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e-business patents: shopping carts to hyperlinks Intellectual property protection for online business methods and tools such as shopping carts is increasingly contentious, with criticisms that the US Patent & Trademarks Office - a significant influence on practice in other countries because of the United States' power within the WTO - has lost the plot. Two examples are the American Bar Association's March 2001 review article and Seth Shulman's article in the MIT Technology Review, reflecting his Owning The Future: Inside the Battle To Control the New Assets That Make Up the Lifeblood of the New Economy (Boston, Houghton Mifflin 99). The number of patents issued by the US Patent & Trademark Office increased 36% between 1997 and 1999. Last year 169,904 patents were issued. (It took 210 years to issue the first 6 million patents in the US; many envisage that another 6 m will be issued in the next 10 years.)  The recent growth of ecommerce patents has brought a rise in patent conflicts, especially since 1998, when US courts decided business methods could be patented and Amazon.com sued Barnesandnoble.com for copying its ‘one-click’ shopping method. Most legal disputes end in partnerships or licensing agreements: a company can generate enormous revenue by licensing its patents and several companies such as Priceline.com (which recently sued Microsoft for allegedly infringements) are now valued primarily for their IP. On 9 March 2000 Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com (widely criticized for abusing the patent system and sponsor of BountyQuest, a site that awards US$10K prizes to those who demolish high-tech patents) argued that software and business method patents are "fundamentally different" and should be recognized as such.  He proposed that business patents should be recognized as so fundamentally different that they might only apply for 3 to 5 years, as opposed to the usual 15 to 20. That proposal came under fire from those insisting that all patents must be treated the same: special treatment for certain categories of patent is inappropriate. We'll be providing pointers to the debate in coming weeks. In the interim, why not explore the articles by Chris Holt.        resources The Australian Industrial Property Office (AIPO), the local version of the US Patent Office, has recently published an online version of its detailed Manual of Practice & Procedure. Aubrey Silberston's The Economic Impact of the Patent System (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 73) is one of a range of studies of patent protection as an incentive/disincentive for innovation. We've explored broader questions of innovation and competition in our Economy guide and in the 'fair use' page later in this guide.    next page  (names and links)