People are still wasting their efforts trying to get this Amazon patent “reversed.” We have serious issues facing our industry, but still this is the crise du jour. It’s not worth any of this attention.
Some reports/articles I’ve read note that somewhere around 80% of patents are held invalid in court. As my very knowledgeable friend noted in my previous post on this topic, this is one that would like be so held. And note that language “held invalid in court”–the way this (and any) patent will get tested is in court. You can’t go to the USPTO and make them take back a patent (not to my knowledge and teeny bit of research I’ve done–but I’m not a patent lawyer). Petitions are useless. It is up to the courts to resolve whether or not the patent is valid.
For a court to hold a patent invalid, first there must be a suit and, usually, the patent holder will sue, which is very unlikely here. It is possible for someone to bring a declaratory action in a patent case. That is where someone tries to get the court to say, for example, “this patent is invalid and Amazon cannot sue for infringement.” This is not as easy as it sounds and would cost a ton to do. In order for someone to bring a declaratory action, though, a plaintiff (photographer) would have to show a real “case or controversy”–not just that s/he might be harmed by the patent but that it was imminent/happening. Pretty much, the photographer would have to show that Amazon was, in fact, about to sue her/him. Again, that would mean Amazon would have to make the first move and that is very unlikely to happen.
So please, stop. Just let this go.