The one-click shopping patent of Amazon.com, Inc., seems destined be a legal lightning rod. Its first brush with notoriety occurred only weeks after it was granted in 1999, when Amazon filed an infringement suit against Barnes & Noble, Inc., a controversial move that many feared would freeze the progress of the Internet in its tracks. (That suit ended in a confidential settlement.) Then the patent withstood the attack of a patent-holding company. But in the latest twist, the Internet, strengthened by the interactive capability of blogs, has struck back. Thanks to a reexamination request from the most unlikely sourcean actor in New Zealandin October the Patent and Trademark Office rejected 21 of Amazon’s original 26 claims, including number 11, which covers taking a single action and completing a purchase without using a shopping cart.
This is hardly the end of the storyor the patent. Amazon can respond to the office action, appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, and even appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The company has not yet declared its course of action.
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