Amazon Takes Round One in Patent Dispute

Masem writes "Amazon has gotten a preliminary injunction placed on Barnes & Noble due to the fact that B&N used Amazon's patented 1-Click method for ecommerce. This does not bode well for those fighting against business model patents, and if Amazon does turn out victorious, this could deal a lot of damage to e-commerce." Now, at this point it is only a preliminary injunction, however, it does not sound the tone we'd like to hear.

Comments

preliminary injunction != major finding of fact

[apocalypse_now]

All a preliminary injunction says is that the plantiff's case does in fact have merit, and to prevent further potential damage from being done, the defendant must cease in the offensive behavior until such time as the defendant is cleared. There has been no trial, no finding of fact, and no consideration of the merits of Amazon's case by either a judge or a jury. Don't get too worried too quickly.
--
Matt Singerman

E-mail B&N

[blogan]

Instead of e-mailing Amazon and saying, "I'm not going to buy from you anymore....", e-mail B&N and say, "If you fight this case instead of cowering, I will be a faithful customer to you. If you give in, I will not buy from you."

Re:Slow programmers?

[technos]

Amazon wasn't lying. Below you will find an excerpt from Jeff Bezos' own notes

25 manhours Implementing the system
25 manhours Debugging the new system
118 manhours Time (Jeff Bezos) spent on the golf course thinking about Amazon
480 manhours Touchy-feely focus group to evaluate the emotion evoked by the square button.
162 manhours Spent preparing Powerpoints to illustrate the new feature to Marketing
416 manhours Marketing has stuck their collective heads in their collective arses.
14 manhours (Bezos) Got blazingly drunk at a bar, spent the night in the drunk tank
480 manhours Marketing, who didn't like the Powerpoints, orders another 'focus group' They request chimpanzees this time, citing them as smarter than most AOL users.
90 manhours Marketing likes the new focus group results, takes the afternoon off to visit a strip club.
2 manhours (Bezos) Fired the entire Marketing department, and replaced them with the chimpanzees.
20 apehours The chimps have a meeting over brunch to discuss patenting their new business model.
100 manhours Time billed by patent laywer for an afternoon visit from the chimps.
275 manhours Time billed by patent attorney whilst in the Bahamas on vacation.
600 manhours The lawyer spends an evening drafting the patent documents. Goes back to the Bahamas, taking a friend with him.
50 manhours Time spent by the laywers secretary completing the patent documentation, filing them, calling the Patent Office, etc. The only real work in the patent process occured in this step.
170 apehours Patent was approved! (Bezos) Called a press conference, shmoozed the media, and had the marketing chimps call and harass our competitors.
-------------------------------
Tot al: 3,027 man/apehours