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European Patent Office throws out Amazon patent
Gift Order belongs to Santa
The European Patent Office review board has decided that Amazon's "Gift Order Patent" should be revoked.
European Patent EP 0 927 945, was granted to Amazon on 23 April 2003. It specifies a method by which a person can purchase a product as a gift and have it shipped based on the e-mail address of the recipient.
The system contacts the person who was to receive the gift and gets their address to send them the present. The patent was opposed by Fleurop Interflora Businesses, the German Society of Information Sciences, and the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure (FFII).
The three claimed that the patent fell short of meeting the criteria of providing an “inventive step,” as defined in Article 56 of the European Patent Convention (EPC).