Slashdot Mirror
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."
...now available to the highest bidder.
- 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
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/
The patents are not on holding an auction, but on the fixed-price Buy It Now feature
[opinion]which is even sillier[/opinion].
I'm so tired of this "let's blame the lawyers" crap. Remember that it's the actual parties who file the lawsuits; lawyers are merely advocates for their clients. And, unless it's a bench trial, it's the general public that makes the decisions regarding verdicts and damage awards.
Whether you think society is too litigious is your opinion. But, to blame that on "lawyers" and not all the assholes who file the frivilous suits is not "insightful" at all.
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.
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.
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
The job of these lawyers is to find and exploit legal loopholes to benefit the corporation they work for. A lot of them are scumballs. That's not to say that all lawyers are bad; that's an attitude I don't understand. There are many lawyers committed to things like bringing criminals to justice or fighting for the poor. They just aren't the ones driving brand-new Porsches. Still, many lawyers are willing to take a pay cut to work in the DA's office, because they simply can't stand the "do-it-for-money" attitude of many big law firms and corporate legal departments. If people were willing to look at the entire legal picture, they would find that it's like many others: a few high-profile assholes, and many people who toil away for good causes in relative obscurity.
By the way, I'm not a lawyer, but I do know several. I do not associate with assholes. End of story.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.