An anonymous reader writes:
The Campaigner behind attempts to invalidate Amazon.com's controversial '1-Click' payment patent has gained access to Amazon's filings at the US Patent Office and still believes he has a case."According to the Code of Federal Regulations Amazon.com are supposed to give me a copy of everything they file-but they have made a habit of not doing so," said Calveley on his blog. "I had to call the USPTO and persuade them to remind Amazon of the rules so finally Amazon mailed me a copy of the documents."
"Amazon have also filed a number of documents attesting to the commercial effectiveness and advantages of 'One click shopping'," wrote Calveley. "Perhaps they are intending to make some of the old arguments along the lines of: 'Nobody thought it would be successful — but it was — so it must be non-obvious!' and 'Look how commercially successful it is — it must be non-obvious!' etc."
"I thought they might try some of these tactics, so in my request for re-examination, I have already pointed out that there were a lot of other reasons Amazon had commercial success — its customization features (for which Pinpoint Incorporated unsuccessfully sued Amazon for patent infringement), the number of books in stock, the general growth of the Internet and e-commerce etc."
Calveley also discovered that Amazon had included in its submissions definitions backing its arguments that were not only gathered years after the relevant period, but from an unreliable source, collaborative encyclopaedia Wikipedia.
Amazon's patent filing dates from 1997, and Calveley says that he has evidence from the press that the DigiCash and other systems were up and running before that. If 'prior art' — technology or inventions performing the function of a patent before the registration of that patent — is found then a patent becomes invalid.
