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Australian Gov't Moves To Block E-commerce Patent

Posted by timothy on from the ones-and-zeros dept.

ColaMan writes "Surfacing in the Australian version of GoogleNews, moves are afoot to block a patent covering (it seems) general ecommerce practices on the internet. This comes after the recent strongarm tactics against New Zealand businesses by D.E. Technologies , holder of the patent overseas."

3 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. e-Commerce patents? by agent+dero · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can someone explain this to me honestly?

    How is it possible for someone to patent something on a nationality-less object like the Internet?
    How can they even enforce this, with the exception of AU based companies, what will stop my Bank in Zimbabwae from using their "patented" e-Commerce thinga-mawhatsits?

    Or is it just one of those marketing things, like saying "Oxi-Clean is backed by a patented process..." Just so they look good?

    Anyways, go Australia!

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  2. There goes my business by inflex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, Im a relatively small e-commerce site, doing no more than perhaps $50,000 USD(equivilant) a year. Something like this would simply kill me.

    I do not see how any company is going to come to terms with these high costs - more than likely they'll just adapt around the legals and leave the legal fees falling back on DET.

    I only hope that the person/group/body whom approved the patenting of business-processes didn't envisage things happening like this, more than likely I'm deluded.

  3. Hmmm... by X.25 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In 1998, I've used ShopSite software to run an e-commerce site (which was accepting international orders, calculated shipping costs for DHL/etc, and done many other things). It was a software that was developed before 1998, and as much as I can see DT morons filled for their patent on December 29th, 1997.

    I'm also sure Intershop might be able to give some dates in relation to their software, since I've used Intershop in 1999, and it was also developed before 1998 (probably even before 1997).