Online Auctions Patented, eBay Sued

mattfusf writes "This article from News.com talks about a guy who has filed a lawsuit against eBay for patent infringment. Patent 5,845,265 covers a "method..for creating a computerized market for used and collectible goods""

Comments

I'll admit, I'm stupid.

[laetus]

But am I missing something?

Patenting an online auction in my mind is akin to patenting the idea a selling milk in refrigerated display cases, ie,

This patent is for a system that creates a refrigerated marketplace for milk using a refrigerator in a store. The patent also covers the use of a payment-processing service to allow purchasers to pay for the goods.

I mean, where's the creativity that patents are supposedly supposed to protect? In my mind, virtually any business transaction can be ported to the internet. It would be like someone patenting sales calls over a telephone when telephones were first invented.

Sorry, just can't buy it.

[El Camino SS]

Actually, it strikes me as proper that a patent would be used to protect an individual's invention (in this case, a business process, which is allowed under current rules) against a large and otherwise unasailable uberCompany.

One. Patents are not made to stifle business. They are made to protect the inventor.

However, the whole concept of inventing an "online auction" is so damnably ridiculous that there is no way that he should ever have been granted a patent for it. This whole argument is founded in the fact that the man said "uh, auction on a computer!" and got a patent. WTF ever. Auctions have been around for centuries. People can not apply the phrase on a computer on the back of every tried and true business model and expect to get royalties or the ability to sue the bejesus out of people.

Oh, and when you use the phrase unasailable uber-company, it makes us all think of you as a useless leftie that thinks that eBay is "evil" simply because it is big. The last thing I checked that eBay did to ruin or world and our freedoms was consume electricity. So go attack Dow Chemical, Halliburton, or McDonald's. All eBay has done for me is make sure that I am not getting price gouged. At the very least, if you are going to go after corporate America, go after the ones that are fucking up people's health, the government, and the planet.

Re:Has anyone here actually READ the patent?

[shren]

Patent claims are judged individually. If EBay violates one claim and it is decided that said claim is valid, then EBay is at fault. The claims do not have to all fit, or even all be valid.