Slashdot Mirror
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.
My first thought on this was that one of the criteria of granting a patent is that the concept is "non-obvious". And when I saw that one of the patents was "Ordering Items Using an Electronic Catalogue", I thought "that's very obvious!".
Based on the number, it's the earliest one, and the article summary says the patents go back to the '80s. TFA says it was filed in 1990. Was it so non-obvious then? If we think back to the "dawn of the public Internet", and realize this was before the general public was let loose on it, it might seem so.
But, while the Internet was still the domain of geeks, academics, and scientists, and not open to the public, there were still lots of online services like Prodigy, CompuServe, and AOL back then, and IIRC, they had some nascent e-commerce going on, including catalog ordering, back then and before that. It would be interesting to see if that patent could be challenged on the basis of prior art and how that prior art evidence could be gathered.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Indeed. Actualy, considering IBM's track record, which while not perfect, is not quit in line with a patent troll...I wouldn't be surprised if the ONLY reason they used this against Amazon, is because Amazon does the same thing to others.
I have no idea whether this is true or not, but it's a decent story anyway.
IBM is negotiating with Sun regarding a patent of some sort (which one doesn't matter). Sun goes through this whole dog-and-pony about exactly where Sun's patent comes into play and how much it's going to cost IBM.
Long silence.
An IBM lawyer clears his throat and says they're going to go back to Armonk and dig through their thousands of patents and see just which ones Sun has violated since the company started.
IBM gets the patent license for free.
Like I said, no idea if it's true or not, but it's illustrative of the power of IBM and their patent catalog.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
I suspect the same. Amazon has a pretty sketchy track record as far as patents go, and while IBM isn't perfect, they have been turning loose alot of their projects into the OSS world and generally playing nice with the OSS crowd. I think while they are also serving their own interests, they deserve some credit for their handling of a certain fiaSCO.
It may be my wishful thinking, but fair and honest business practices don't always cause the fastest growth, they do tend to lead to the best long term growth. So IBM just may be swinging the big stick to get Amazon back in line.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
"Live by the sword, die by the sword."
Of course, with IBM's patent portfolio, they can match you sword-for-sword and still have fifteen thousand left to swing at you after you've run out.
Which won't protect them from any of those patent litigation firms, but then there's still the sheer megatonnage of IBM's legal department to contend with.
It's not quite that simple. Amazon is an IBM customer, both for hardware and services. IBM would like to be able to say to potential customers that Amazon uses their stuff, but if Amazon sues anyone that does business like Amazon, IBM's stuck with having only Amazon in that department and it turns what would be a marketing asset into a marketing liability.
Basically, Amazon's attempt to enforce their "one-click" patent is driving business away from Big Blue.
People are thinking that IBM bought these patents or just went fishing. I'm sure these patents are from the IBM-Sears joint Prodigy service. Prodigy really was ahead of its time in many of its concepts.
I have worked at IBM as an intern and they have a very strong culture of encouraging patents. They even have a RPG-like level system where you get points and bonuses for every patent you file. A lof of the patents I heard about that people had filed where very obvious and simple and/or probably useless. It makes you wonder if IBM actually benifits financialy from all their patents, however, the manager type people I spoke to all said they make IBM LOADS of money. IBM really really loves patents.
Part of it is that IBM's patents from the 70s on really basic things that are now in every computer are expiring and they want to replenish their porfolio.
Reminds me feynman:
"There are so many ideas about nuclear energy that are so perfectly obvious, that I'd be here all day telling you stuff," [Feynman says in exasperation to "a very nice fella" from the U.S. Patent Office visiting him at Los Alamos.] "Example: nuclear reactor...under water...water goes in...steam goes out the other side...Pshshshsht -- it's a submarine. Or: nuclear reactor...air comes rushing in the front...heated up by nuclear reaction...out the back it goes...Boom! Through the air -- it's an airplane. Or: nuclear reactor...you have hydrogen go through the thing...Zoom! -- it's a rocket....There's a million ideas!" I said, as I went out the door."
a few months later the attorney told him: "That the submarine was taken... but the nuclear rocket and airplane are yours!"
"Some of the patents in question go back to the 80s..."
Wow, I thought that patents were fairly short lived! Can someone tell a layman how long can software patents potentially crush innovation?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
So does US 5,446,891 - Adjusting Hypertext Links with Weighted User Goals and Activities. mean that Google might be infringing also?
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
I used to work for Sears, and I thought it really unfortunate that they closed down the famous 'Sears Catalog' shortly before the Internet took off.
If that shipping infrastructure remained in place, but just added a Web front end, they could have been THE online store, with their brand recognition.
That was the year the US Government needed a faster, better, more accurate method to tally the census figures for the nation. By constitutional mandate, it was decreed that the census needed to be counted every 10 years. The census prior to the 1890 census had just been totalled by the time 1890 rolled around (it took 7 years to total the 1880 census) - it was feared that the new census would not be totalled before the next one was due, putting everything further behind. A new system was needed.
After various trials and tests, Herman Hollerith's electro-mechanical tabulation system, utilizing punch cards, won the day, processing the census in 2.5 years. His company and machines went on to perform many other functions with businesses (most notably with railroads and some department stores), governments, and other institutions which needed such processing.
Hollerith's company, the Tabulating Machine Company, later merged with others and was named the Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) Corporation. Later, under the direction of Thomas J. Watson, the company was renamed "IBM".
Is it really any wonder about their patent portfolio regarding information technology?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon