Vaseline, sir? Orange flower?
In the real world, lending a book to a friend or selling your used music collection isn’t exactly groundbreaking. In the digital world, it’s patentable.
Amazon.com has been awarded what appears to be a broad patent on a “secondary market for digital objects” — a system for users to sell, trade and loan digital objects including audio files, eBooks, movies, apps, and pretty much anything else.
The patent, originally filed in 2009 and granted on Jan. 29, covers transferring digital goods among users, setting limits on transfers and usage, charging an associated fee, and other elements of a marketplace for “used” digital goods.
