IBM Sues Amazon For Patent Infringement

Petersko writes "It appears Amazon is about to be sued for patent infringement by IBM". From the article: "Hundreds of other companies have licensed the same patents, and IBM has tried to negotiate licensing deals with Amazon "over a dozen times since 2002," Kelly said. Amazon.com, which has bought a lot of hardware from Hewlett-Packard Co. over the years but not IBM, has allegedly refused every time."

Comments

Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Our system has become based on the ridiculous premise that all inventors come up with ideas that nobody else could possibly have come up with.

The patents system has devolved to be that if you are the first to file a piece of paper .. regardless of how obvious your idea is .. you win a monopoly on it for 20 years (with possible infinite extension via mickey mouse legislators).

Just because you are the first to invent something, doesn't mean society would have been deprived of your invention were it not for you. It just means you got there first (thanks to better resources available to you). It's like a winner of a race claiming that if it wasn't for him, nobody else would have crossed the finish line.

Re:Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree.

A good analogy would be the development of a race car. IBM is like the company that perhaps developed a car or two. Reasonable patents would probably be on the engine design, electronics, etc. Instead, however, the patent office has granted it the patent to "race cars"; disallowing anyone else from developing their own engines, electronics, or what have you, and putting it all together.

Is the difference so hard to comprehend in technological contexts that the patent board is unable to differentiate between the two?

Re:Patents

[QuantumG]

Sigh. If I were to ask you how to do some technical task, without telling you how I am doing it, and you were to tell me my method, then it would be fair to say that it is obvious.. simple != obvious.

Re:Patents

[bonhomme_de_neige]

Sigh. If I were to ask you how to do some technical task, without telling you how I am doing it, and you were to tell me my method, then it would be fair to say that it is obvious.. simple != obvious.

Unfortunately it's a prisoners' dilemma, because once I've told you the method, it's easy for you to claim that was what you were going to do anyway, and I have no way of proving otherwise.

Similarly, if you tell me your method first then it's easy for me to claim _that_ as what I was going to tell you. Whoever volunteers the information first risks having their idea claimed by the other person.

So this test would never happen in practice (about anything you might seriously want to patent anyway), and thus we need different measures of obviousness (new word?)...

Although I agree that a lot of things that are not obvious can be described in one sentence, once you know what they are. Gravity is a good example - it took thousands of years for someone to write down a theory, but that theory is one sentence long.

Statement should read...

[iSeal]

The first paragraph in the article states:

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Key aspects of Amazon.com Inc.'s retailing Web site are improperly built on technologies developed at IBM Corp., Big Blue alleged Monday in two lawsuits against Amazon.

It should read:

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Key aspects of Amazon.com Inc.'s retailing Web site are improperly built on very general concepts involving technology developed at IBM Corp., Big Blue alleged Monday in two lawsuits against Amazon.

Simple solution

[edwardpickman]

Make lawyers a minimum wage job. All the lawsuits are costing the public a fortune and has placed the court system in perminate gridlock. We need to concentrate on crime not petty squabbling. Patents should be for significant inventions not every minor thing some one thinks up. Often times there's no thieft involved it's simply such an obvious idea that others are recovering the same ground and haven't a clue some suit ape patented the idea. Patents should help spur innovantion. If they don't they aren't in the publics interest. Patents are a creation for the publics interest and are not in the Constitution so when they work against the public they need to be revised. There is no inherent right to patents. I'm a big supporter of inventors rights but these aren't inventions they are similar to cybersquatting and need to removed from the patent process.

Re:Simple solution

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Patents are a creation for the publics interest and are not in the Constitution so when they work against the public they need to be revised.

Um, actually:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

I agree with you entirely that we need to revise the way and extent to which patents are issued, but the fact is that the issuance and enforcement of patents (along with copyrights) is one of the fundamental purposes of the US government, as defined by the Constitution. (You can of course start an effort to get that section amended; good luck with that.) A better approach is to look at the explanatory clause -- "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" -- and start ruthlessly revising those sections of IP law which do not work toward that goal.

Step 1: if it's not a physical object, a working model of which can be presented at the time of filing, don't grant a patent. Period. End of story. No software algorithms, no "business methods," no DNA sequences, etc. -- software can go copyright; the other two examples shouldn't get IP protection at all -- and no speculative ideas for something that someone might want to make someday, either.

Step 2: deem any patents which are not being actively exploited to be unenforceable, and the IP represented in them to be public domain. IOW, if you have a patent on something, you have to be either distributing it on the market, or be able to show that you're working toward the goal. Otherwise, everyone else gets a shot too.

Step 3: require patent holders to defend their patents, as is the case with trademarks. If the patent holder could reasonably be expected to be aware of a violation -- as IBM certainly could be expected to be aware of Amazon -- require them to begin legal action within one (1) year or forfeit the claim.

These three steps, if followed, would I think substantially reduce the amount of patent bullshit which is currently doing the exact opposite of "promoting] the Progress of Science and useful Arts." The lawyers whose clients still have a legitimate claim would still have plenty of work. Similar though not identical reform is needed for copyrights and trademarks; Step 1 in the former case is reducing the term of copyright to 20 years or so and keeping it there.

Re:What is everyone thinking?

[Dr. Evil]

Problems with that theory:

• As soon as you come up with a good idea, you'll be sued into submission by a large company's patent warchest
• Small companies don't even have the money or time to pursue patent lawsuits, so if a big company did take your idea, you'd be tied up in court until you were broke... or they launched a countersuit (see above)

Re:Not all ideas are like this

[Wolfier]

This is off-topic because ideas on their own cannot be patented.  Only implementations can be.  In the special case where the implementation is the same as the idea (e.g. look and feel), those *should* be protected by copyright instead.

In your examples, idea for a UI, Napster, YouTube - they have their specific implementations and only those are patentable (I'm sure there are at least 50 ways of implementing user interface, napster, youtube, slashdot or digg).

If you think these ideas are somewhat original, then let me tell you that ideas are a dime a dozen.  Don't worth anything at all unless it's elevated into something tangible, like an implementation.

Unless, of course, you may be confusing between an idea and an implementation.  Sometimes the line is blurred but it certainly exists.  Napster and YouTube - they have good business ideas.  Slashdot and Digg - the idea is a "community system" (which, again is a dime a dozen), but Slashdot and Digg are implementing it differently.

good cop bad cop

[rgaginol]

I'm lost... which company is the good cop now and which one is bad cop? Oh that's right, companies don't care, they just want more money - I keep forgetting that quintessential fact about a company.

Re:What is everyone thinking?

[edbarbar]

The patent system wasn't invented to protect the little guy. It was invented to protect society.

In your note above, you say going it alone might take so long to get there someone else scoops you. In that case, you want to protect that you got there first, or patented the idea first. Patents weren't designed to protect the person that gets there first.

In terms of getting funding for an idea, in my experience VCs fund teams and markets first, and ideas second. I do have some sympathy with this part of your argument, but not a tremendous amount. If your ideas are really good, they will fund you precisely because you can come up with good ideas.

CIA, spooks, etc.? Pulease. Patents aren't about protecting information, they are about releasing information but protecting ideas.

Re:But. . . wait a second!

[Wolfier]

Good guy or not, it depends on what they do with the patents, not that they hold a lot of patents.

In suing Amazon, are they trying to sue away a competitor? Don't think so. Are they trying to extort money? Given IBM's size, I doubt it.

On the flip side of the coin, IBM is pro-OSS at this moment, and I'm glad that IBM has so many patents.

Re:OneClick?

[daterabytez]

If anything, this is a perfect example of why Amazon must keep patents. Our patent system is so broke the only way to defend yourself from "evil" companies like SCO is to stock your own ammunition.

It's like nuclear proliferation, until every company in the world signs a treaty, you have to continue to stockpile patents. Amazon officials have said in numerous interviews, patents are taken whenever they can be granted under the current (broken) system to prevent someone else from patenting an idea and turning around and suing THEM.

• See Jeff's comments here: http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2000/ bezos_0300.html
• And other links here: http://www.oreilly.com/news/patent_archive.html

Amazon is not playing the IP company (like SCO and others) that sits around and looks for people to sue, they sue when needed to protect their patents, which they taken whenever possible to protect themselves from being on the other end of the warhead. If we could just fix this broke system none of this would be needed. As long as the patent office will allow something like 1-Click to be patented, companies like IBM, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, eBay, and others must aggressively seek patents just to protect themselves.

Re:OneClick?

[Serveert]

Getting the 1 click patent was about protection, sure. Except it used it to stop a competitor, a competitor who wasn't threatening any patent lawsuits. I see this lawsuit against Amazon as a way to punish Amazon for their past behavior. I kinda like this lawsuit actually.

Re:Good news?

[Tim C]

What was I talking about again?

I'm not entirely sure; I think you were talking about how utterly evil and despised IBM used to be, how there's no guarantee that this isn't the first sign of a return to form, and that they are the world's most prolific software patentors, but you seem to have been distracted by an utterly irrelevant swipe at MS.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all that IBM has been doing lately, but understand this - they're not doing it because they're nice guys, they're doing it because it makes them money. If that were to change, so would their tactics. They're nice to us *now*; we cna only hope that they continue being nice.