IBM has filed two patent infringement lawsuits against Amazon.com Inc. for unspecified damages. The lawsuits come after nearly four years of attempts by IBM Corp. to resolve its concerns with Amazon.com over infringement of IBM’s patents, the company says.
The suits were filed in two District Courts for the Eastern District of Texas: one suit in the Tyler Division and the other suit in the Lufkin Division. "We filed this case for a very simple reason. IBM's property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited," says John E. Kelly III, senior vice president of IBM Technology and Intellectual Property.
IBM said Amazon is infringing on patents for: presenting applications in an interactive service; storing data in an interactive network; presenting advertising in an interactive service; adjusting hypertext links with weighted user goals and activities; and ordering items using an electronic catalog.
Dating back to September 2002, IBM says that it has notified Amazon.com numerous times of the infringement, but Amazon.com has shown no willingness to have meaningful discussions. “When someone takes our property, without our permission through a license, we have no option but to protect it through every means available to us,” says Kelly.
Amazon has yet to respond to the IBM allegations. "We don’t have any comment at this time," says an Amazon spokeswoman. "We haven’t yet been served."
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