Wow... that's interesting.<p>I'll summarize my take. First of all, take the article with a grain of salt. Possible issues brought up by Bart Eppenauer are being raised by the former chief counsel of Microsoft, a direct competitor to AWS (Azure). And the linked article has a somewhat alarmist phrasing.<p>That being said, there appears to be something real here. This contract is one that applies to thousands of businesses -- cloud computing is taking both small business and big business by storm, and AWS has the majority of the business in this area. The clause itself reads like this (retrieved today from <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/" rel="nofollow">http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/</a> ):<p><pre><code> During and after the Term, you will not assert, nor will
you authorize, assist, or encourage any third party to
assert, against us or any of our affiliates, customers,
vendors, business partners, or licensors, any patent
infringement or other intellectual property infringement
claim regarding any Service Offerings you have used.
</code></pre>
Now, I am not a lawyer, so my interpretation could be wrong; even if I WERE a lawyer I would be saying that nothing was certain at least until a court had ruled on a case that depended on this clause. But it appears that this clause is very broad in time (from now onwards), in scope (covers patents as well as "all IP") and in targets (against Amazon OR most anyone else like their customers or business partners). The clause is restricted ONLY by the statement that it applies to a claim about "Service Offerings you have used".<p>Now, my impression would be that this means you can't sue Amazon (or their partners/customers/etc) over IP violations <i>BY THE AWS PRODUCT ITSELF</i>. In other word, if you use AWS you can't then later sue Amazon or their customers saying that AWS itself violates your patent on using a computer remotely (or whatever ridiculous patent you may hold). With this interpretation it is an extremely reasonable provision and should not concern any company involved in normal business.<p>Furthermore, the one case where Amazon has asserted this clause (against Appistry)[1] fit this model. Appistry sued Amazon saying that Amazon violated its patent; Amazon countered that Appistry was using AWS and with this clause had agreed not to sue. That case is still underway.<p>So my evaluation is that this is <i>probably</i> an OK clause. But it certainly skirts the line and you ought to have your lawyer look it over. After that, you will probably ignore what your lawyer says and sign it anyway because Amazon is the giant of cloud computing and you don't have a whole lot of choice.<p>[1] - <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-fights-patent-suit-using-little-noticed-clause-in-standard-aws-customer-agreement/" rel="nofollow">http://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-fights-patent-suit-using...</a>