Protecting your company often means guaranteeing its industrial and intellectual property rights. In a global world, you have to pay attention to make sure no one copies your idea or takes advantage of your efforts and investment.

In this article we’ll give you some practical examples and explain how you can use patents to defend your interests and those of your company.

Amazon’s Patents

Amazon is one of the biggest spenders on patent registration, both for the new technologies they develop and to defend them. Although they are controversial, the measures the company takes are extremely effective for helping them maintain their leadership position in the online retail sector.

You must be aware that protecting your company is essential at a time when profit margins are becoming increasingly tight. When faced with this situation, it is vital to offer something different and to define your scope of action vis-à-vis the competition or your customers. Although industrial property rights were already becoming entrenched in the second half of the 19th century, they spread far and wide in time with economic globalization.

Some patents provide one company an advantage over others by giving it exclusive use of the latest technologies, generally for a maximum of twenty years. This does not mean that you can never use these technologies, but you do have to come an agreement with their owner and establish a fee for their use.

There is also another type of patent that is more controversial: patents that restrict access to existing services, such as price comparisons. Amazon has developed a tool of this kind and, for the time being, is able to use it.

1-Click ordering

The idea of being able to place an order with just one click was introduced by Amazon in 1999 and it is calculated that this feature led to an increase of up to 5% in the company's sales. Immediacy is a value intrinsically linked to online purchases.

Although the patent is due to lapse at the end of 2017 and all retail companies will subsequently be able to use it, it has given Amazon an undoubted competitive advantage for gaining market share over the last 20 years.

Blocking comparisons

Many of us like to use price comparison websites, but the US giant has proposed putting a stop to this when people visit their  brick-and-mortar stores, which are spreading rapidly over several continents. A new patent will block the use of price comparison websites from the competition and redirect customers to Amazon’s own site or an approved site whenever the user is connected to the store’s free Wi-Fi network.

The move is intended to encourage consumers to do their shopping in the Amazon brick-and-mortar store, since comparative shopping impossible encourages impulse buying.

 
Conclusion

As protecting a company through industrial property rights is inescapable, we recommend you find a company that will manage the entire process. SHIP specializes in national and international patent management and offers a guaranteed service. Contact us and we’ll provide you with further details.

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