Web offers perfect vehicle for instant debate

One of the more astonishing aspects of the Web is its powerful ability to link people in new, often unexpected ways. It does so with such swiftness that it changes all the old rules of interaction - between friends and colleagues, between online writers and readers, between businesses and consumers, between businesses and other businesses, and between chief executives of Internet companies and their customers.

As a result of a highly critical Net Results column I wrote on March 3rd on bookseller Amazon.com, I've ended up in the middle of an extraordinary exchange which has combined all these elements. In the column (www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2000/0303/seven9.htm), I berated Amazon's controversial receipt of patents on two of the online technologies it uses to conduct business on the web (so called "business-method patents").

Since the patents were awarded, many, if not most, technology commentators have weighed in against Amazon, including eminent science and technology authors such as James Gleick (www.around.com/patent.html) and Harvard law Professor Lawrence Lessig (www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,4296,00.html) and more recently, www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,8999,00.html).

Well-known computer book publisher Tim O'Reilly was also an early critic, www.ora.com/ask-tim/amazon-patent.html.

As Mr Lessig writes: "Bad patents' become the space debris of cyberspace. Nowhere is this clearer than in the context of business-method patents. . . Awarding patents of that type siphons off resources from technologists to lawyers - from people making real products to people applying for regulatory privilege and protection." He continues: "An increasingly significant cost of Net start-ups involves both defensive and offensive lawyering - making sure you don't "steal" someone else's "idea" and quickly claiming as yours every `idea' you can describe in a patent application."

I described Amazon as a greedy bully, intent on squeezing out income from licensing its technology or restricting others' use of it. This, I argued, stifles the development of the e-commerce market, restricts innovation by programmers, and threatened the very fabric of the Internet community, which grew out of a generous, say-no-to-patents mentality.

I noted that the Amazon case really pointed to these much larger issues and raised questions about the whole patent process in the technology age.

A week later, I received a terse e-mail response from Amazon's head of public relations, Bill Curry. The e-mail's subject heading was "Your Drivel". It read: " Bullying? Greedy? Warped? Tell us what you really think! " Try visiting www.amazon.com/patents. And before you run any more misguided stuff, maybe you should talk to us. And you'll also want to visit www.oreilly.com for a better understanding of the patents."

I was taken aback that a large company would respond in such a way, especially as my comments were in line with those of many other writers.

Although I initially inadvertently confused the two separate notions of patent and copyright, Amazon's concerns, as they made clear, were on the issue of the attitude towards patents. I forwarded the e-mail to two people: programmer, software company director and industry commentator Dave Winer, whom I had quoted in the original piece; and my friend, San Jose Mercury technology columnist Dan Gillmor. Both had written extensively on Amazon's patents.

Mr Winer replied quickly by email, first with a personal note and then with a copy of an e-mail he'd sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Mr Curry, and publisher Mr O'Reilly. He posted his email on his popular Scripting News site, www.scripting.com, and linked to the Net Results column and to a screenshot of the controversial e-mails, http://static.userland.com/misc/snImages/billCurryToKarlinLilington.gif.

He also linked to these again in his DaveNet column, which he emails to a wide readership. Mr Gillmor also linked to the Net Results piece and to the e-mails in a posting last Saturday to his web "e-journal" (http://weblog.mercurycenter.com/ejournal/), a running column on the Mercury website.

I'm sure Mr Curry's e-mail, although improper, was written in a moment of annoyance. Similarly, I forwarded the e-mail to the others in a moment of annoyance and in considerable disbelief that it had been sent at all. But the Web made instant publication - and instant debate - possible. The Web also immediately highlighted to thousands of others an embarrassing, if momentary, lapse of judgment by a company. Of course, many companies would ignore such a situation. To Amazon's credit, it did not.

I received gracious e-mail apologies from both Mr Bezos and Mr Curry later that same day. They had also copied the e-mail to Mr Winer and Mr O'Reilly.

Mr Winer put those apologies up on his site (http://static.userland.com/misc/snImages/apologyFromBezos.gif); in the meantime, some of his readers e-mailed me. Over the weekend, a dialogue continued on the issue of patents between Mssrs Winer and O'Reilly, copied to me, Mr Curry and Mr Bezos.

I was impressed at both the passion and the commitment to ideas and discussion contained in those e-mails. But what struck me most was this visible evidence of a vital Web community and the active participation in it of the people many of us often believe are most distant from it - the corporate CEOs whose companies, large or small, are an integral part of the Internet.

I was also impressed by an open letter Mr Bezos had written a week ago (too late to consider in my original column), in which he responded to concerns about Amazon's patents (www.amazon.com/patents/). In the letter, he explains his thinking and argues that the US patent system is perhaps outmoded in the case of technology.

Given the rate of change in the industry, patents should be awarded for 3-5 years rather than the current 17, he argues. He makes some thoughtful points. In posting the letter, he also proves that he understands very well the special relationship between a company and consumers on the Web, and takes a laudably active role in that relationship - an approach many other company CEOs would do well to emulate. However, Mr Bezos still defends the company's need for the patents. The debate is far from over.

Most of the people involved in this recent exchange of e-mails will meet in Phoenix this week at an annual meeting organised by Internet entrepreneur Esther Dyson. They seem committed to further discussion, argument, and negotiation.

Nonetheless, I'll be particularly interested to see how this issue evolves. Certainly, it's been fascinating to be a tiny cog in the discussion over the past two weeks.