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Amazon.com, IBM Settle Patent Dispute

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Online retailer Amazon.com has reached a settlement with IBM in the current patent dispute between the two companies—a settlement which has Amazon.com forking over an undisclosed amount to the technology giant in exchange for a long-term patent cross-licensing agreement.

“At IBM, we place a high value on our IP assets and believe this agreement substantiates the value of our portfolio,” said Dan Cerutti, IBM’s General Manager of Software Intellectual Property, in a statement. “We’re pleased this matter has been resolved through negotiation and licensing. We look forward to a more productive relationship with Amazon in the future.”

In October 2006, IBM sued Amazon.com alleging central features of Amazon.com’s Web operations—like customizing links, displaying customized ads, and ordering items from an electronic catalog—violated five IBM patents. Amazon countersued in December, saying IBM’s WebSphere application server, among other things, infringed on five patented Amazon technologies.

Geoff Duncan
Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
A dangerous new jailbreak for AI chatbots was just discovered
the side of a Microsoft building

Microsoft has released more details about a troubling new generative AI jailbreak technique it has discovered, called "Skeleton Key." Using this prompt injection method, malicious users can effectively bypass a chatbot's safety guardrails, the security features that keeps ChatGPT from going full Taye.

Skeleton Key is an example of a prompt injection or prompt engineering attack. It's a multi-turn strategy designed to essentially convince an AI model to ignore its ingrained safety guardrails, "[causing] the system to violate its operators’ policies, make decisions unduly influenced by a user, or execute malicious instructions," Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure, wrote in the announcement.

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