A decade ago Amazon.com sued Barnes and Noble over their use of “1-Click” buying. Critics argued that clicking once to order a book wasn’t really an invention, nor was not worthy of a patent.

The case became the leading example of a patent system gone wild.

The tables have turned and now Amazon.com finds itself at the receiving end of a lawsuit regarding “1-click” purchases.

“Amazon is defending itself against Cordance Corp., a company that claims it filed for its patent on 1-click ordering before Amazon’s application. “

“This is the hard lesson that Amazon learned and that a lot of software companies learn. You think these patents are great when you own them, but really it’s a minefield.”

Even more ironically, it may help Amazon’s case that its 1-click patent was the target of so much criticism a decade ago.”

Tim O’Reily, the well known tech-industry publisher, had a major bone to pick with the bookseller’s patent. He called it “an attempt to hoodwink a patent system that has not gotten up to speed on the state of the art in computer science.”He even put out a $10,000 bounty for anyone who could come up with “prior art — information, technology, or legal documents that was already public — to prove it wasn’t an invention and bust the patent.”

“Angry techies turned up a mountain of prior art, (but) they couldn’t invalidate the patent, though it is now being re-examined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. However in Amazon’s suit against Barnes & Noble, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned an injunction Amazon had won, saying that Barnes & Noble had “raised substantial questions as to the validity” of the 1-click patent.”

Amazon is going to be able to use all of the prior art that was used against them to take down Cordance’s patent.

One of the main pieces of prior art that Amazon’s lawyers at Fenwick are arguing invalidates Cordance’s patent is from a company called First Virtual Holdings, which came up with a virtual PIN that allowed online customers to buy things with a single click. Although it’s not clear whether that prior art was officially used against the Amazon patent, it was mentioned in Web forums by techies trying to invalidate it.

Check out the original article: A Decade Later, Amazon Finds Itself on Other Side of ‘1-Click’ Patent Battle

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