1-Click allows an e-commerce web site to store payment and delivery details so that when a customer comes back to the site, he or she need only click the mouse once to purchase again.
Amazon’s award of the patent for 1-Click technology by the US Patent Office sparked fierce criticism from many who said that the technology was so obvious and essential to e-commerce that Amazon should not have been given a monopoly right. However, the patent was upheld in a successful infringement action by Amazon against a competitor, Barnes & Noble, which operated an express checkout system. Barnes & Noble was forced to remove the technology from its site.
Such patents are not presently available in Europe and Amazon’s patent cannot be enforced in a European court. However, it might be possible for Amazon to bring an action against a European e-commerce site in the US courts if the 1-Click technology were copied.