The self-described patent reform advocates at Amazon.com don't seem to have broken their habit of putting legal hooks on just about anything they dream up. Last Tuesday, Amazon was awarded a patent for "creating an incentive to author useful item reviews." The patent describes a method of "rewarding the authors of reviews found to be useful by their readers, such as by prominently displaying their names and ranks as authors of useful reviews prominently on the web merchant's web site." In practice, it's giving customers "badges" for writing product reviews based on whether others found the submission useful or not. (Kudos to Techdirt for the tip. We'd give you a badge to show our appreciation, but...) Such an (arguably) obvious idea handed off to the US Patent Office could probably be overlooked nowadays if not for the sweet...
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