Amazon.com 2002 Annual Report Download - page 22

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copyright, patent and trade secret protection may not be available in every country in which our products
and services are made available online.
We also may not be able to acquire or maintain appropriate domain names in all countries in which
we do business. Furthermore, regulations governing domain names may not protect our trademarks and
similar proprietary rights. We may be unable to prevent third parties from acquiring domain names that
are similar to, infringe upon or diminish the value of our trademarks and other proprietary rights.
Policing unauthorized use of our proprietary rights is inherently diÇcult, and we may not be able to
determine the existence or extent of any such unauthorized use. The protection of our intellectual property
may require the expenditure of signiÑcant Ñnancial and managerial resources. Moreover, we cannot be
certain that the steps we take to protect our intellectual property will adequately protect our rights or that
others will not independently develop or otherwise acquire equivalent or superior technology or other
intellectual property rights.
Third parties that license our proprietary rights may take actions that diminish the value of our
proprietary rights or reputation. In addition, the steps we take to protect our proprietary rights may not be
adequate and third parties may infringe or misappropriate our copyrights, trademarks, trade dress, patents
and similar proprietary rights. Other parties may claim that we infringed their proprietary rights. We have
been subject to, and expect to continue to be subject to, claims and legal proceedings regarding alleged
infringement by us of the patents, trademarks and other intellectual property rights of third parties. Such
claims, whether or not meritorious, may result in the expenditure of signiÑcant Ñnancial and managerial
resources, injunctions against us or the imposition of damages that we must pay. We may need to obtain
licenses from third parties who allege that we have infringed their rights, but such licenses may not be
available on terms acceptable to us or at all. In addition, we may not be able to obtain or utilize on terms
which are favorable to us, or at all, licenses or other rights with respect to intellectual property we do not
own in providing e-commerce services to other businesses and individuals under commercial agreements.
We Have a Limited Operating History and Our Stock Price Is Highly Volatile
We have a relatively short operating history and, as an e-commerce company, we have a rapidly
evolving and unpredictable business model. The trading price of our common stock Öuctuates signiÑcantly.
Trading prices of our common stock may Öuctuate in response to a number of events and factors, such as:
‚ general economic conditions;
‚ changes in interest rates;
‚ conditions or trends in the Internet and the e-commerce industry;
‚ Öuctuations in the stock market in general and market prices for Internet-related companies in
particular;
‚ quarterly variations in operating results;
‚ new products, services, innovations and strategic developments by our competitors or us, or business
combinations and investments by our competitors or us;
‚ changes in Ñnancial estimates by us or securities analysts and recommendations by securities
analysts;
‚ changes in Internet regulation;
‚ changes in our capital structure, including issuance of additional debt or equity to the public;
‚ additions or departures of key personnel;
‚ corporate restructurings, including layoÅs or closures of facilities;
‚ changes in the valuation methodology of, or performance by, other e-commerce companies; and
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