Amazon.com 2015 Annual Report Download - page 71

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 71 of the 2015 Amazon.com annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 90

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90

61
In March 2015, Zitovault, LLC filed a complaint against Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon.com, LLC, Amazon Web Services,
Inc., and Amazon Web Services, LLC for patent infringement in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of
Texas. The complaint alleges that Elastic Compute Cloud, Virtual Private Cloud, Elastic Load Balancing, Auto-Scaling, and
Elastic Beanstalk infringe U.S. Patent No. 6,484,257, entitled “System and Method for Maintaining N Number of Simultaneous
Cryptographic Sessions Using a Distributed Computing Environment.” The complaint seeks injunctive relief, an unspecified
amount of damages, enhanced damages, attorneys’ fees, costs, and interest. In January 2016, the case was transferred to the
United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. We dispute the allegations of wrongdoing and intend to
defend ourselves vigorously in this matter.
In June 2015, the European Commission opened a proceeding against Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon EU S.à r.l. to
investigate whether provisions in Amazon’s contracts with European publishers violate European competition rules. We believe
we comply with European competition rules and are cooperating with the Commission.
In November 2015, Eolas Technologies, Inc. filed a complaint against Amazon.com, Inc. in the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The complaint alleges, among other things, that the use of “interactive features” on
www.amazon.com, including “search suggestions and search results,” infringes U.S. Patent No. 9,195,507, entitled “Distributed
Hypermedia Method and System for Automatically Invoking External Application Providing Interaction and Display of
Embedded Objects Within A Hypermedia Document.” The complaint seeks a judgment of infringement together with costs and
attorneys’ fees. We dispute the allegations of wrongdoing and intend to defend ourselves vigorously in this matter.
The outcomes of our legal proceedings are inherently unpredictable, subject to significant uncertainties, and could be
material to our operating results and cash flows for a particular period. In addition, for some matters for which a loss is
probable or reasonably possible, an estimate of the amount of loss or range of losses is not possible and we may be unable to
estimate the possible loss or range of losses that could potentially result from the application of non-monetary remedies.
See also “Note 10—Income Taxes.”