For some context, Bezos wrote this letter months after Amazon was awarded its infamous patent on one-click checkout. Amazon used the patent to sue Barnes & Noble and ultimately force it to add extra steps to the checkout on barnesandnoble.com. Bezos wrote this letter a few days after a scathing op-ed about the patent and the lawsuit came out in the NYT, but never chose to turn the patent over to the public domain. It's now been 20 years and the patent is expiring next month.