Topic: Another patent fight, but with bigger guns.

[Pugnate]

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BIG BLUE said it has filed two patent infringement lawsuits against Amazon. IBM said it had tried to resolve this with Amazon for four years.

The two suits were filed in separate courts in the Eastern District of Texas.

"IBM's property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited," said John Kelly, senior VP of IBM's IP.

The patents are 5,796,97 - presenting apps in an interactive service; 5,442,771 - storing data in an interactive network; 7,072,849 - presenting advertising in an interactive service; 5,444,891 - adjusting hypertext links with weighted user goals and activities; and 5,319,541 - ordering items using an electronic catalogue.

IBM said it has bothered Amazon many times about the alleged infringements, but Amazon hadn't bothered to have meaningful discussions. µ

Again all three of those seem too vague and could apply anywhere. B.S.

[scottws]

I can't imagine that IBM has a chance in this case, unless there are much more specific descriptions of the patents somewhere.

I went to the U.S. Patent Office website and did a search on 579697.  There was an image of the patent available, but I needed Quicktime to view it for some reason, and I had a hard enough time installing Firefox here at work.

[Cobra951]

Every one of those short patent descriptions sound like complete hogwash to me.  Stringing patent-office flunkies up by the balls may be in order.  Jesus Christ.  Let me patent picking my nose with my left middle finger.  I'll be able to sue a lot of elementary school kids, and even some high schoolers.

[WindAndConfusion]

As a matter of principle, I'm (tentatively) siding with IBM. Unlike Amazon (one-click, anyone?), Big Blue doesn't have much of a recent history of abusive patent litigation.

Plus, I want someone to hit Jeff Bezos in the head with a brick.

Edit: I originally said, Big Blue doesn't have much of a history of abusive patent litigation. In retrospect, that statement is utterly ridiculous.

[Quemaqua]

Eh.  I could care less about it all, but Cobra more or less speaks for me on this one, as he always has with the patent issue.

[WindAndConfusion]

That US patent law in general is a crime against innovation (and possibly humanity as well) should not be conflated with this particular case. To speak further in IBM's defense, they have lobbied for patent reform.

[WindAndConfusion]

Oh, yeah: Amazon has routinely sued other companies for "patent" violations. IBM is just doing to Amazon what Amazon does to everyone else.

Still, this is a tentative opinion.