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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.
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.
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.
"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!