Amazon gets flak from Little People over ‘dwarf-tossing’ robot patent

Patent sketch, using a dwarf figurine as an example, of Amazon's robotic system for moving warehouse goods. (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)

To this country's people of unusually small stature, dwarf tossing is an insult and, according to Little People of America, “objectifies the entire dwarf community”. 

That didn't stop Amazon inventors from using a hypothetical dwarf figurine to illustrate the operations of a newly patented warehouse-robotics system that “tosses” inventory items into bins.