Blog homeWO/2005/013165 - System and method for making a reservation and/or purchase….. it doesn’t exactly slip off the tongue - however this is the name of the international patent whose abstract is as follows:
A method of making a reservation comprising providing a terminal having a display and arranged to display at least two of the following display items:
i. a calendar display;
ii. a room type selector;
iii. the number of occupants;
iv. the age of the occupants;
v. availability
vi. price.The method further comprising connecting the terminal to a server that provides a data feed to the terminal such that should any one of the display items be altered then the remaining display items are updated accordingly. The data feed provides objects from an object database which are sent to the terminal and reassembled thereon in order to generate the display items.
Here is a bit more detail:
An advantage of such a method is that it allows for greater flexibility and reusability of the display items, and lower terminal resource requirements such as bandwidth, memory and CPU processing time.
The method may automatically handle reservations via user-friendly, interactive, interfaces, which are browser-based, web-enabled, thin client.
This method is advantageous because it may eliminate the need for multiple-forms and separate clickable pages, typical of existing, industry standard products and legacy systems.
Not only does the patent cover hotels, but also:
… the skilled person will appreciate that it may equally be used to make other reservations including any of the following: camp sites; hostels; bed and breakfast; booked services; hire equipment; tours; recreational pursuits, seats (including for travel and performances) and the like.
You can find the full detail of the patent on the World Intellectual Property Organization website. Here is a direct link to the patent
The important part of the patent application is that no new web pages are required to be loaded in order to progress down the reservation process. This could therefore cover, for example, any booking engines developed using concepts such as AJAX. (The patent expressly excludes Flash as Flash is proprietary although I don’t understand the subtlety as to why this makes a difference)
What happens if you produce a website or software that breaks a patent?
You could end up paying millions of dollars to the patent owner. This is even if you have developed the technology without knowing that someone else in the world has patented a similar invention.
So - are you worried yet?
No need to panic! I have just read the International Preliminary Report on Patentability (which I think is lawyer speak for “our opinion on whether it is OK or not”). They say it is not!
It looks like it has failed the Novelty and Inventive Step requirements on all 32 counts.
Disclaimer
Do I really need to repeat again that I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice? Probably not…. oh well - done it now.
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Aside from the utter silliness involved in a patent like this, I wish they’d get the terminology right - technically I beleive it would be a thick client in this instance.