Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick




And Then There Was One: Only One One-Click Patent

from the amazon-keeps-the-ring dept

Last year a company sued Amazon.com, claiming that Amazon's infamous one-click patent actually infringed on their own electronic transaction patent. A court has tossed out the suit, leaving Amazon.com as the one true holder of the one-click patent.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

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    Nov 22nd, 2005 @ 6:47pm
  • Am I the only one..

    by discojohnson

    ..that has 0 trust in the patenting system? How can someone patent this idea? Can I patent shaking twice when a guy goes pee?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Nov 23rd, 2005 @ 10:27am
  • well...

    by Anonymous Coward

    granted i think the patent system is faulty for allowing this to be patented, but i think for the most part that amazon.com patented it just so no one can sue them later (though, i guess that didn't work that well). there are plenty of places that you really only need one click to buy (look at the iTunes music store). amazon.com has yet to sue someone for that.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Nov 23rd, 2005 @ 5:06pm
  • learn correct terminology

    by small guy

    Mike, you are at it again...
    talking about patents and not knowing much about them...
    First, a patent cannot infringe on somebody else's patent: only product can infringe on a patent, so the patent holder can sue for patent infringement.
    There is a procedure called "interference", when two different patent applications claims the same subject matter. But this is all handled by the PTO: they are supposed to determine which patent is valid.
    Second, as much as I hate Amazon.com and their patents myself, believe me, 1-click patent is actually a *good* patent when you compare it to a typical patent issued to e.g. MicroShit...
    Yes, it is a *good* patent, despite all the hysteria. After all, Tim O'Reily issued an apology to Jeff Bezos for calling a boycott on amazon.com when the prior art search bounty failed to produce anything of importance...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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