Amazon's patents and the book as technology

1. Modelling the Book:
Amazon’s patents and
the book as
technology
Simon Rowberry

2. Term Collocates
Online 2,251
Retailer 1,911
Giant 722
Technology 658
Threat 113
Behemoth 51
Bully 2
Select Amazon collocations from the BYU NOW Corpus
The Nature of
the Beast

3. “Amazon is a technology
company. We just happen to
do retail. Everything Amazon
does is driven by deep
technology stacks.”
Werner Vogels
Chief Technology Officer,
Amazon

4. The Book
Historical
Corporation

5. ASINs and
bookish
relationships
Book
B00FI9JFFO
Author
B0095BUYAQ
Reader
A2KEKKJ9CAC2KC

6. Virtualisation

7. One-click

8. Amazon’s
patent filings
(granted only)

9. 1995-1997 1998-2000 2001-2003 2004-2006 2007-2009 2010-2012 2013-2016
card auction pay task computing device inventory
credit search content storage network data producer
associate gift marketplace embodiments virtual session second
data items fulfillment configured device storage holder
order recipient page data module gateway first
said bid inventory ws can power cryptographic
telephone item product traffic communication blob electrowetting
point terms image tasks dns antenna parsed
purchaser category listings path address element leasing
confidential facility plan mobile execution ncc fluid
3 year moving average keywords from corpus of granted patents

10. Lab126
Lab126
AWS
Patent
assignees’
locations
1997-2011

11. Online retail
Amazon Web Services
Security Data mining
Hardware: wireless
Undefined
Hardware: interface
Patent classes
1997-2011

12. US 8,018,431
Page turner for handheld
electronic book reader device
29 March 2006
1. Navigation

13. Pagination
US 9,116,657
Invariant Referencing in Digital
Works
18 November 2010

14. 3D Navigation
US 9,026,932
Edge navigation user interface
16 April 2010

15. 2. Bibliography
Collation
US 9,069,767
Aligning content items to
identify differences
17 March 2011

16. US 9268734
Errata
US 9,268,734
Selecting Content-
Enhancement Applications
14 March 2011

17. Book covers
US 8,898,566
Last screen rendering for
electronic book readers
23 March 2011

18. Enhanced
editions
US 8,478,662
Customized electronic books
with supplemental content
24 November 2010

19. Paratext under
pressure
US 8,477,109
Surfacing reference work
entries on touch-sensitive
displays
24 June 2010

20. 3. Social reading
The @uthor Q&A
US 9,183,172
Author interactions using
online social networks
22 June 2011

21. Kindle book club
US 8,892,630
Facilitating discussion group
formation and interaction
29 September 2008

22. Location-based
recommendations
US 8,510,247
Recommendations on media
content items based on
geolocation and venue
30 June 2009

23. Reader Analytics
US 9,153,141
Recommendations based on
progress data
30 June 2009

24. Modelling the Book:
Amazon’s patents and
the book as
technology
Simon Rowberry