Amazon Sneaks World Domination Past Patent Office

Leading online bookstore Amazon.com today won a major legal victory today when a play on words convinced a patent examiner with the USPTO to grant CEO Jeff Bezos “complete control of the world and all its creatures”.

“We are thrilled at this latest development,” said Randy Shirk, a spokesman for Amazon.  “We will be sending out cease-and-desist letters to our various competitors after the holidays, for whatever reasons we like.  Jeff is making up a list as we speak.”

The “world domination” clause, as it has come to be known, was snuck into an amendment to the company’s famous 1-click patent.  According to sources in the patent office, the examiner became confused at wording that read, in part: “… and covers methods that will heretofore not not not not not not sometimes-but-not-but-sometimes not not not grant Jeff Bezos complete control of the world and all its creatures.”

“He got tripped up by the ‘not’s,” said anonymous source close to the case.  “By the time we’d figured it out, Bezos had unilaterally changed the rules to disallow us from reviewing applications filed by companies named Amazon, unless they were not owned by him.  But on the plus side, we’re all getting free shipping for life and a coupon for $25 off orders of $75 or more!”

While the full effects of Bezos’ new title, Master of the Universe, have yet to be felt, agents for Amazon’s Legal Responsibility Branch have reportedly been making the rounds of technology magazines across the world, surgically removing the right hands of columnists that did not give the Kindle a glowing review this week.

A spokesman for Amazon called the news “rumourmongering at its worst, which we hope to stop with our new 1-click Truth Containment Filter, rolling out in time for the busy Christmas shopping season.  Order yours.  Now.”