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all it cuts out (apart from patent trolls) are defensive patent portfolios and small research houses which attempt to develop and then sell ideas.

But that's a huge deal. Basically then, if you're an inventor, you're screwed. Let's say you come up with a way to increase the efficiency of jet engines. According to this, unless you actually plan on selling jet engines, you've got no way to enforce your patent. You can offer to sell the patent to a jet manufacturing company, but why should they buy it from you, since you've got no leverage over them? They can just go ahead and use your invention, and since you don't actually manufacture jet engines yourself, you can't stop them.

And that's more or less what happened to MercExchange, at least according to this article. eBay came to them to offer to buy their portfolio, but really they were just looking it over to see if they could get away with violating it. And after eBay's legal team looked things over, they simply decided to pull a Microsoft and totally violate the portfolio with no compensation. And make no mistake, they did violate it, as decided by a jury. They're simply hoping at this point that they can render moot the jury verdict by getting the underlying patents invalidated.

Make no mistake here. eBay are the bad guys here. MercExchange aren't a patent troll company - they've got a homegrown portfolio and in my opinion deserve to have their ideas protected, insofar as ideas should be protected at all. If you want to rail against software or business method patents in general, maybe you're right, but let's start with the big fishes' huge portfolios first before we go after the guppies.

• searching for products in a market
• conducting online auctions
• branding an online business
• streaming price info (think stock ticker)
• 
  
  I'm afraid I don't see much of anything non-obvious on their list, and there's likely plenty of prior art as well. The "online auction" patent was filed in 1999; eBay was founded in 1995. How bad is it when a patent troll gets away with patenting things that aren't even new?

Mercexchange's mission is to improve businesses through the application of new digital technologies, especially in networked environments. The businesses and products developed by MercExchange address large-scale consumer needs and business inefficiencies, resulting in new ways of doing business, new ways of creating value, and new industry paradigms.

What MercExchange LLC (US) has are a handful of patents that are titled as "consignment nodes" which seem to be completely centered around electronic auctions and commerce.

Newsflash! What MercExchange _is_ is a patent attorney, turned "inventor", to invent patents to give himself business to sue for.

Here is the info: http://patents.oncloud8.com/paa/us_patent_agents_i n_us_va_great_falls.php

40235 ATTORNEY Thomas Woolston 703-757-6503 MercExchange, LLC P O Box 1272 Great Falls, VA 22066

The phone number is interesting missing from MercExchange's "contact us" page -- http://www.mercexchange.com/contactus.htm

I called it, and got no answer, but it did say MercExchange on the answering machine.

Mercexchange's mission is to improve businesses through the application of new digital technologies, especially in networked environments. The businesses and products developed by MercExchange address large-scale consumer needs and business inefficiencies, resulting in new ways of doing business, new ways of creating value, and new industry paradigms.

Mercexchange's mission is to improve businesses through the application of new digital technologies, especially in networked environments. The businesses and products developed by MercExchange address large-scale consumer needs and business inefficiencies, resulting in new ways of doing business, new ways of creating value, and new industry paradigms.

upon further examination, it becomes quite obvious to me that the initial patent was intended to be for a method implemented on a specially designed (in his words) "posting terminal". This is the '265 patent that he's trying to beat eBay over the head with. What's funny is that he has a SECOND patent issued in March 2001 that is tailored to eBay's internet-centric business model, but also it was clearly issed long after eBay was already in business. Whatever happened to prior art? This guy is a total sleazebag.

upon further examination, it becomes quite obvious to me that the initial patent was intended to be for a method implemented on a specially designed (in his words) "posting terminal". This is the '265 patent that he's trying to beat eBay over the head with. What's funny is that he has a SECOND patent issued in March 2001 that is tailored to eBay's internet-centric business model, but also it was clearly issed long after eBay was already in business. Whatever happened to prior art? This guy is a total sleazebag.

upon further examination, it becomes quite obvious to me that the initial patent was intended to be for a method implemented on a specially designed (in his words) "posting terminal". This is the '265 patent that he's trying to beat eBay over the head with. What's funny is that he has a SECOND patent issued in March 2001 that is tailored to eBay's internet-centric business model, but also it was clearly issed long after eBay was already in business. Whatever happened to prior art? This guy is a total sleazebag.

I don't believe this guy is a nut

He's not a nut. He's a shrewd guy with an understanding of patent law and the dollars to go to court.

When you review his patents (see http://www.mercexchange.com), you'll find he's an expert at taking descriptions of business processes that have been around for years and placing "on a computer" at the end of them in a patent document. But there is nothing on his web site that indicates that he is a software designer, a database designer, a product developer, a computer scientist, or a business developer. There are no links to any actual products developed, or services delivered, or companies created. He is the patent equivalent of an ambulance chaser.

While I know little about patent law, Woolston's "business" (see link) seems to be creating patents, not creating software. MercExchange seems to be about quickly patenting things related to electronic commerce, without any ability to really put the things together.

I see things like these patents all the time in my business (writing software). Only we just call them "user requirements".