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The Amazon Patent Controversy

02/28/2000

Following are links to the articles and columns published on oreilly.com about Amazon's software patent controversy. At the end of this page is a partial list of links to articles that appeared in the mainstream media.

28 February 2000

• Pissing in the Well -- Tim O'Reilly weighs in on the amazon.com 1-click patent issue and provides a model for sustainable web development.

3 March 2000

• My Conversation with Jeff Bezos -- Tim O'Reilly and amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos have engaged in lengthy discussions about Tim's Open Letter to Amazon. An update of the situation, and a call for comments, is included.

8 March 2000

• Amazon's Patent Reform Proposal -- In an effort to respond to the hundreds of emails about the amazon.com patent issue, Tim O'Reilly responds to the most common questions by answering a couple of representative posts.

9 March 2000

• Bezos and O'Reilly Spearhead Call for Patent Reform -- In an unprecedented turnaround, amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has embraced Tim O'Reilly's call for software patent reform and proposed a radical patent reform policy. Read Tim's response to Jeff's proposal here.

18 October 2000

• Both Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Bezos support BountyQuest, a new Web site marketplace where people can post large rewards for documents proving prior art on a patent, thus proving a patented invention is not really new. Tim O'Reilly has posted a bounty on Amazon's 1-click patent. Earn a $10,000 bounty by providing documentation describing 1-click purchasing published before September 28, 1997.

1 November 2000

• Patents: Disproving Idea Ownership -- The New York Times reports on BountyQuest, an online company where people "can offer rewards for information leading to the debunking of a patent." Despite their disagreement over Amazon's 1-click patent, Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Bezos agree that something's wrong with the patent system. And to help resolve the problems, they've both invested in BountyQuest.

7 November 2000

• BountyQuest Subverted? Will the software patent reform site launched by Jeff Bezos, Charles Cella, and Tim O'Reilly be used to subvert the patent reform process? Find out in this Ask Tim.

2 February 2001

• BountyQuest Winners Receive $10,000 Each -- BountyQuest, the software patent reform web site founded by Charles Cella, Jeff Bezos, and Tim O'Reilly, paid $40,000 in bounties for prior art that casts doubt on the validity of patents held by Cisco, Oracle, Intouch, and Walker Digital.

Following is a partial list of resources and media articles relating to the controversy:

• Patent Upending -- Wired.

• Online Patents to Face Tighter Review -- The Washington Post

• Internet Patents are Changing the Rules -- Byte.com

• Patent Office to Change its Tune -- Wall Street Journal

• Amazon's Bezos Calls for Radical Change in Patent Laws -- Wide Open News

• Amazon Calls for Patent Fix -- Wired

• Amazon CEO sees solutions in patent reform -- CNET

• Amazon's Bezos Calls for Patent Reform -- The Standard

• Copyright Search -- A search engine for post-1978 U.S. registered copyrights.