IBM is suing Amazon.com and seeking unspecified damages
for patent infringement.
The IT giant has filed two lawsuits in the US courts in a
dispute dating back to 2002. IBM claims that Amazon.com has
willfully infringed patents on technologies used to store data in
its interactive network, to advertise and to take orders through
its electronic catalogue.
The IBM lawsuits are not the first challenge Amazon has faced
over patent infringement. In August last year the online retailer
paid $40m (£22m) to e-commerce firm Soverain Software to settle a
patent lawsuit relating to its website technology.
John Kelly, senior vice-president of IBM Technology and
Intellectual Property, said, “IBM is one of the world’s leading
creators of intellectual property and one of the most progressive
in embracing new, highly collaborative ways of driving and managing
innovation.
“Everything we do is premised on the fundamental principle that
IBM’s intellectual property is one of our core assets, and
represents the work product of tens of thousands of scientists and
engineers and billions of dollars of investment.”
He added, “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.”