Amazon Corporation Case Study

Cases

1) Amazon.com Incorporated v/s Canada, Commissioner of Patents:

Amazon.com Incorporated v/s Canada is a ruling of the Federal Court of Appeal concerning the patentability of business methods under the purview of the Patent Act. At issue was the patentability of a method that allowed customers to shop online to make purchases with single-click buying.

In 1998, Amazon filed a patent application for a “Method and System for Placing a Purchase Order Via A Communication Network”. This invention allowed customers shopping online to place orders with single-click buying, which encircles the process of feeding address and billing information in the traditional shopping cart mode of online shopping. The patent application was denied by the

However, the court also included that “it does not necessarily follow…that a business method that is not itself a subject matter that is patentable because it is an abstract idea, becomes patentable subject matter merely because it has a practical manifestation or a practical application. In my view, this cannot be a distinguishing test, because it is self-evident that a business method always has or is intended to have a practical application.” Thus, the Court of Appeal did not approve Justice Phelan's finding that claims of Amazon.com comprised patentable subject matter. Instead, it identified that Amazon's claim may still fail if, according to Schlumberger Canada Ltd vs Canada, Commissioner of Patents, the only new aspect of the claimed invention was the method of business and the method of business was understood as a “mere scientific principle or abstract theorem”, which cannot be the subject matter of an invention according to section 27(8) of the Patent Act, mentioned

A new set of guidelines were published by CIPO for determining whether an invention constitutes statutory subject matter based on a purposive construction of the claims and Updated guidance on examination practice for computer-related inventions was also published at the same time.

2) Tennessee Eastman Co. v/s Canada, Commissioner of Patents:

Tennessee Eastman Co v Canada was a leading Supreme Court of Canada judgment for the proposition that medical or therapeutic methods cannot be patented in Canada.

Tennessee Eastman applied for a patent for a surgical method by applying certain types of glues to bond a wound together. The glues in themselves were not new or unique but the new discovery was that the glues could be used to close the wounds in place of stitches.

The Commissioner of Patents refused to grant the patent. This was done on the ground that the claimed method was not the kind of discovery which fell under the definition of invention in the Patent Act of Canada. Also, it was not an “art” in particular because it was applicable only in the process of surgical treatment and hence produced no result in relation to trade, commerce or