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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."

2 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.