End of the road for e-commerce patents?

In one famous example, Amazon.com sued Barnes & Noble just before the 1999 holiday season, alleging infringement of Amazon's "1-click" shopping cart patent. The court granted Amazon's request to force Barnes & Noble to modify its Web site, giving Amazon a leg up during the holiday season.

Although the validity of Amazon's patent was later called into question, there are thousands of other e-commerce patents held by companies doing business on the Internet. Such patents have provided a valuable resource for companies to obtain venture capital and to protect research and development investments.

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