Amazon clears bondholder, patent suits

Amazon.com settled a bondholder lawsuit to the tune of about $20 million and disposed of a patent suit.

In a regulatory document filed on Thursday, Amazon said it had entered this month into a preliminary settlement with bondholders who brought a class action suit charging the e-commerce giant with making false statements about its operations and financial health.

The disclosure follows a similar settlement Amazon inked in March with shareholders.

Amazon denied wrongdoing in either case. It said that both the approximately $20 million settlement, signed July 11, and the $27.5 million settlement from March would be covered by its insurance, and that both required approval by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, where the complaints were originally filed in 2001 and amended in 2003.

In Thursday's regulatory filing, Amazon also said Pinpoint had abandoned a patent suit it brought against Amazon in 2003. The suit alleged that Amazon and partners including Borders Group, Target, Toys "R" Us and CDNow infringed on Pinpoint patents with Amazon's personalization technology.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed that case in December, and Pinpoint refiled it in March. Amazon said Pinpoint dropped the case on May 27 after the court ruled on the scope of its patents.