IBM Sues Amazon for Violating Patents

Found on eWEEK on Sunday, 22 October 2006
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IBM is suing Amazon.com, accusing the bookseller turned Web megastore of knowingly using IBM's techniques for selling things online. Initially at issue was an IBM request for hundreds of millions of dollars in license fees, but the federal court could expose Amazon to even stiffer penalties.

IBM attorneys say they have been trying to negotiate with Amazon for more than four years-since September 2002-but talks did not go anywhere and Amazon ultimately stopped responding. "We have given them an opportunity over four years," said Gail Zarick, intellectual property counsel within corporate litigation at IBM.

The case traces its routes to 1988, Zarick said, when IBM started to patent a wide range of e-commerce techniques back when it owned Prodigy, which was an online service that predated the Web and was a rival to the early AOL and CompuServe.

"This is somewhat akin to patenting the concept of putting up storm shutters before a hurricane," said Cathy Hotka, senior vice president of technology and business development for the Retail Industry Leaders Association. "One should not be able to patent obvious business processes, like selling things. If these issues are not resolved, business innovation is in danger if the most obvious things can be reserved for one company."

Patenting obvious processes is dangerous for business, eh? Well, talk about Amazon's one-click patent or MS' todo-list patent. The whole system is flawed and needs to be completely re-created. Some people should raise their eyebrows when a "circular transportation facilitation device" patent is granted (and yes, an australian lawyer actually managed to get a patent for the wheel).