Patentable Subject Matter

Amazon.com’s “one-click” patent granted after being litigated to the  Federal Court of Appeal on the issue of patentable subject matter (2011 FCA 328), expired today.

The decisions relating to the patentability of this patent are considered the leading decisions on this area of law. The related US patent expired in September 2017 and received some commentary at the time.

Note that Amazon also owns the trademark for “1-click“.

Quick timeline of CA2,246,933 patent application:

  • September 12, 1997 – earliest priority date
  • September 11, 1998 – filed in Canada
  • September 28, 1998 – examination requested
  • June 1, 2004 – Final Action issued by examiner
  • November 16, 2005 – first hearing of Patent Appeal Board
  • September 18, 2008 – second hearing of Patent Appeal Board
  • March 5, 2009 – Patent Appeal Board rejects application as being directed non-patentable subject matter in PAB1290
  • October 14, 2010 – Federal Court releases decision allowing appeal in 2010 FC 1011
  • November 24, 2011 – Federal Court of Appeal allows appeal and remands the application to the Commissioner of Patents in 2011 FCA 328
  • December 23, 2011 – Application allowed
  • December 28, 2011 – Final fee paid
  • January 17, 2012 – issue date
  • September 11, 2018 – expiry

I have an automatically updating list of patents expiring each week.