Amazon vs. Barnes and Noble in the case concerning business method patents.
There are many views about the case of Amazon vs. Barnes and Noble, and I personally have a pretty strong view. This case which was mainly involving Barnes and Noble creating a program with similar functionality to Amazon’s “one click” system, which allowed consumers to purchase with one click, provided they have already setup a account with Amazon. Naturally as a corporation, its main objective is to protect the investment of its shareholders; usually done by any means necessary, and unfortunately these means are not always too ethical, at least in my eyes.
Patent law is a very difficult and controversial topic, particularly in this new age of technology as the advancements have been so rapid that it is difficult to keep up. In the case of the “one click” system, I feel that it is unethical to patent this, as it is an idea, and it is not even proven that they have come up with the idea they just have the lawyers to defend it. My ideas may be a bit biased though, I do have years of experience with doing business with Amazon, and many of their practices, like most corporations are unethical. Another example of this struggle in patent law is a current struggle Amazon is having with lawmakers to patent data mining, which is a process of gathering and analyzing data. But then again it is legal to patent DNA, so it is difficult to make the distinction to what is right or wrong. Business at one time was about providing service, now it seems like a way to extract the most amount of money from the population as possible.
Posted by Chris | 0 comments











