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While adding those perfect holiday gift items into your Amazon.com shopping cart keep this in mind… all of the patents behind the magic. Here are 10 slightly creepy patents you might come across with your next online purchase, all owned by Amazon. Enjoy!
Patent US 7,831,439
Amazon Patents System for Returning Unwanted Gifts“For each user that specifies gift conversion rules, the gift conversion rules define a manner in which gifts purchased for the user by other users may be converted.
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Patent US 8,046,266
Amazon Patents Gift Cards That Can Tattle On What You Buy“A gift instrument purchaser or other data source associates customization information such as redemption recommendations, restrictions, or other content with the gift instrument based on the gift instrument recipient. The customization information is presented to the gift instrument recipient upon redemption of the gift instrument.”
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Patent US 8,060,463
Amazon Patents Deducing Religion From Gift Wrap“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.)”
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Patent US 8,190,519
Patent: Electronic Gifting“A system includes a data store that stores electronically transferrable items available to be purchased as gifts … The computing device is operative to receive a selection by a giver of a specified electronically transferrable item to be presented to a recipient as a gift.”
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Patent US 7,130,820
Patent: Methods and systems of assisting users in purchasing items“The age range for the gift recipient is estimated based at least in part on a customer order history of gifts purchased by the customer for the gift recipient.”
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Patent US 8,234,177
Patent: Automated Gifting“The facility automatically selects a proposed gift for the indicated occasion based on at least the received selection criteria and, in the absence of further direction from the gifter, sends the gift to the recipient.”
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Patent US 6,175,823
Patent: Electronic gift certificate system“When a gift certificate recipient selects such a hyperlink, the recipient’s computer automatically transmits a claim code to the merchant’s Web site, and the site responds by automatically crediting the recipient’s personal account with the gift certificate amount.”
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Patent US 8,244,598
Patent: Using inferred information about recurring gift giving events of users to provide messaging to affilated users“automatically reminds a first user who is affiliated with a second user when a known or inferred gift-giving event of the second user is approaching. The reminder may include a link to a wish list of the second user, and/or may include or provide a link for viewing personalized gift recommendations for the second user.”
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Amazon Patent US 8,615,473
Patent: Method and system for anticipatory package shipping“method may include packaging one or more items as a package for eventual shipment to a delivery address, selecting a destination geographical area to which to ship the package, shipping the package to the destination geographical area without completely specifying the delivery address at time of shipment”
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Patent Application US 20060178946
Patent Application: Providing gift clustering functionality to assist a user in ordering multiple items for a recipient“a user can specify multiple items to be associated together as a gift cluster, and can also specify a variety of descriptive information about the gift cluster. That user or another user can then order the gift cluster as a gift for themselves or for another recipient, and may also order the gift cluster for the same or different recipients multiple times.”
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