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IBM Sues Amazon For Patent Infringement

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the they-did-it-first dept.

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."

5 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Patents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

  2. Statement should read... by iSeal · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.
  3. Re:OneClick? by Serveert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  4. Re:Good news? by Tim+C · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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