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EBay Fined $29.5M in Patent Case
pigreco314 writes "As reported by Washington Post and many others a federal judge Wednesday ordered online auction house eBay to pay $29.5 million to a Virginia inventor (former CIA engineer) who accused the company of stealing his ideas." This case has been going going on for awhile, but this looks to have some finality. Patenting "Buy it Now" is almost as stupid as One Click Shopping.
If a large corporation like ebay can't win a case brought up against them for infringing an obviously frivolous patent then what chance do the rest of us have? Drastic reform in the uspto is necessary. Since the government started cutting federal funding they have started looking at the organization as a corporation in place to serve their "customers." This is a horrible model for a patent organization, their customers should be every citizen of the country, not just those who file patents. The patent clerks are overburdened and they are rewarded on the basis of how many patents they accept and file, which means any patents they find not suitable are not beneficial to their careers.
Also, how does the court system justify an award of $29.5 million? This seems like a huge amount for such a simple patent. Does the defendant own his own auction house? Is ebay's use of buy it now seriously impacting him financially? This is just absurd.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Jerome Friedman said he would not require eBay to abandon the disputed technology, saying Woolston's lawyers failed to show that he would suffer irreparable harm if the court did not issue an injunction.
If they failed to show that there would be irreparable harm from future use than how did they show that there was harm from prior use? I guess they don't need to prove any harm, they just need to show they own the patent and they get a huge sum of money. Wired's article says that both sides plan to appeal, maybe ebay can get a better deal in this process.
Visualize the world of wine
He was able to defend a patent for how a normal sale works. I guess in the context of an auction it could be novel, but it still seems odd.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
The patent system may be stupid, but he ain't if he made $29.5 million!
If this type of thing is allowed to continue, it will certainly put a damper on real innovations. Vauge patents will keep many companies from implementing anything for fear of being sued.
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NSFWWhy is it that the patent office approves any obvious idea that has existed in the real world for a long time as something new if a computer is involved?
Everyone that disagrees with me is a paid shill
How can you have a Jury on a patent trial?? Of course eBay lost...what person off the street would be able to realise how stupid a patent like this is.
This is like presenting a Jury with DNA evidence:
DNA Expert: "There is a 1/1,000,000,000 chance that this DNA comes from someone else."
Jury: "Holy crap! That guy wasn't 100% certain. Not guilty!"
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
...the judge:
;)
1.) Reduced the jury award from $35 million to $29.5 million. Not a LOT, but a few million here, and a few million there, you're soon talking REAL money.
2.) Did NOT make the case "special" even though the jury found that eBay was a "willful infringer." The judge COULD HAVE tripled the award AND added attorney fees.
3.) Ruled that eBay could STILL maintain their "infringing ways" even though patent law clearly provides that a patent holder has the right to excluded others from practicing their invention. Of course, the reports could have failed to notice that eBay was required to post a bond pending appeal and that that's the reason they can keep "infringing" the patent, at least until the Federal Circuit rules on this in a year or two.
These facts lead one to believe that the judge didn't agree with the jury in this case. While it most certainly will be appealed, I still wonder if the judge is concidering overturning the jury verdict, not withstanding the verdict.
So, while the posted comment seems to make it look like the judge is "going after eBay" and this now has some "finality" it actually appears to be quite the opposite.
And as to it being "stupid" to patent this? I can site 29.5 million reasons it wasn't for the inventor to patent it.
Stop undressing me with your eyes. I'm ugly naked.
Boy, this joke never gets unfunny, does it? What it is about you geeks and recursiveness?
Somebody please mod the parent "redundant," since the same fucking joke has been made in every patent story for the last year?
(Waiting patiently for the guy who posts "Oh yeah? I'm going to patent the idea of patenting the idea of suing companies." &c. &c. &c.)
Seems like this fool was trying to go after EBay by filing patents that were VERY similar to what EBay had already been doing.
Actually, this is not the case. If eBay could have shown that the ideas in the patent were significantly similar to their own IP work at the time the patent was first under development, they could have invalidated the patent and won the case. The fact that they failed to do so shows that Woolston's patent development was begun prior to anything eBay had developed along those lines, and was in fact original work.
I'm not defending him - I like using the "Buy It Now" feature of eBay and want it to stay. But them's the rules.
Conversely, this case can be used by those trying to show how the patent laws give the little guy a chance to defend themselves from big companies. The fact that ebay loses a suit like this gives credence to the idea that we have rule by law...laws that apply to all.
If the patent wasn't frivolous, and really was the case of a fortune 500 company stealing an idea from a small firm, I would be cheering.
Those who can do. Those who can't claim they did and sue.
"Ideas" are not property, to be bought and sold. And, if you and I invent the same thing at about the same time, but you patent it and I do not, you have essentially stopped me from profitting off my own work, which was most likely equal to the work you did.
Just because two people have the same idea does not mean one stole it from the other.
This is especially true when the patent is about a concept, instead of a method; and double-especially true when the concept is a simple or obvious one.
The rant isn't about patent infringement; it's about how silly patents have become (such as the "concept" patent of "buy it now"), thereby undermining the whole meaning of patents.
Legal 101 there's no in betweens in the law or else it wouldn't be fair.
Since when has the law been about being "fair?"
People shouldn't rant on about something which is not trivial,
Near as I can tell, this patent is trivial, as in, given frivolously to a trivial concept which is neither unique nor innovative.
Now some of you may not agree, but to follow the law to the letter eBay was wrong.
Not really. If the patent office followed the law to the letter, they would not have issued this patent due to its obviousness.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Good thing Patent and IP laws weren't in place when:
-The wheel was invented
-The method of sparking a fire using stones and/or sticks was found
-The idea of using some kind of 'tender' as exchange rather than plain trading.
-A design of a boat/ship were devised
-Crop-rotation was invented and implemented
- etc, etc, etc
$cat
You are confused what people are upset about. The patent should be unenforceable. It is obvious and isn't new. The real thing people are upset about is that the US legal system has made the patent office accept all patents involving computers whether or not they are obvious, a business practice, or have been done in other fields. The fact is, the computer is just a tool nothing more, but we have law makers who are so clueless that they can't see this. Whether I have a buy it now at a real auction or a buy it now on a computer auction is no different. This concept is not new and should not be patentable.
It seems like a lot of people are filing patents that simply combine 2 or more already existing technologies. This case is basically a patent combining online auction with online purchase, two separate things that the patent owner didn't invent, but simply called the combination his invention. Then there's the RIM case where NTP patented sending email over a wireless device. NTP invented neither email or wireless devices. There's also a guy trying to sue people for compression in streaming video, who didn't invent either streaming video or compression. It seems to me a patent that talks about combining 2 technologies in a vaugue way is not fair. All you're doing is patenting an application of an existing technology. It seems unfair to be able to restrict the use of a technology for which you don't own the patent by coming up with a specific application of the technology and patenting it. For instance, if I owned the patent for a streaming video system, and someone came along and sued me because I decided to use compression technology to stream the video, they're limiting what I can do with my own invention.
Vote for Pedro
I don't think anyone is arguing against patents, only against patenting obvious ideas. The patenting of business models, obvious algorithms, and so forth should not be allowed, especially for software. I should know, I'm currently going through the patent process.
I also think it is important to see how the patent holder deals with patents. For example, the company I work for is after as many patents as they can get. This is not to go out and sue everyone, but to protect itself against other companies like IBM, which holds so many patents it's impossible to not infringe on.
Patents should be for non-obvious solutions. Buy it now is pretty obvious, as is Amazon's one click shopping. Obvious software algorithms and methods should also not be patentable.
The problem in the US is that since the patent office is underfunded they leave the settlement of patents up to the courts. The problem here is that judges and juries are not technical people and aren't qualified to make these decisions. The bar for accepting a patent needs to be raised significantly IMO.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
I work for a small company that has managed to survive the tech downturn so far. So, from a small company that currently employs about 25 people, let me just say really loud: this kind of landmine would kill us dead.
Whilst nothing in our systems is so exceptionally original or complicated that it should warrant a patent, this news now means that all the obvious problems we've solved in developing our product so far are potentially vulnerable to being extorted by paper-idea profiteering sleezebags-- and it's all legal and fair according to Uncle Sam.
The only good thing that might come out of this situation is it might wake up america's sleeping legislators and force them to face and solve this situation that is quickly escalating to an environment lethal to REAL innovation.
Why should anyone try to start a business on the internet in this climate? Every idea you come up with is susceptible to having a prior patent claim the way things seem to be currently working. It's already bloody hard enough to start a business without having to worry that the processes you want to implement are owned by USPTO licenced crook who is going to wait until it hurts-not-to-pay to come collect on you.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
But at least Bezos had the balls to call for reform afterward. Straight from the horses mouth. But does anybody honestly think eBay would do anything that would harm their precious portfolio? Somehow I can't see Meg coming out against the whole patent system.
If professional patent examiners stopped accepting laughably obvious patents written in vague 'legalise' by lawyers, I would agree with you.
As it stands now, however, there are even websites out there listing 'absurd patents of the week'.
Patents are there to encourage people to innovate knowing that their ideas are protected, rather than what seems to be going on often, namely people making an obvious patent, not applying the idea in any practical sense, then suing anyone later who does use it.
Would you believe someone patented the making of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Things like this are ridiculous but the USPTO allows them.