Amazon & Barnes and Noble Settle One-Click Dispute

rtphokie writes: "C|Net is reporting that Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com have settled the over 2 year old lawsuit over the expedited ordering process known as '1-Click' ordering on Amazon's site and 'Express Checkout' on Barnes and Noble's. Details of the settlement are (of course) unavailable."

Comments

Will this affect other sites?

[_Ash_]

The outcome of the settlement is most certainly very important. If Barnes & Noble licenses Amazons technology or if Barnes & Noble have paid some amount of money, lots and lots of other websites can expect legal action from Amazon. After all, there are tons of sites which use the 1-click technology.

stock holders, etc.

[Alien54]

The Barnes and Noble corporate site doesn't have a press release yet. For that matter, neither does Amazon, although I would expect someone to say something, if for no other reason than they are both publicly traded, and it will be difficult to keep things completely under wraps.

After all, this is something that involves huge amounts of money. and investors/owners will want to know some details.

Amazon Sued by Half-Click Patent Owner

[guttentag]

I keep waiting to see Amazon get sued by the owner of the Half-Click patent, because every "One Click" is really two half-clicks. Once that story breaks, I'm sure they'll have a real field day with DoubleClick.

I guess the half-click people are somewhat slow. It's hard to get things done when you're busy holding the mouse button down with one hand.

BountyQuest 1-click contest results revisited

[Seth Finkelstein]

In light of this result, it's interesting to go back and review an old interview about the BountyQuest 1-click patent contest, back in April 2001 :

On March 14, 2001, BountyQuest announced that while no one had uncovered the prior art that would invalidate Amazon's 1-click patent , a few were able to surface information that could make the patent more difficult to enforce A pyhrric victory? Perhaps, but one that has called attention to the exponential growth in overly-broad and often questionable patents.

It isn't obvious to me whether the contest helped (by turning up near-prior-art), or hurt (by letting Amazon claim a PR victory). Just food for thought in view of the settlement.

What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

I imagine it happening like this...

[mystery_bowler]

Amazon's Top Lawyer: Look, we know you guys want to do the whole 'One-Click' thing. But we got a patent on it. We have to protect it. How would we look to other companies if we didn't? Like big wussies, that's how we'd look.

B&N's Top Lawyer: But your patent is too broad and ill-defined. You knew you were taking advantage of the patent office's ignorance toward technology. And we're pissed off enough about it to get it over-turned. And if you think inactivity would make you look like wussies, over-turning your patents is going to make you look like money-grubbing vampires.

ATL: We don't have to go through this, you know. You could just pay a nominal license fee...

BNTL: Yeah, and you could lick my #expletive#.

ATL: Oh come on, is that really necessary? It wouldn't hurt your bottom line in the least.

BNTL: It's the principal of the thing.

ATL: Ok, then. What's your idea of a compromise?

BNTL: Ideally, all of you out of a job. But since it's not an ideal world, how about this: We don't pay a license fee and do the 'One-Click' thing anyway.

ATL: Alright, alright. But only if you sign an agreement to never co-operate with, testify for or help any other company we come down on to protect this patent.

BNTL: Only if Bezos goes public and says he's in favor of patent reform.

Bezos: What?!?

ATL: You've GOT to be kidding.

BNTL: Nope. And say it like you mean it.

<Some general grumbling on the Amazon side of the table>

ATL: Deal. But don't ever have the same book of the month as we do!

BNTL: We've got no problem with that.

<End scene>

Re:Details of the settlement are unavailable

[weston]

I would be interested in discovering exactly how they settled this.

One wonders if there shouldn't be a law REQUIRING public disclosure of any settlement for any patent related suit. After all, patents were once ostensibly about stimulating general progress and the public interest, so it's a public interest matter.