Amazon is ideally placed to become the market leader for buying and selling web-services in a similar way to buying and selling books. The implications could be transformative to the software industry and business services.
Amazon.com has received a public airing of its patent application for an online marketplace where consumers search and pay for Web services.
The US patent application, filed last year and published on Thursday by the US Patent and Trademark Office, marks the online retailing giant's latest attempt to make inroads into consumers' wallets.
Amazon, in its latest filing, is seeking to patent its idea for creating a marketplace where third-party Web services providers can link up with consumers.
In the marketplace, consumers can search for Web services and read comments and reviews from others who have used the service. Amazon can also provide the suppliers of these services with assurances that only authorized consumers can access their offerings.
"Although Web services allow various applications and computers to interact, the current implementations and uses of Web services have various problems," Amazon said in its filing. "Current Web services implementations do not typically provide effective means for potential consumers to discover or locate Web Services that are desired or that may be of interest."
