kent

    Someone should patent...

    make computing device run faster and/or easier to use. One patent to rule them all, lol.

  14. Eguro
    Thumb Up

    A master plan

    I think I'll patent the process of getting a patent.

    Or more precisely I'll patent:

    The process whereby a person, company, or other, may claim sole rights to distribution, supervision, development and employment of any thing, idea, product, thought process, or other, that they will want to market; to ensure full customer and manufacturer satisfaction, the patent must be legitimate for all previous development of previously mentioned product, idea, thought process etc. To ensure fairness for all a static price will be used to charge for any and all patent claims - 1% of a person's, company's, or other's net worth for every year they continue to use any one patent.

  15. Steven Roper
    FAIL

    That patent won't apply in Australia

    since my company's been doing exactly what this patent describes on our own website since 2006, and we have the documentation to prove it. I know, because I wrote much of the code that does it. We have prior art on this one. I'm not surprised though, that with all the patent grubbing going on in the last few years, that someone should sooner or later come up with one that we've already done first.

  16. Jim Birch
    Black Helicopters

    The patent system is crazy.

    The patent system needs to be subverted. The big patent holders have it sown up to everyone's cost. It won't improve until it becomes unworkable for the big players. It's a pity Google don't have a patent on the electronic submission of patents.

    Patents are supposed to support real invention, not be a land grab by the powerful. Software patents are the worst case. There's very few patents that a few smart people couldn't reinvent in a few hours - or minutes - when presented with the problem. They are incremental improvements in systems that fail any realistic obviousness test.

  17. goodthankyou
    Coat

    learner

    I think a number of logistics companies backed by some big names are going to be shelling out to use my idea or risk having their operatives turn up at people's houses stark naked!

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