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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
The jury said that eBay's "Buy It Now" option, which allows auction surfers to do the same thing, infringed on Woolston's patent.
From: Another patent of his (February 1999)...
Auctioning an uniquely identified item (e.g., used goods or collectibles) with a computerized electronic database of data records on the Internet includes creating a data record containing a description of an item, generating an identification code to uniquely identify the item, and scheduling an auction for the item at the computerized database of records. The item is presented for auction to an audience of participants through a worldwide web mapping module executing in conjunction with the computerized database. The data record connotes an ownership interest in the item to a seller participant on the computerized electronic database of data records. The worldwide web mapping module translates information from the data record on the computerized database of records to a hypertext markup language (HTML) format for presentation through the Internet. Bids are received on the item from participants on the Internet through an auction process that executes in conjunction with the computerized database of data records. Auctioning of the item is terminated when the auction process reaches predetermined criteria. The auction participant is notified of the high bid in the auction process. The unique identification code is provided to the auction participant with the high bid to uniquely identify the item.
Seems like this fool was trying to go after EBay by filing patents that were VERY similar to what EBay had already been doing. Nevermind "Buy it Now", he wanted it all.
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.
E-Bay will now be charging a 15,000% "We Got Sued" tax on all completed bids over the price of $0.01
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
...until someone sues this old coot for infringing on their patented idea to sue companies for patent infringement of frivilous patents.
Wooo man will the judges have fun with that one.
Posting as directed.
i can just imagine what it would have been like in the past if the patent office was what it is like now...
horsenbuggy: your car uses four wheels!
ford: oops
$29.5M found in favor of horsenbuggy.
Why 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
he has a verified paypal account!
Intelligent Life on Earth
- You click it and it charges your credit card on a random date and sends you the merchandise whenever the seller feels like it!
Or maybe not. Sshhhhh... no stealing .... sshhhh
...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.
My company recently applied for two patents for which I am named the "inventor". the patents are pretty obvious ideas. In my opinion, there is nothing there worthy of a patent, in other words, there is nothing that is not obvious about the ideas.
While speaking with the patent attorney and describing the details of the "invention" he said that his job is to make the patent as broad and general as possible (read vague) to make it easier to litigate an infringement. You could see his mind working as he worked out the patent application in his head.
While I agree we need patents to protect intellectual property, patenting obvious ideas, not even actual working inventions, is amazing. Customers have been able to "Buy it Now" at any retail store in the world since the dawn of time! Why is it that when we get a computer involved we need a patent and ~$30 million USD in compensation for this idea?
The attorney would constantly look at other things we were doing and ask about them. The only plus to this is that I'll have my name on a few patents soon, if you call that a good thing. I was also told that if in a few years the need to litigate the patents arose I would be deposed. I'm imagining myself at a different job in a different location getting a letter saying I need to be present at a law office some where!
ebay plays the exact same game here. They are banning people from using vauge e-commerce buzz phrases from advertisements regarding to ebay, claiming a patent. They have even started a business group to sell the rights to use these words. They get what they deserve./ m08/i07/s0 2 (the banning)2 4/rtr10094 38.html (about the selling of words)
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03
http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2003/06/