Why I am Boycotting Amazon Amazon recently sued Barnes and Noble for patent infringement.
Patents are the result of an exchange between the community and the inventor.
The community gives the inventor an exclusive license to an invention in return for the inventor divulging the secret. The patent office is not normally supposed to grant patents for inventions that would be obvious to skilled practitioners of the relevant art. I am skilled in the relevant art and to me this invention is really, really, obvious. It is obviously no invention at all. The patent office screwed up here, and Amazon received a valuable license for free at the public expense.