
A glance at the legal precedents shows Amazon could easily get into trouble using its newly patented devices.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently granted Amazon two patents directed to handy remote control of human hands. The Amazon patents can easily obtain and record users’ location and the detailed movements of their hands. Therefore, highly personal information such as when a worker requires a bathroom break or pauses to scratch could be obtained and recorded by the patented system. That, subsequently has resulted in concerns that the patents could violate protected privacy rights of employees beneath the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment pertains to government actions, and will be implicated in a legal challenge to the Amazon patents, since patents are issued and enforced by the federal government. Furthermore, Amazon patents can run afoul of state statutes and common law privacy protections, that have adopted similar Fourth Amendment privacy standards.