Interactive television provider OpenTV recently filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to broaden the scope of a patent to include one-click shopping and storage of personal information on a set-top box to facilitate t-commerce. The action comes on the heels of a related lawsuit filed by Amazon.com against BarnesandNoble.com.
“Amazon could be precluded from using its patent against anyone practicing what is taught in our patent,” said Craig P. Opperman, chief intellectual property officer at OpenTV, Mountain View, CA. “We believe [our] U.S. patent clearly describes single-interaction shopping in client/server and interactive television environments.”
The OpenTV patent was filed three years before Amazon's claim and has already been published in Europe.
Meanwhile, OpenTV recently announced that it has reached the 10 million mark for I-TV set-top boxes distributed with its software platform worldwide.
The number includes 1 million boxes distributed in the United States, mostly through a deal with satellite provider EchoStar.
