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

Almost a month old

[jpetts]

Dupe.

Re:Almost a month old

[LiquidCoooled]

Its not a dupe, IBM had to double sue because Amazon have a patent on single click lawsuits.

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]

On slashdot it doesn't matter if you're the first to do it, no-one else had ever thought of doing it, and no-one knew how to do it until you did it.. if the method can be explained in a sentence this audience is more than willing to call it "obvious" then make some claim about how something completely unrelated (that is also obvious) could be covered by the patent under question and therefore declare that not only will the lawsuit fail but the patent will be revoked by royal decree.

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

[trentblase]

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 system is not premised on the idea that nobody else could have come up with the idea. The system encourages people to take their ideas and reduce them to practice. Having the invention filed with the government exposes the knowledge to the public, who benefit where the alternative is keeping the details a secret.

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).

Unlike some other countries, the US is not a first-to-file jurisdiction. Instead, it is a first-to-invent jurisdiction, generally giving rights to the first person to come up with the idea. Furthermore, obviousness is a bar to patentability (although a challenger is not allowed the benefit of hindsight when making this obviousness determination). Except in very strange circumstances (usually involving government appropriation of defense-related inventions) there is no way to extend patent rights beyond 20 years. The mickey mouse legislators you refer to are dealing with copyright. 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.

The limited rights given to a patent holder is one of the main incentives that drives the metaphorical race you describe. Without patents, things would surely be invented... just not as quickly. And once they were, the details would be kept completely secret, robbing value to society. Without patents, here's how the race would go: once the winner reaches the finish line, all the other runners are instantly transported to the finish line and given gold metals. So what is the incentive for any one runner to be first? Nobody would run. They would more likely meander indifferently towards the finish line.

I'm not some crazy lover of patents. I believe that some reform is in order. But the basic premise makes sense in our currently capitalist business environment.

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.

Here's a thought

[mutube]

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.

If the purpose really is to reward valuable invention (vs. obvious extension) then a simple answer is this: In the event of someone re-inventing something which has been previously awarded a patent, with no evidence of copying, there should be two options available to the patent holder.

• Add this new inventor to the patent & allow them equal share of licensing fees for it's remaining lifespan.
• Revoke the patent.

What is everyone thinking?

[Cauchy]

Ok, I understand the desire to hate bad patents and bad patent law, and I hate large corporations as much as the next guy---I made enough 'free' phone calls in my youth to prove that. But, seriously, the small guy needs patent law more than the big guy. I work creating ip as I am sure many of you do, and I have extensive experience working for startups including some without VC funding. The fact is that if I, as an individual or a very small business, come up with an idea, a patent may be my only line of protection. I don't have the money to develop it as fast as IBM or Microsoft or Google. I couldn't seek funding for an idea without ip law because the investors might just steal my idea. Patents and ip law are the ONLY protection I have from being completely screwed over.

When I was younger, I screamed 'information wants to be free' as loud as any of you. However, that was probably the dumbest idea ever to be voiced. Information is the most valuable asset in the world, and it always has been. People die for information all the time. The CIA, NSA, DIA, NRO, and all the other agencies we love to hate are solely about information. Wars are won and lost because of information. Societies succeed or disappear because of information. Information wants to cost you everything.

We may think the patent system is broken, but we do need a patent system, and we need a patent system that covers algorithms. An algorithm one of us invents is just as valuable as a widget some mechanical engineer invents.

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: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.

Why only Amazon?

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA:

Amazon is accused of infringing on five IBM patents, including technologies that govern how the site recommends products to customers, serves up advertising and stores data.

Some of the patents were first filed in the 1980s, including one titled "Ordering Items Using an Electronic Catalog."

"Given that time frame, these are very fundamental inventions for e-commerce and how to do it on the network," said John Kelly III, IBM's senior vice president for intellectual property. "Much, if not all, of Amazon's business is built on top of this property."

By this description, it would seem that IBM is entitled to sue just about every online vendor on the web today.

For maximum patent lawsuit profits, I think they should hit the iTunes store next, then work their way down the list of all domains until the profit from the lawsuits drops to less than $10K per victim.

The potential for a cash grab is absolutely insane here, they could bankrupt just about every single online vendor on the web, though that might be counterproductive to their hardware sales, however if the lawsuit profits can be invested and grow at a rate greater than hardware sales profits, I guess that wouldn't matter and IBM could abandon hardware sales and simply manage investment funds started with lawsuit profits.

This is definitely the beginning of the end of online commerce.

Lately I begin to wonder....

[pjr.cc]

As I sit there coding some piece of rather innocent software blissfully unaware of the world around me, i wonder how many patents im infringing with every line of code....

This is quite seriously scary stuff in my opinion and just goes to emphasize how we really shouldnt have software patents in the first place. Sadly, im a big fan of big blue and dislike amazon quite alot.

I wonder how many people, who code just "stumble" on the same idea. If you locked a coder in a black box and told him write a site that sells things online and make it "feature" rich, how many patents would he infringe?

The broad nature of the patents (or at least how they are described in the article) makes me pray to god IBM dont win this one.

Good news?

[Rosyna]

Why is it lately when I see a story about IBM suing a company, it feels like good news? Almost as if IBM is using its huge Patent portfolio to sue companies that have abused patents in the past (Like Amazon with its One Click). Maybe I've only felt that way since IBM started helping the OSS community more.

I like the idea of patents, but I loathe the way some companies abuse something that can be used to help the little man break into an industry by creating something truly innovative without having the big boys crush them. But now days, big companies like Microsoft are filing patents left and right and just seeing what sticks. It doesn't matter if they're invalid, MS will still file them and call it innovation.

What was I talking about again?

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.

Re:Not all ideas are like this

[TekPolitik]

ideas on their own cannot be patented. Only implementations can be.

Unfortunately this is not true - and that's the whole problem. These days patents - especially software patents - seek to eliminate anybody from achieving the same goal as the patent holder. You don't patent the implementation of the telephone, the first claim in your application is on the idea of a two way voice communication device. Then you claim (2) "the device in claim 1 wherein the voice is transmitted by modulated electrical signal over a wire; (3) the device in claim 1 wherein the voice is transmitted by modulated electromagnetic waves; (4) the device in claim 3 wherein the electromagnetic waves are radio waves; (5) the device in claim 3 wherein the electromagnetic waves are microwaves; (6) the device in claim 3 wherein the electromagnetic waves are visible light; ..."

If you look at a patent they always start with a very generic claim describing the idea as a whole, and if you implement something that matches that idea, you infringe. The patents then go on to claim each detail of the implementation and each combination of sets of details in the implementation, the idea being that if the first claim is knocked out one of the others might be upheld. The full implementation normally comes right at the end of the list of claims.

Companies are going off and trying to patent every idea they can find, not in order to protect their own investment which is usually negligible and almost always entirely irrelevant to the first claim, but in order to shut down or extort money from anybody else who need to use the idea to get something done.

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.