| Apple Computer has become the first company to license Amazon.com’s 1-Click online shopping cart technology, a move that could help the online retailer stake a more solid claim on its controversial patent.
The technology lets an online shopper purchase a product online with a single mouse click, bypassing the process of entering shipping and payment data. But other online businesses, including archrival Barnes & Noble.com, have a pending law suit that challenges the validity of the patent.
Apple’s agreement to license 1-Click might help Amazon defend the patent’s validity. “If the patent’s not valid, why is Apple, which is a big company, licensing it?” asked intellectual property attorney Charlie Crompton.
Perhaps more noteworthy, that argument may hold up for just about any company defending any of its technology, said Crompton, who works in the Silicon Valley offices of Latham & Watkins. The move could feed an e-commerce patent-filing frenzy, said Gary Hoffman, partner in charge of the technology group at the law firm of Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky. |
