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Amazon Caves Into IBM On Patent Case, Agrees To Pay

Written by Evan Schuman
May 8th, 2007

IBM and Amazon today announced that that they come to terms–undisclosed, naturally–on patent issues, with Amazon forking over to IBM “an undisclosed amount of money” and agreeing to “a long-term patent cross-license agreement.”

This is quite a trip from the Amazon rhetoric in December, when Amazon officials said that IBM over-reaching to an epic degree.

“IBM’s broad allegations of infringement amount to a claim that IBM invented the Internet. If IBM’s claims are believed, then not only must Amazon.com pay IBM, but everyone conducting electronic commerce over the World Wide Web (indeed, every Web site and potentially everyone who uses a Web browser to surf the Web) must pay IBM a toll for the right to do so,” court papers filed by Amazon in December said. The original IBM lawsuit raised questions of obviousness, which were addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court on April 30.

Posted in E-Commerce, IT Strategy/Industry
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