In Amazon tries hiring lawyers for sellers claiming patent infringement, Engadget reports Amazon has figured out how to deal with patent infringement.
In short, patent owner pays $4,000 fee to have case heard by a neutral. If defendant doesn't pay $4,000 fee to enable a rebuttal, the patent owner gets fee back and defendant's product is removed from Amazon. If both parties pay their fees, the neutral evaluates the merits and rules: a winning patent owner gets $4,000 fee back and an injunction, and a losing defendant's $4,000 fee pays the neutral for evaluation. A losing patent owner's $4,000 fee is used to pay for the neutral evaluation, the defendant gets $4,000 fee back and the accused product stays on Amazon.
Liked the article but appears short on basic details. For example, can an accused infringer go to district court to seek reversal of a "bad decision" by an Amazon neutral? Another question, can a winning US patent owner get an injunction against foreign sales?
Copyright © 2019 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Amazon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amazon. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Amazon Web Services Agreement's Intellectual Property Non-Assert Clause
Reading a cloud service provider contract is no fun. It is typically written in hyper-technical legalese, tiny font, and long convoluted sentences. And this style helps cloud service providers structure customer relationships to their advantage in surprising ways. How many of us are willing to slug through the fine print? Maybe this is the point since the service provider can remind a customer to not forget "our agreement" when a dispute arises leading to the customer read the "agreement" for the first time too late.
Amazon Web Services is a popular service for software startups, but the customer agreement appears to have some IP issues. In Beware the IP non-assert clause in AWS cloud service agreement, warns ex-Microsoft patent chief, Joff Wild flags a problematic non-assert clause in the standard Amazon Web Services (AWS) customer agreement. It states "during and after the Term, you will not assert, nor will you authorize, assist, or encourage any third party to assert, against us or any of our affiliates, customers, vendors, business partners, or licensors, any patent infringement or other intellectual property infringement claim regarding any Service Offerings you have used" (Section 8.5). Aren't many of us customers of Amazon? If so are we shielded from patent infringement for any AWS service used?
As noted by Joff Wild, the non-assert clause appears to be way too broad. And now we will see how it is interpreted by a court, because Amazon seeks to dismiss a patent infringement suit based on the AWS customer agreement. For details see Todd Bishop of GeekWire's article Amazon fights patent suit using little-noticed clause in standard AWS customer agreement.
Copyright © 2015 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
Amazon Web Services is a popular service for software startups, but the customer agreement appears to have some IP issues. In Beware the IP non-assert clause in AWS cloud service agreement, warns ex-Microsoft patent chief, Joff Wild flags a problematic non-assert clause in the standard Amazon Web Services (AWS) customer agreement. It states "during and after the Term, you will not assert, nor will you authorize, assist, or encourage any third party to assert, against us or any of our affiliates, customers, vendors, business partners, or licensors, any patent infringement or other intellectual property infringement claim regarding any Service Offerings you have used" (Section 8.5). Aren't many of us customers of Amazon? If so are we shielded from patent infringement for any AWS service used?
As noted by Joff Wild, the non-assert clause appears to be way too broad. And now we will see how it is interpreted by a court, because Amazon seeks to dismiss a patent infringement suit based on the AWS customer agreement. For details see Todd Bishop of GeekWire's article Amazon fights patent suit using little-noticed clause in standard AWS customer agreement.
Copyright © 2015 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
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