The US Patent Office this week released important papers relating to Amazon.com’s “one click” payment patent to Peter Calveley, who is seeking to invalidate the payment.
These papers, comprising part of Amazon’s claim on the “one click” patent, hold details on Amazon.com’s definition of “client-server” and “shopping-basket” which were taken from Wikipedia in 2006 and 2004 respectively. The patent, however, was filed 10 years ago.
New Zealander Calveley’s efforts follow on from a lawsuit filed last October against Amazon by IBM, which claims that the company has profited from technology owned by IBM and is demanding royalties. IBM claims to own patents for technology that drives the “user recommendation” feature for which Amazon.com is well known.
Amazon.com was awarded the patent for “one click” shopping technology on 29 September 1999 but in 2005 it fought off a claim that the “one click” payment feature infringed upon IPXL Holding’s patent for electronic transaction system. The company was looking for around US$50 million in damages.
Amazon have been on the giving as well as the receiving end of legal action in relation to the “one click” patent. In 1999 US bookseller Barnes & Noble.com was barred from using its “Express Lane” feature which had been dubbed a copycat version of “one click” by Amazon.com.
By Marie Boran
