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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."
MercExchange will use Ebay off its patents. BID AWAY. ;)
Sell those Ebay stocks...They are about to pay out millions on Billions due to another in wrong patent. It is just like one click shopping from amazon, logical idea but not really patentable IMHO.
...now available to the highest bidder.
people hate lawyers?
Do me a favor and double it!
to suffer from selfish individuals bent on thwarting innovation of technologies.
- Whoever holds the patents may require other sites to pay them licensing royalties.
Going out on a limb with that one, huh? Yeah, I can't think of many reasons for a company to buy the patent portfolio of a company whose patents on a key Internet technology were just upheld in court. Besides pulling a SCO, that is.Can we just refer to this kind of manuover as "pulling a SCO" from now on?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I've never understood the relevance of such silly patent battles. If they've let ebay and all hte rest of these auction sites get away with patent infringement thus far, why are they finally deciding to "stand up and defend our IP"?
why does the porridge bird lay his eggs in the air?
Ebay should just take the easy road and remove online auctions from their business model.
They could turn themselves into a a portal, or maybe maybe a search engine. Maybe they could sell groceries and have them delivered. I wonder if the CEO has heard of push technology? Push will be the wave of the future! Why surf around for content when it can be delivered via a cute little cartoon caharacter.
I doubt this whole 'auction' thing will ever catch on anyway. None is ever going to buy a piece of junk from an unknown person over this here new fangled internet.
~Z
How the heck do you patent doing something that's been done for generations just because it's on the internet. It'd be like patenting giving stock quotes over the phone. It really ticks me off to see all these companies with nothing real to offer humanity getting patents for using other peoples technology. If I were ebay, I'd try and kill this patent based on the shear obviousness of it.
Still, I can't help but wonder if the reason America is so patent crazy lately is to get a leg up on the rest of the world. I'm pretty sure large parts of Europe will be tricked/cajoled/forced into honoring this crap eventually, and I know Iraq will (whether they want to or not).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
...we know you are in there somewhere SCO!
If they did, Paypal would end up the big winner in all of this, keeping all the profits, considering their history of taking people's money.
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
What truly is non-obvious? The fact that this can be patented is truly ridiculous. I can't see how this is a case of patents protecting the economic goals of this country. In this case the patent produces the exact opposite of its original goal, it removes competition in the sector. Yet another reason to search for alternatives to our current IP system.
Photos.
The patents are not on holding an auction, but on the fixed-price Buy It Now feature
[opinion]which is even sillier[/opinion].
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.
You think they'll have the guts to hold an online auction for the royalties?
Take an existing event, which by itself in not patentable (ie an auction) and stick it on a have the participants interact through the internet, and all of a suddent, you have just "invented" the best thing since sliced bread (Patent Pending).
So:
1. Take existing "thing" everyone does
2. Stick it on the net, and patent it
3. Profit
Take that underpants gnomes!
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
You mean Amazon doesn't own this already?
MercExchange, which said it will file an injunction against eBay to keep them from using the fixed price technology MercExchange had patented in 1995.
Does this mean MercExchange patented By It Now?
If I'm reading this properly, then it just seems that Merc wants to:
1. Obtain all legal rights to online auctioning methods
2. Sell to large Fortune 500 company
3. Profit.
Which makes sense to me. It may be a slimy tactic, but that's business.
Vonal Declosion
Oh, and I also worry about stuff like this being enforced in the US. (I'm a US'ian) If we are more strict with our IP laws than other countries, then our companies' ability to compete on the international market could be hampered.
You aren't allowed to patent a business process (i.e. "the assembly line") and I don't understand why this should be any different when the internet, computers or software are concerned. Some software patents like compression algorithms and such are somewhat arguable but patents like "online auctioning" are just stupid...
...that's what you get for ignoring your jury duty summons.
My plan for retirement:
1. Come up with a plan or method that sounds crazy, impractical, or stupid to everyone, and copyright it.
2. Wait 5 or 10 years for someone else to find a way to make millions off it.
3. Sue for copyright infringement.
4. etc...
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
This might be an important case, if ebay decides to try and challenge the legitimacy of the patents. If they win, it could set a good precident. If they lose, it'll be a disaster. I hope thats what ebay does, allowing MercExchange to make money off these absurd patents will only encourage others. Oops, it appears that I have a patent for electronicly displaying letters and numbers...
If these patents continue to hold up, then either EBay will buy them for some stupendous price, or somebody else will buy them and charge EBay studpendous fees. Either way, EBay will continue to do business much as before -- the profits will just get divided slightly different. Big deal!
eBay was founded in September 1995. Patent was filed in November 1995. Was eBay doing something other than auctions?
This has nothing to do with auctions on the internet or the end of all auctions. It has to do with specific combination of FIXED PRICE SELLING and an INTEGRATED PAYMENT PROCESSOR.
So, IMHO, ebay just needs to remove the fixed price items and it's business as usuall.
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.
To SCO (too skoe), v.t. (1) To attempt to collect royalties or fees for services or the use of properties to which the perpetrator has no rights, or to which the alleged rights are highly dubious. (2) To bully by means of expensive trial lawyers. Also, pulling a SCO (colloquial).
SCO-ed (skoad, skode), (1) past tense and past participle of To SCO (q.v.). (2) adj. Result of the action of a SCO-ing.
How about patenting the concept of porting a way of auctioning things over the internet from IPV4 to IPV6?
Or bidding via a cell phone instead of a computer.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Now they have one more reason to fail, but it has nothing to do with market forces, freedom or the American Way. You telling me I can't do something obvious because you did it first is bogus. I might like to run a trading site for the fun of it, that's they way ebay started. If it makes lots of money, like ebay did, goodie for me. If not, no big deal. Me paying you money for nothing is not something I care to do. Screw off.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Whoever holds the patents may require other sites to pay them licensing royalties
Or they could be sane and let the world continue as it has been, succesfully.
Pay close attention to this (block)quote:
That's right... According to the story, the only thing eBay can't do, is the "Buy it now" thing. Auctions go on as usual.
The second article says the same thing, approximately:
Last time I used eBay, there was no "integrated payment processor", and "fixed-price selling" was a new feature... In other words, they were doing well before those features, so I imagine they could do without them if things don't go their way.
I hate patents, but I hate sensationalist
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
This is why people hate the US Patent and Trademark Office.
...and sue the shit out of AOL, MSN, Yahoo, any and all operators of IRC servers, VoIP systems, and the like.
The sad things is; if tommorow I saw a headline that someone did just that, I wouldn't be suprised in the least.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I'm thinking more along the lines of businesses moving out as opposed to citizens. How about ebay moves its entire operations to Canada, or maybe Aus? We have decent webserver pricing, there's already ebay.ca, etc. Swap the domain name to a Canadian nameserver.
Such an incredibly stupid patent would have less chance of surviving Canadian court... not sure about Aus... but it seems that America is slowly poisoning its own economy. I mean, X years from now America will be so bogged down by bad patents and innovation-stifling technology/laws that it will be far behind the rest of the world in a technological sense.
Rather then use "buy it now" technology, perhaps e-bay would move tward "end it now" technology, where users who are trully interested in an item can select to buy it, rather then the seller selling it. This way it should resolve the trivial issues of the IP of "buy it now".
Now if that sounds fucking stupid, it's no more stupid then someone claiming they hold the IP to "buy it now".
Near as I'm aware... OBO [or best offer] technology has been in use for as long as I can remember, employed by a vast amount of private citizens when selling things via news paper classifieds.
For those "unfamilar" with OBO technology... basicly a person is selling goods or services and lists an ideal price under the terms that you can buy it for that price, otherwise the selling will accept the highest offer they recieve. What we forget is offers can be higher or lower then the asking price.
For example, I was selling a 486 overdrive some years back. I put it up for sale for like $50 OBO, and I got offers higher then what I posted it for. Basicly I explained to all involved that my best offer was like $75 but a higher offer would be accepted and sold. Needless to say this pissed people off, dispite the fact I was trying to conduct the transation in a fair and honest fasion, and taking the "best" offer.
I would have taken $50 for it, but someone was willing to pay me more money in order to assure that they got it, as well as some assurance that it worked.
Now... I am not the inventor of OBO technology, in fact i'm not sure who is, I would *THINK* it's in the public domain, the fact that it's in common use.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Ebay should retaliate by patenting "Online Auctions using a computer and software"...
Then whoever buys the other patents will be forced to cross-license!
Isn't it wonderful to see such innovation and progress being so thoughtfully encouraged by our beloved government? (May they never be overthrown!)
Makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.
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!
Maybe that was offtopic, since mathematicians have a strange notion of "obvious". Thing is, you can't just say something is "obvious" because it's something we take for granted now. Nowadays, anybody who's studied elementary math takes as "obvious" that there's no largest possible integer. Perhaps if Cantor's proof to the contrary had been a little harder to understand...
The fact is, it's easy to say "Oh, anybody could have thought of that" after somebody has actually thought of it. But you don't actually know that. To have an intelligent opinion on the originality of an invention, you have to stop and compare it with other inventions, ones that got accepted as truely original. And ones that haven't.
I don't have an opinion on the patentability of online auctions. To have an educated opinion on this issue, I'd have to compare it with other similar ideas that other people have tried to patent. Of course, this is a free country, and you're entitled to have an opinion about anything you choose, whether you know what you're talking about or not. But until you take the trouble to have an educated opinion, you're the one who should screw off.
I was going to ask if the legal use of the word "obvious" is different than the common-sense one, but google quickly answered my question.
I won't try to summarize the document, as I'm sure I'd butcher the meaning, but short answer: Yes, patent law use of the word "obvious" is somewhat contrary to common sense. In retrospect, I guess this should have been obvious to me. *rimshot*
It is frightening to think that something that any group of 5th graders might come up with in a brainstorming session could qualify as non-obvious, but it sounds like this could be the case.
This has been going on since the eighties. Maybe not on the Internet, but definitely within private networks of cooperating organisations.
See my journal, I write things there
Yes, you'd be 100% correct, if we lived in a world where everyone played the bidding game by a purely logical strategy, and knew everyone else would as well.
But people don't. Last minute bids take on an importance that they shouldn't have, because not everyone on ebay bids their maximum amount right away.
If I place a 50 dollar bid on an item that someone else has previously placed a bid on, for 34 dollars, the new price will be 35 dollars, with me as the winner. In theory, if 34 dollars was in fact the theoretical maximum that the other guy had been willing to pay, it would end there.
But this guy thinks to himself, and decides that hey... he really wants this gold plated ant farm, and it's worth 48 dollars to him. So he bids 48 dollars. And suddenly, I'm still winning the bid, but it's at 49 dollars.
"Hmm..." he thinks to himself, "I know what I'll do. I'll bid on this item at the last second, and I'll bid... oh... 75 dollars. Now, I know that this item isn't worth 75 dollars, but there's no way this other guy already bid higher than that. So I'll be winning, at whatever the old bid was, plus a buck! Perfect!"
So he does this, and he wins the auction at 51 dollars. Of course, he wound up spending 17 dollars more than he planned to, but the thing is, he won the auction. I lost it. And if I would have been willing to bid higher, on second thought, I won't get the chance to.
If, on the other hand, I had waited until the last second, and he had thought he was safe and secure at 34 dollars, I could have come in and stolen the bid at 35.
The thing to realize is that last minute bids matter, not because it pays to bid later in the bidding, but because it pays to bid last. If we all had infinitely fast reaction time and internet connections, that would not be the case, and we'd all (theoretically) be back to the position by which the person who's willing to bid the most will always win.
Arg, this is really frustrating! People use this [sarcasm]non-obvious[/sarcasm] concept all the time. In countless magazines, newspapers, etc. How silly would it be for Auto Trader to patent the concept of OBO (which is what we're talking about here) for paper media? And how much more absurd is it that now, any person who uses "$XXX OBO (Or Best Offer)" /online/ to sell their goods (let's say in a forum, where they are responsible for their choice) is liable for patent infringement.
This is cleary the same thing - The $XXX is the buy it now, the OBO is the, "otherwise start bidding".
In theory this affects everyone who wants to sell something online, not just the auction sites.
On the principles and ideals under which auction patents were files. I have an idea for you nzyank! Why don't you file a patent for the molecular makeup of the air. Better yet why don't you file another patent on the processes of breathing. Then you can claim that you have 13 patents.
Remember when Ebay got those retarded patents on showing thumbnails of items for auction? I think their whole schtick was that they had items from more than one database being presented in a single webpage or something. :P Well, this is karma.
I don't want to see anyone win here. I want to see the award reduced massively, and I want to see the person who filed the lawsuit vilified by everyone. I want the injunction to be granted and I want them to fight it out as long as possible while their online auctions taken down. I don't wany Ebay to sell out to another company. I want Ebay to enforce its online auction patents against everyone else doing online auctions and I want all online auction sites taken down.
I want this to be a big fucking huge giant mess that pisses every Internet user in the entire country off and has them asking: Why can't I sell my <worthless crap> anymore? How dare the government tell me I can't do this? You mean a bunch of *lawyers* can just take away the Internet?
It's wishful thinking, but I hope that Ebay goes all the way with this and tries to drag everyone down with them.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Client : So, should we sue him, send a letter or what?
Lawyer : Nah, that's just being too litigious, lets wait a few weeks and see what happens.
Client: Hmm, okay.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Looking at the verdict, independent claims 8, 15, and 26 were found infringed. Here are those claims:
No, I think you are wrong. It is the lawyers. I am not talking about anyone in particular you know, or any one person, but the profession of lawyers. They created the environment where it is OK to file stupid lawsuits. What do they care, as long as they get paid.
Who do you think makes the laws? Lawyers. You can argue that they are drafted and passed by Congress or the Senate or the friggin PTA, but lawyers create and revise the laws. Everything has to be in correct legal terms. Everyone who has power has "legal council" who can manipulate the system. When you think of "scumbag" lawyers, it isn't just the ambulance chaser, it is also the divorce attorney who is trying to get his client all the money he can, or the defense attorney who gets his client off on a technicality when he was guilty. They manipulate the legal system to suit their own needs. All of them.
Our legal profession is a joke, and even if you aren't one of the bad guys, you have to play the bad guys' game. Now you might think that it is our legal system that is messed up, and you would be right, but who do you think created it? Lawyers created the legal system. Judges. They have created a nation of people whose first response to a problem is "sue them". They have created an environment where they are, consciously or not, creating job security. I am amazed at the people who scoff at the hot coffee lawsuit at McDonald's, yet their first thought when they are wronged is to sue someone. Some telemarketer called me in the middle of the night - I'll take them to court! Lawyers have dug themselves into the skin of our society, and have played a large part in ruining it. They have created an atmosphere of fear, where nobody will admit they are wrong - ever! If someone admits to being wrong, they are ripe for a lawsuit. Malpractice insurance is so high that some doctors can't stay in business. A doctor makes a mistake, and immediately runs to his legal council about what to do. Legal council will try to handle the issue within the legal system, which basically means trying to get the doctor absolved of any wrongdoing. The patient gets frustrated at playing the legal game, and decides to sue! It is insane.
I have a friend who is in law school, and he basically hates humanity right now. I would have classified him as morally questionable before he started this degree, but he is even put off by the legal profession. He told me he hates it. But that is where the money is at, which is pretty much the other half of the problem in this country. Combine greed and our legal system, and you have one fine clusterfuck of a society.
Hey, smartass, so what is the solution? I have no idea. We are in a bad situation, where the laws are simply growing and growing, and the attitude is getting worse and worse. I don't know how it can get better. Thank you, legal system, and all your lawyer henchmen, for making our society what it is today. I won't deny that there are some good lawyers out there, but they shouldn't even be necessary. The fact that you have to classify them as good or bad should tell you something. We have accepted the facts that our society has become a legal game. It is sad.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
"And in related news, Christie's will now be filing suite against all other auction houses in the United States requiring them to pay a fee for holding auctions."
There are many things that people have posted and the arguments, briefs and explanations of the issues quite complex.
Honestly, I think this is just dumb. I wish the judges would declare a new classisfication besides dismissed.
"Earlier today the honorable Judge Thomas has declared the case against eBay Just Dumb. MercExchange will be required to pay a Dumb fine of $1, restricted to payments of one penny per month. Judge Thomas stated that the fine is appropriate for such a case, saying that hopefully corporations that are considering such dumb lawsuites review them before committing themselves to a dumb punishment. Violations to this payment plan will result in fines of up to and including $100 million. MercExchange could not be reached for comments at the time of this writing and it is suspected they are arranging a contract with a bank to ensure their penny-a-month payment."
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
The technology in question is "Fixed Price" auctions. Auctions that have "Buy it now" on them. Back in the day (pre-1994) I used to do comic auctions on the usnet and we used that trick all the time. It was known as the "Buyout". Here's a link to an auction back then that had a buyout (not mine, just the first one I found). There's plenty more:
Buyout Auction
=Shreak
The only way this kind of patent-abuse nonsense is ever going to stop in the short term is if enough people get PO'ed enough to put forth strong political pressure for reform. Software and business practice patents are a serious threat to innovation and the economy in general. We need the nation's tech entrepreneurs to rise up in opposition and let their voices be heard.