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Online Auction Industry In A State Of Limbo
theodp writes "It seems the online auction industry is in a state of limbo after last week's ruling that eBay violated patents belonging to MercExchange. MercExchange said it will file an injunction against eBay to keep them from using the technology, eBay said it will file motions to overturn the verdict, and MercExchange is ultimately looking to sell its entire portfolio of auction-related patents. Names being bandied about as possible acquirers include Amazon, Yahoo and eBay itself. Whoever holds the patents may require other sites to pay them licensing royalties."
The patents are not on holding an auction, but on the fixed-price Buy It Now feature
[opinion]which is even sillier[/opinion].
You aren't allowed to patent a business process (i.e. "the assembly line")
Courts ruled you could in 1998. Personaly I think the courts in question were smoking crack.
i guess to your defense you could argue that /. doesn't actually link to the patent. however, you really should know better than think the /. posting perfectly describes the patent.
anyway, the abstract is obviously not the actual patent, just a quick overview of it. what actually was patented was more a way on how to manage a action site. its stuff like having bar codes at the product your storing, and being able get pictures and a description of it. true, still seems completly obvious, but not quite as bad. then again, if you read the whole patent, you'll also notice that it isn't just for the internet.
The article is vague and can be misleading. There are many patents in question. In this case the only two possible violations allowed were from patents allowing fixed price selling and utilizing an integrated payment processor.
I too wish people would spend the time to read a single paragraph article.
It'd be like patenting giving stock quotes over the phone.
Looks like someone already did !
What is the world coming too ??
An SCO is about an annoying as hearing someone say "Line-ooks"
if you pronounce it "sco" as in "scope" instead of spelling it out then it's "pulling a SCO"
Repeal the DMCA!
Well... we should add "(3) To purchase the intellectual property of another with the sole intention to extort money from others"
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
You severely mischaracterize inhouse attorneys when it comes to litigation. Inhouse counsel, at least in my experience, rarely gives more than superficial advice about litigation -- 1) 90% of them don't have litigation experience, but rather corporate law experience, and so barely know more about what goes on in a court room than the average "Law and Order" viewer, and 2) if the situation called for more analysis about whether the company should sue, inhouse counsel will invariably turn to outside counsel for advice, anyway. The purpose of inhouse counsel is to help negotiate deals and provide a first person that the business people can call for advice before going to outside law firms. Obviously, after a certain point, it's cheaper to have inhouse counsel to answer the easy questions (and provide direction or options for the hard questions) than to go to outside counsel every time. Litigation is *always* a hard question, requiring someone with good experience. Some rich companies will have litigation inhouse counsel -- for example, I think Google does -- but I can guarantee you that even they will invariably end up retaining outside counsel, if they decide it's worth it to litigate.
:)
And that's the thing: inhouse counsel is *loath* to recommend lawsuits, frivolous or meritorious, because it's extremely expensive to retain outside counsel. Yet it's absolutely necessary to have outside counsel because inhouse counsel never has the resources to litigate on behalf of the company. Therein lies the problem: the expense. (If things worked the way you think, there would be a lot more lawsuits *started* by companies -- but in reality the vast majority of suits are initiated by regular people, sometimes against companies but usually against other individuals.) And who do you think has the last word on expense? The business people, of course.
Also, I hope it's obvious that inhouse counsel doesn't get anything more whether they litigate or not -- companies hire inhouse counsel to SAVE money, and they do this by keeping the inhouse on salary instead of paying by the hour. Also, having to retain outside counsel makes inhouse counsel look ineffectual, even if for all practical purposes it's impossible to do the equivalent work inhouse. No person likes to look ineffectual.
My main point, really, is that inhouse counsel has no incentive to encourage frivolous litigation.
As for lawyers being assholes, my experience is that litigators tend to have a much higher percentage of assholes than corporate lawyers. This makes sense, because litigation tend to attract people with bigger egos -- those kind of people can't stand being in the background of deals, like corporate lawyers usually are. It also explains why the general public thinks so poorly of lawyers -- litigators are always in the spotlight (doing a TV show that realistically portrays corporate law would be the most boring show ever created), and half the time litigators are always on the "wrong" side.
Not exactly
There are already several useful amendments already down which would (unlike McCarthy) would place real limits on software patenting.
For an introduction to some of the amendments, see:0 304/index.en.html
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/ipat
There is also a page (still under development) which analyses all the amendments placed so far:0 304/index.en.html
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/juri
McCarthy cannot stop these amendments being voted on (now expected to be the 16th June), and several have already secured majorities in votes on other, advisory committees.
What I think the IDG article means is that she would not agree to personally recommend any new "compromise amendments" at that meeting, if they do not endorse software patents.
It is notable that while McCarthy talks up the strictness of her proposals, they effectively amount to unlimited software patentability; as well as lower standards, they would impose the EPO's bend-over-backwards flexible approach on the national court systems of countries like the UK, France and Germany, which have all previously been much more reluctant and limited in upholding software patents.
Looking at the verdict, independent claims 8, 15, and 26 were found infringed. Here are those claims:
I don't know about other states, but in California the addition of MTBE was mandatory. It's an oxygenating additive intended to reduce air pollution. Now that the dingbats in state gov't realize they've traded a minor air pollution reduction for a major water pollution increase, they're "phasing it out". Not that I like oil companies (the gouging bastards), but the MTBE fiasco is a case of state stupidity.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.