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EBay Subject of Patent Action
spatrick_123 writes "Yahoo! is reporting that a man named Bill Simon is pursuing action against EBay, claiming that he hold patents on essentially every aspect of their operation. Whether or not this is a precedent setting case, it is certainly a large one in terms of what is at stake financially and it will be interesting to watch it play out."
...until I reveal my talking paperclip patent to the world. Muahaha Muuuahahah
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
On second thought, perhaps I should just consider suing Microsoft for infringing on my US Patent #173087007: A Plan and Method for basing a multinational technology corporation in the state of Seattle.
Interesting none the less.
You can't shut us down! The Internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas!
I just did a quick search on the USPTO and there are indeed a patent listed for "Woolston" (who was named as the inventor in the article). For those interested, the page is
Patent 5,845,265 - Consigment Nodes. It was filed back in 1995. I haven't looked at the claims etc.
While doing the search, I noticed some other auction patents, such as one titled "Distributed Live Auction" that is assigned to Amazon.
it's about a guy called Tom Woolston, not Bill Simon. The latter happens to be the subject of an apparently related headline, where Bill Simon is being sued by eBay and not the reverse.
I'm going for the patent rights on the use of black typeface on a white background for the purpose of displaying details of and discussing stupid patents
that this patent system is fair or protects anyone?
The person who holds the patents - even if they are valid - did not do the difficult thing which is set up a successful company around the idea. If he had been trying to run an auction company and had been driven out of business or was being threatened by ebay then maybe he would have a gripe. But ALL this guy has done is have a fairly obvious idea (lets face it - letting people sell stuff to one another is not that new - car boot sale patents anyone?).
The patent office should take a long hard look at what it is trying to achieve.
For the lazy, news.com originally reported the story early September:
eBay, one of the biggest success stories on the Web, is being threatened with a patent infringement lawsuit that could force it to modify its winning auction format.
A loss could compel the Internet auction company to pay millions of dollars inroyalties and damages and even to make significant changes to its business model.
MercExchange founder Thomas Woolston, an inventor and patent attorney who has been granted four online auction-related patents since 1998 and has some 10 others pending, said he sued eBay in 2001 after negotiations broke down over the auction site's offer to purchase his patents.
Auctions have been around for 1000's of years in some form or another. How can anyone claim to own the idea? I certainly remember online auctions before EBay was even a pipe dream and even before the web came into being. Taking a common idea and slapping 'online', 'electronic', 'web', etc on it does not make it a new idea. Spreadsheets were a new idea.. there really is no real world equivilant.. but online auctions are obvious.
I'm all for screwing the big corporations but get with the show and invent something real and stop trying to get rich off pantenting the obvious.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
The article never mentions anyone named Bill Simon. Given that a man by the same name is running for Governor of California and is constantly protrayed by his opponent as a scandalous and shady businessman, the crew of slashdot might just want to be a little more careful about what they allow on the front page. Libel tends to be expensive.
Somebody please try open a open-"sourced" patent office! As we all know, patents cannot be claimed if they allready exist in some sort of written format. So we need a forum where we can post all kinds of ideas, and then claim we own them if somebody try patent them.
Maybe he can put his patent up for auction on eBay...
I decided to come with a short list on what had happened if 50 years or 100 years before such stupid patents had been accepted, note that what is stupid today may not have been stupid 50 years before, so its kinda contexted to that era. lets start
-
Flying... Yea man dosent fly, if somebody can then its very much patentable, infact much more patentable than swinging sideways in a swing.
-
Using fire for locomotion... think in that era it was actually an achievment
- Using non matter to transmit information, ie radio waves instead of paper
Scary huh, these are a few examples. By having thse stupid patents all we are doing is creating a ditch for the future generations. Ever wonder why all researchers and scientists prefer europe to amer.?..My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Very Low Reserve!
Patents covering just about everything eBay does. You won't win in court, but you're sure to get a healthy settlement. 48 hours only! Seller will ship via fax. Serious inquiries only!
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
the idea of selling merchandise using a method/process like auction was "invented" way before our year 0, maybe even more than 2 million days ago, during the stone age . Infact, I believe "auctions" are a very integrated part of human behaviour - like the need to pee. There's nothing fancy related to how to do the system using software, just a piece of raw work on simulating how it is done in the real world - there is no new ideas added.
There seems to be a lot of patents being issued for an old idea in a new medium.
An online auction is still an auction. Putting a picture, or a song on a computer doesn't stop it being a picture or a song.
Patents of this kind are purely money grabbing schemes, often by people who have spotted the new medium & have no plan to exploit the idea, just rip off those who do.
It's basically a different type of domain squatting. (Wonder if I could patent it as such...)
D.
Come on - get it together. Of the handful of stories you've just put up, some are reposts, some are badly written, some are untrue (cf. Bill Simon). What is wrong with you? Can't you or don't you read the stories before you publish? Don't you read the links the story includes, or check that the story isn't already up? I can understand you not doing it for all the stories that are submitted, but please at least do it for those you chose to publish.
This could be useful to help you decide if you really are an editor or not.
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
Does anybody really believe that in, say, 20 years time, patents will still exist?
Seriously, things have changed in the last 100 years. Physically making something new is no big deal any more - there is far more money to be made in software, and we are increasingly going to see countries that couldn't care less about I.P. blatently ripping off U.S., Europe, and Japan patented ideas, and open sourcing their product.
Open source is difficult to apply to hardware - you can open source the design, but it doesn't really make it freely available to everybody. That might change in the future, but seriously, who has the ability to fabricate a cpu themselves? Maybe some of the larger universities, for example, but not Mr Average.
Software, on the other hand, is easy to open source. We are increasingly seeing software doing what should be done in hardware. Yes, this is stupid in some instances, (E.G. Winmodems), but very cool in some instances, (Transmeta Crusoe CPU).
Now, say somebody made a completely generic CPU - this is not a new idea, it is called a ULA - Uncommitted Logic Array. Not quite a CPU, but a ULA which is intended to be used as a CPU would be cool. Now, you could just program it to emulate an X86, MIPS, ALPHA, whatever you wanted. Patents on a lot of those would have expired by the time this technology was available.
So, fast forward 20 or 30 years, (maybe less, who knows)...
To build a computer, you buy the following:
* Motherboard - very little on it, basically a passive back plane with a few USB 10.0 connectors on it.
* CPU - cheap as anything, probably under $10, because it's just a huge ULA - in the same way that a RAM chip is basically a whole load of transistors, not much logic like a CPU of today, (that's over simplified, but bear with me).
* Whatever peripherals you want.
Now, you just flash the ULA with whatever microcode you want, and this is the clever bit, you can either use a proprietary microcode from, say, Microsoft, or Intel, which includes DRM, and a whole load of bugs^Wfeatures, or you can flash an open source microcode from China, which is freely available, customisable, and updated frequently.
In that world, what would be the point of patenting anything? There wouldn't be any hardware worth patenting.
From the article:
"The growth of online commerce has spawned dozens of lawsuits over intellectual property. One highly publicized case involved online bookseller amazon.com, which was granted a patent for the process that allows customers to complete purchases with a single mouse-click."
How on earth did they win that one? How do you patent a mouse click? Is that why everytime I want to buy something online, I have to go through several extra meaningless steps like. Are you really, really, really, sure you want to do this?
Who holds the patent on the two step online purchase Process forcing everyone to add a third step? You see how that can go on forever.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Bill Simon is running for Governor of California and created this clever parody site about his opponent, incumbent Gray Davis. Ebay is not too pleased.
I think this is terrific news. (even though it has been posted before... [groan])
you see, we've been saying for a while that hopefully someone would try and take on a gigantic company with some totally bunk business method patents. Said giant company would enter in a big lawsuit, and the f'd up nature of the USPTO would be exposed.
Only thing that could happen bad is they settle. Which, unfortunately, is fairly common. But as long as they don't, there is really the potential to set legal precedent, because this guy (founder of MercExchange and holder of thee patents) did everything by the book. He tried to negotiate, he tried to agree to terms, he didn't hide his patent, etc. And it seems he was the first to patent this business method (online auction).
So if this is debunked, it won't be because of some petty reason. The overturning of this case could potentially throw into sharp relief the problems with patenting business methods, especially the ease of unassociated rediscovery, and the application of obvious things to the internet (when suddenly, at least according to the patent office, they become "nonobvious" [groan]). At least, it seems the case will show how stupid the USPTO is.
Of course, if the guy wins, none of the above applies. But I am counting on the power of the american legal system to prevail. And by "power," I mean "tendency," and by "prevail" I mean "have the person with the deepest pockets win." It is a fair assumption that ebay is going to out-muscle the guy, since they have a lot more to lose. Anyways, settled, won, or lost, I am hoping this case gets an enormous amount of publicity. Cross your fingers.
"Submarine patenting" does not quite fit this story - this is a patent that was in existence some time ago. But it is not always the case that someone with a patent that affects an existing product will win, see:
:) . I think we'd end up behind M$ if they had to protect themselves from this kind of idiocy, corporations come and go, but patents live for a long,long time.
Pavel v Sony Corporation and Others - The Times 22 March 1996
It's generally a case of "whoever has the biggest lawyer, has the strongest patent"
This particular case is not all that interesting in the "patenter vs. corporation" stakes because the patent was filed recently, and e-bay knew about it. They were obviously in the wrong.
What IS interesting is that this patent is ridiculously simplistic and obvious - so we're hoping for the big, evil corporation to beat the "little guy" inventor
p.s It doesn't matter if the "little guy" is little or not, he's an individual against a corporation, and that's how it will be viewed
Johns: Well, how does it look now? Riddick: Looks clear.
Now that someone big enough to pay off congressmen is getting picked on.
Damn shame it's not Amazon.
A patent is, first of all, not even a constitutional right. The constitution says that congress may provide inventors with certain rights to their invention. This lead Jefferson et. al to set up the first patent board some 200 years ago.
Now, for a patent to be granted, the invention it describes must be:
New
Useful
Nonobvious
For a good definition of new, see new
The useful property is questionable, but the nonobvious is very interesting, see nonobvius
A quote from this link:
It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an
idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of
manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate
invention.
And that kind of sums it up...
Another purpose of the patent idea, combined with licensing, was to open up trade secrets. Let the rest of the world know how we do it, so that all may benefit. But, if you want to use it, you need to license it.
Again, a good idea spoiled by insane capitalism.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a genuine capitalist, but it is scary to see what happens when capitalism goes berserk.
I seem to remember bidding on items in USENET auctions in the late 80s and early 90s. Sure, it wasn't the WWW, but nothing fundamental to the business of auctioning online has changed since then.
Of course, it's not really this guy's fault that the patent system is so fubar.. If he didn't have the patent, Ebay surely would and they'd be buisy suing everyone else right now.
Anybody that doesn't think Ebay would be suing this guy if the tables were turned is a bit naive. Why do you think they applied for their own patents in the first place?
These dot-coms have done an incredible amount of damage to the IP system by patenting bogus business methods. Amazon, Priceline, etc. Nobody cared when it was just little guys getting the brunt of these archiac laws, but now that a popular company is getting hurt it just might get some attention.
Anyone against software/business method patents should be rooting for the injunction. Imagine seeing the Ebay site closed!
Anyway, this is just another example of how incredibly insane the Patent Process has gotten in the last few years. Hell, I could go out and get a patent on sex, and sue the hell out of anyone who does the hunka-chunka in any of my patented positions
;-) )
No, you would not be able to patent sex due to prior art (eg Kama Sutra or the simple existence of humans). (Besides any position considered non-obvious might also be considered illegal
On the other hand (and i can't believe I'm typing this) if you found a novel use for sex, say, "a new way of powering airborne vehicles via copulation", then you could probably apply for a patent for that. You could at least enjoy the research.
Drifting a bit off topic but....
"...This lead Jefferson et. al to set up the first patent board some 200 years ago..."
Of course, outside of the US, patent systems have been in existence much longer much than that. For a history of the UK's (one of the oldest stretching back about 500 years) try: Patent Origins
Im QUITE sure Ebay doesnt have items 3&4, they dont deal in bar codes because they dont deal with the items directly.
(from the patent)
1. A system for presenting a data record of a good for sale to a market for goods, said market for goods having an interface to a wide area communication network for presenting and offering goods for sale to a purchaser, a payment clearing means for processing a purchase request from said purchaser, a database means for storing and tracking said data record of said good for sale, a communications means for communicating with said system to accept said data record of said good and a payment means for transferring funds to a user of said system, said system comprising:
a digital image means for creating a digital image of a good for sale;
a user interface for receiving textual information from a user;
a bar code scanner;
a bar code printer;
a storage device;
a communications means for communicating with the market; and
a computer locally connected to said digital image means, said user interface, said bar code scanner, said bar code printer, said storage device and said communications means, said computer adapted to receive said digital image of said good for sale from said digital image means, generate a data record of said good for sale, incorporate said digital image of said good for sale into said data record, receive a textual description of said good for sale from said user interface, store said data record on said storage device, transfer said data record to the market for goods via said communications means and receive a tracking number for said good for sale from the market for goods via said communications means, store said tracking number from the market for goods in said data record on said storage device and printing a bar code from said tracking number on said bar code printer.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
If you go here: http://mercexchange.com/invintprop.html
and check out this guy's company's site... the patents are bunk. He has patents for agents that search multiple auctions and marketplaces, he has a patent for routing packets based on hierarchical information in it's headers. This is stuff that 1) has very obvious analogs in meat-space, and is therefore no more of a leap than ecommerce is a leap from mail-order commerce, or 2) are things that any software developer worth his or her salt would come up with in the course of solving a problem involving, say, routing packets. This guy isn't and inventor - he's a patent lawyer who finds little obvious holes in the current canvas of patented technologies, and grabs the patents with the hopes of licensing them. I'm unimpressed.
_sig_ is away
Old hands will recall that RAMBUS used to do that too, and got nailed by that.
The sad part about this story is that the company (EBay) will realise that its not worth their time to fight this, and just settle out of court for a couple of million bucks; a trivial amount to them, but a non-trivial amount to the likes of Mr. Woolston, who will continue to indulge in such "submarine patenting".
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.
Sleep is for the Weak
Did anyone else read this as a patent auction instead?
I did, and thought, what a great idea! All patents should be biddable on eBay!
His next target will be force feedback joysticks--on his website is listed Patent No. 6,162,123: An electro-mechanical device for providing an input to a computer program and said computer program providing a tactile output through said electromechanical device to a user. More specifically, the present invention provides an electro-mechanical virtual sword game apparatus that receives positional information from sensors on the sword apparatus and the sword apparatus contains a propulsion gyrostat that under the control of a computer process may be toppled to provide a torque on the housing of the sword apparatus that may be used to simulate the impact of sword blows.
And I wouldn't count on patent reform any time soon. The economic world is a food chain, with law firms at the top. In this case the industry of patent law would have a lot to lose. Our legislators (who are bought and sold every day) will consider that first, though of course the fact that they are mostly lawyers themselves won't in the slightest way affect their judgement...
My guess is that this line is about ongoing auctions; since the patent is about a marketplace for collectables.
Dammit, BUSINESS METHODS THAT CAN BE MOVED TO THE COMPUTER SHOULD NOT BE PATENTABLE!!!
What reason can you offer to distinguish methods that can be moved to the computer from those that cannot be moved to the computer?
Also fun is the paragraph on the home page. This guy is a classic suit-monkey:
- 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.
Uh-oh. He used the word "paradigm". Beware! Basically, according to the home page, they specialize in taking old busniess ideas and adding "with a computer" to them. Lot's of people make money assisting others in computerizing their businesses. This moron doesn't do that, though. He just wants to patent it so others will have to pay him for having the idea. I say we form a lynch mob.If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
It would set a dangerous precedent, but on the other hand, a lone guy putting the squeeze on Ebay with a patent might well persuade many with money (and power) to abolish or restrict software and business model patents.
It could be the beginning of the end of these ridiculous patents if the "big boys" see themselves getting squeezed.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
This is why it might be a good idea for a patent holder to demonstrate the ongoing application of said patent- to take possession of an idea is one thing - to take possession of an idea and then go after those to endure the risk to see if it actually works is a completely different matter. I wonder how it would change the currently rather backward patent process if patents were awarded to those who a) had an idea, and b) can show material evidence that they are or have taken the steps necessary (and the risk) necessary to implement them.
And, what kind of feedback will he leave for eBay?
The ultimate test of software-patent-lameness is if you can't write a reasonably usable application to emulate the manual approaches *without* violating the patent.
For example, if there is NO way to write a usable auction application without violating the patent in question, then the patent is bullshit.
(Note that the reverse is not necessarily true. IOW, just because there is a way to do it does not necessarily mean it is legit. This is only a lameness test, not a legitamacy test.)
Table-ized A.I.
Where would we be if every use of the telephone or the radio could have been patented simply because they were too obvious to bother publishing about.
I am going to add "in outer space" to every current business technique or algorithm in common use. Then we finally can get up there, I will be rich.
Or better yet, add "in a porno flick" to everything in existence. Then I won't have to wait as long.
I'll just make it into a rubber stamp, and sell it as a IP Patent Kit (after I grab the profitable ones).
DUMBASS PATENT GRANTERS!!!!
Table-ized A.I.