One-Click Death

W ith the recent court decision to grant Amazon.com the “one- click” patent, one must wonder who will run out and claim the patent on “two-clicks”. It may be a silly idea, but it’s also a terrifying one. How can the court justify withholding other patents that relate to the basic ideas that e-commerce and the Internet are based on? If we continue to take this road, we may see nothing but a dead-end in the growth and creativity of the Internet.

How will small businesses be able to compete and survive if we take away the tolls that they need for e-commerce? How will it affect ISOs and merchants trying to sell their goods or services on the Web?

Right now there are a flood of patents that deal with the basic principles of accessing the Internet and online databases. One such patent currently filed with the U.S. Patent Office is patent 5848161 which essentially is a copyright on sending data, such as credit card numbers, securely over the Internet. The three individuals that have this patent say that they created the function to hide data from Web hackers. Now this process is used on every e-commerce Web site that wants to be considered secure.

If the courts were able to hand out sanctions that barred people from using all these patents, who would be left on the Web?

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