Stupid: Amazon Tries to Patent mod_rewrite
Posted by Jon Lee in Offtopic, tags: amazon, mod_rewrite, patent
A few days ago, Amazon applied for a patent for “Search engine system supporting inclusion of unformatted search string after domain name portion of URL“. This means a search engine that will allow users to enter a query as part of the URL and it will perform a search on that query.
For example, to perform a search, one would enter the following into the address bar
http://www.somesearchengine.com/bacon recipe
will lead directly to the search results for “bacon recipe” instead of an actual folder on the site named “bacon recipe”.
This will save you a page load per search which can be substantial but I doubt it will catch on without some mass marketing and a very short domain name which Amazon actually has with A9.
My real gripe with this is the fact that this already exists and people have been using it for years! Amazon did not invent it, it’s been around nearly as long as the Internet. Here is Amazon’s so called technology in one line inside .htaccess:
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+) /search.php?query=$1 [L]
Essentially, Amazon is trying to patent mod_rewrite!
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