By Andrew Orlowski for The Register
This article has been reproduced from The Register, with
permission.
Both brands are owned by Cendant, the travel and property
services giant with twice the turnover of Amazon. Through Avis and
Budget, Cendant owns owns a third of the car rental market, has
interests in property franchising (Coldwell Banker) and hotel
franchising (Days Inn, Travelodge, Ramada, Super 8), and last year
acquired Orbitz.
The on-off bickering between the two was renewed on June 20,
when Cendant filed suit in a Delaware court claiming that Amazon
infringed its patent 6,782,370. The patent, granted last year, is
entitled "System and Method for Providing Recommendation of Goods
or Services Based on Recorded Purchasing History."
Amazon and its search subsidiary A9 responded two days later,
claiming Cendant and subsidiaries infringed on Patents
5,715,399 ("Secure method and system for communicating a list
of credit card numbers over a non-secure network", filed 1995);
6,629,079 ("Method and system for electronic commerce using
multiple roles", granted 2003) and
6,029,141 ("Internet-based customer referral system" filed
1997).
Cendant has sought a jury trial, while Amazon says it has
suffered "irreparable injury and damages, in an amount not yet
determined, for which plaintiffs are entitled to relief".
Jeff Bezos says the patent system is broken, but his statements
are consistently at odds with his company's actions.
Bezos says that business methods patents are particularly bad,
but Amazon has filed patents on a wide variety of business methods,
including affiliates programs, payments, data presentation and and
even
gift giving. In an open letter five years ago, Bezos
called for a public comment period, but Amazon.com users
non-publication requests that prevent the US Patent and Trademarks
Office from disclosing the application, such as when it filed to
patent
a weblog interface.
In his defense, Bezos argues that patents are defensive and
should never be used, and illustrated this when Amazon.com
sued rival bookseller Barnes and Noble for infringing on its
notorious One Click patent.
In fact Bezos hates patents so much he has applied for 15 in his
own name of which eight have been granted; as patent-watcher TheoDP
noticed recently, one Amazon patent was granted after five
rejections over four years. And as patent '399 shows, he was
busy filing before Amazon.com had sold a single book.
Clearly, the world needs more crusaders against patent abuse
like Jeff Bezos.
© The Register
2005
