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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric Wells who wrote (86016)	12/2/1999 6:06:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Judge grants injunction against barnesandnoble.com NEW YORK, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Online retailer barnesandnoble.com Inc. <BNBN.O> said on Thursday a judge had blocked the company from using the online shopping "one-click technology," which rival Amazon.com Inc. <AMZN.O> claims infringes one of its patents. Amazon.com, the biggest online retailer, sued barnesandnoble.com in November, alleging that it had "meticulously copied" Amazon.com's proprietary "1-Click" express checkout system. Amazon said it was granted a U.S. patent on the system in September. "Although we are disappointed with the judge's preliminary injunction, we believe our position regarding our order process technology will be upheld upon appeal," barnesandnoble.com said in a statement. It also said it would speed up the launch of its Express Checkout service, which will replace the disputed Express Lane service using the one-click technology. It said the new service would be in place within the next several days. The new service was previously scheduled to be launched after the holidays. Barnesandnoble.com said it would continue to fight the Amazon.com lawsuit and that its online business would not be affected. In its suit, filed in federal court in Seattle, Amazon.com seeks damages equivalent to a "reasonable royalty" for its invention, tripled, plus legal expenses. Barnesandnoble.com, which sells books. music, magazines and software, is a venture of Barnes & Noble Inc. <BKS.N> and the German media company Bertelsmann AG <BTGGga.D>, each of which owns a 40 percent stake. The other 20 percent is publicly held. Shares of barnesandnoble.com closed at 19-3/8 on Wednesday on the Nasdaq stock market, while Amazon.com finished at 85. REUTERS Rtr 09:44 12-02-99

To: Eric Wells who wrote (86016)	12/2/1999 6:11:00 PM
From: Randy Ellingson	Respond to of 164684

Eric- Randy - I don't know what industry you are in - but I've been working in the software industry since the mid-80's. And the "idea" that you can "click-once" using a mouse to initiate a process for which information has been previously gathered - well, there's nothing innovative about it at all. Amazon may or may not have been the first company to apply the concept to an e-commerce transaction - but even if they were the first, I don't believe they deserve a patent. You asked if it was innovative. By sheer definition (if they were the first to provide One-Click purchasing), it is innovative. Whether or not it's patentable is beyond me. So far it is, and I don't think it's worth worrying about one way or the other. Travesty of justice or not, I doubt it will hold up. But you and I don't even know which aspect of the technology and process is patented, do we? Afterall, one has to ultimately click once to finally submit an order. Using the mouse to click on something and have some information processed is one thing. Putting in place the proper security settings to accomplish a credit card transaction with a single click from the product listing is really just a great example of what you describe above as "using a mouse to initiate a process for which information has been previously gathered". But that doesn't mean it didn't require some new tricks. Perhaps Amazon.com has some legal arguments that escape us, and perhaps they are convincing. I don't know if it's as cut and dried as you propose. I agree, however, that patent law must consist of a very complex set of guidelines. Randy