[0wza]

Well, it's better than Google. Google just jumped right into the game, though they claimed to disagree with it.

Bezos has the cash to play the game. And he had acces to it early enough (remember the one-click patent) to gain a monumental advantage. Relative to the other big players, Amazon has stayed on the sidelines.

Not to say Amazon is an angel that sets the standard for fairplay, but they definitely (? prove me wrong!) do not pursue patents to the extent of Microsoft, Apple, Google and others.

You can either call them naive for not playing, or you can accept that they may have set a better example.

[suresk]

Pursuing patents is one thing, utilizing them offensively against a competitor is another. Amazon used their one-click patent to harm competitors, but I've seen no evidence of Google utilizing patents against companies who haven't first filed patent litigation against them. I don't think Amazon has set the better example.

[hef19898]

Interesting to see how long a bad reputation can stick to someone. So Amazon used some ridiculous patent in the late ninties against the small start-up Barnes&Noble. It made Amazon big and maybe it wasn't right to use it against other ecommerce sites. But that was in the ninties, back than Amazon was far from being as big as they are now.

They used what they had to great effect, the only effect patent battles since 201 have are huge law fees and huge costs for companies. So was Amazon right to use one-click back than? I don't know, but it served them in the long run. Does it serve Applesung if they prevent the sell of Applesung products in certain markets? I don't think so.

Based on this, yes Bezos is right that the system is broken, as broken as it was back in the ninties but today the associated risks grew higher from my point of view. Why? Because patents are strategic weapon which is now used tacticly, and that is always bad.

[jivatmanx]

Exactly, patents are like nukes. I can understand why few countries choose not to unilaterally disarm. But to use a nuke offensively is unthinkable. Yet that's exactly what apple has done, and now patent litigation is consuming the entire tech industry.