Amazon.com has patented an obvious and widely-used technique for on-line sales. On the basis of this dubious patent, they have already sued one other Web retailer, and who knows how many more will follow? Although the primary blame for this must lie with Amazon, the U.S. Patent Office is also responsible, because they often issue patents for well-known software techniques, in effect granting monopolies on ideas that should clearly be owned by no one.
Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation describes the situation eloquently and in greater detail at this page:
And an annotated copy of the patent itself is here:
Please join me in boycotting Amazon, until Amazon gives up the idea of monopolizing E-commerce.
If you're looking for a wider range of information about the U.S. government's carelessness in granting software patents, try http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/.
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