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IBM Sues Amazon For Patent Infringement
A large number of readers wrote in about IBM suing Amazon over commerce patents. The Ars Technica coverage linked is one of the few sources that goes beyond the brief AP or Reuters stories that everyone is running. Here is IBM's press release. Some of the patents in question go back to the 80s and they do seem to pretty much wrap up the idea of online commerce, if they prove valid. IBM says many others are licensing the patents but Amazon won't give them the time of day on the subject.
As crazy as this patent insanity gets, I can't help but think of the phrase, "Live by the sword, die by the sword."
IBM just wants amazon to let them use the heralded one-click "invention" without royalties. this is their first offer.
US 5,319,542 - Ordering Items Using an Electronic Catalogue.
Too bad Sears Roebuck didn't have the same idea a century ago, eh? Then non-inperson sales would never have existed...
It hasn't since business methods and software have been patented. Check out the Eastern District of Texas. This is a popular venue for patent litigation plaintiffs. They apparently aren't inclined to waste a lot of time reviewing the original appropriateness of patents in the cases they hear. What's with the two seperate courts?
It would be interesting, but, in the long run, ultimately futile.
I for one do not beleive patents are in and of themselves a bad thing. The problem with patents is that the best way to use them, business-wise, is to patent obvious things, obfuscate that in your application, and then sue, sue, sue. There are ways to reward innovation that do not encourage this model, however, and that is what we should adopt.
So, how? I would argue that we should use a method in which patents are universal, that is, a patent holder can either keep everyone from using his patent, or no one. Thus, the impetus is on the filer to file a good patent, so that a company or a consortium of companies (or, potentially, the USPTO if they weren't such a mess) would buy/liberate/open the patent. At that point, it would be open competition on the free market. Companies would no doubt try and pay as little as possible for patents, but that's the case as well today. The gains would be well worth it: Patent litigation would center on only issues of innovation and prior art, not on licensing follies. Innovating companies could continue to do full-time innovation, and the public would see dramatically reduced prices.
I'm sure I'm missing things, of course, so feel free to point them out...
groupthink: It's good for self-esteem.
Normally I'd say you have a point, because I agree that the patent system is a load of BS, but at the time in which the patent was filed, I would very much doubt that e-commerce was as "fundamental" as you make it out to be.
Ask your grandfather if he could have forseen people ordering something from his home with the click of a button and have it arrive at his house in the morning.
Is this seriously all you have to do?
I'm going to patent "interacting in an interactive environment" and let the $ roll in for my 'patent'. Or maybe I can patent "doing stuff"? Or has that been taken already?
What's more concerning, does this mean if I create my own shopping cart, review system, or recommendation system, that I can get sued from IBM? If I build my own car, will I get sued by Ford or GM? I guess I'll have to have sheep with lazers on their heads as "aquatic animals with lasers on their heads" might have been patented by now.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
``IBM Sues Amazon For Patent Infringement''
And so it begins...
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Normally I'd say you have a point, because I agree that the patent system is a load of BS, but at the time in which the patent was filed, I would very much doubt that e-commerce was as "fundamental" as you make it out to be.
Name a form of communication that has NOT been used for commerce.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
I remember a similar story between Nokia and Toshiba (not sure about the second name, but it was Nokia for sure since I was working there at the time). Toshiba came in with an army of lawyers to dispute some mobile phone patent and was going to make Nokia pay. The single Nokia lawyer said, "We're happy to review all of your patent claims in detail. While we do, I wonder if you might look over our portfolio of patents in the Television industry?"
Oops.. ok.. let's just forget the whole thing.
IBM's patent portfolio is truly frightening in that the only thing preventing it from doing massive harm to the industry is self restraint and the enlightened self interest of wanting to remain relevant in the industry. Let's just hope their business never goes south. If you thought that the IP trolls that make money by buying the patents portfolios of failed start-ups was bad, just imagine the hell that will be unleashed if IBM enters a downward spiral and decides to "refocus the company revenue strategies on their intellectual property licensing opportunities".
The title of a patent is intentionally broad. The issue is that otherwise patent infringer's can argue in court that they earnestly looked for applicable patents before they implemented their widget but they couldn't find any such patents. They will argue that if they did infringe they did so by accident. (Patent holders get thrice damage from infringer's who willfully infringe compared to infringer's who do so by accident.) A patent holder doesn't care to entertain such arguments so they intentionally title their patents very broadly, thus ameliorating the issue.
IBM is a company interested in making proffit. they are neither good or evil. The existance of Linux is highly proffitable for them, so they encourage it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with them believing in open source as such.
Its scope is not all that much narrower than the title.
Sure, when you exclude claims 9 through 14, as well as ignore what was already cited as background art in section 2. B2C style e-commerce as typically implemented today is not claimed by this patent, having been already cited as background art using Prodigy as an example.
A more interesting area to examine is the Objects:
So while the title is broad, the fact is that the actual text of the patent probably only applies to 1% of the catalog based e-commerce going on today.
I find it mind-boggling that slashdot commenters frequently jump to conclusions, quickly skimming a short document looking for something that, out of context, might weakly fit a preconceived notion.