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eBay in 'Buy It Now' Patent Dispute
smooth wombat writes "The Office of the Solicitor General of the United States has filed a brief with the Supreme Court, taking the side of MercExchange who is in a patent dispute with eBay over eBays Buy It Now feature. Two lower courts have already upheld MercExchange's patents including finding that eBay had willfully infringed on the Buy It Now patent.
Later this month the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments. The Office of Solicitor General is arguing eBay should be barred from using Buy It Now due to the decision of two lower courts that upheld MercExchange's patents. eBay is arguing that infringements should not automatically result in injunctions and shutdowns."
Where I think eBay is in trouble is that in a few of these patents, MercExchange references the idea of two different specified prices, with "buy at" or "sell at" similar to eBay's "Buy it Now" price. Taken from their patent on dynamic pricing information: There is a lot to read in their patents but the reason this case is so compelling is that MercExchange patented a very descriptive and complete dynamic pricing scheme and hierarchy to auctioning online in patent US6856967. I'm very confused as to why the date on the patent reads 2005-02-15 unless this is a renewal date.
I'm not a lawyer but I do wish that articles covering patent cases would link to the actual patent documents themselves so that the public can become aware of the extreme legalese that enshrouds patents.
What will be interesting is what the lawsuit may entitle MercExchange to receiving. eBay has had this feature for quite a few auctions and I wonder if MercExchange is going to demand a cut of eBay's cut for each auction transaction completed where this feature was available. That's quite a bit of cash.
Honestly, it looks to me like this will hold up in court. Any real lawyers out there have any comments to make? I'd ask you to read the patent and tell us what you think but I lack the $250/hour you charge.
My work here is dung.
Whatever happened to the whole "non-obvious" part of a patent?
This one involves eBay and a company called MercExchange LLC, which says eBay's popular "Buy It Now" auction feature violates patents held by MercExchange.
Solution, put the 'Buy it Now' patent on sale on eBay using the 'Buy it Now' feature for $50 million. Ebay will buy it then, and the problem is solved.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I have not read the patent in detail. However, for a moment, assuming the article and summary are correct, then I think one of the big issues is whether or not a given business activity should be shut down/suspended when a patent challenger indicates infringement.
If eBay patently (no pun intended) infringed on the patent, then they must reach settlement with the patent holder, no doubt. But - I don't think the business activity should necessarily be shut down until such a settlement can be reached. (Please bear in mind that I'm over-simplifying to stimulate the point here...)
If a patent holder wishes to interrupt the business of an alleged infringer, there should be a fixed set of things that must occur before the alleged infringer must cease the patented activity or product. OTOH, two judges have already agreed that eBay is infringing. Are the judges' decisions enough evidence for suspension of activity or product?
A Passionate Independent Musician
This explains my inability to get laid in high school: It never occurred to me to discuss the politics of patent law with my dates...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Depending on how you lay things out, every vendor for the last, oh, 40'000 years (you know, since "you give club, I give sheepskin") has been "infringing" on this "patent". Basically what eBay is doing is they have a shop, on the web, where people can peddle their wares. The "buy it now" price is the selling price (the club, the sheepskin), and the "OBO" is covered by the auction logic.
What astounds me is that there is a person out there, who has managed to stand up on his hind legs, and is stating that this is his invention. How does this guy interface with other people? How does he stand being laughed out of every conversation where his job or his "abilities" come up? Is ripping off one of the rare successes from the internet bubble a legitimate career now? Do these guys have no pride whatsoever?
yes, we have no bananas
Workaround -
A button that says:
Buy it... wait... Ok, now
Patents should be issued for physical inventions - actual physical products that you can hold in your hand - a propeller-hat or Dippy Drinking Bird for example. Patents should not be issued for business methods - a.k.a. any idea that comes out of my ass at work. It's patents like these and the ones behind the Blackberry case that show that these types of patents are completely anti-productive and against the original purpose of the patent system.
Basically, they are existing ideas or "business methods" applied to a new medium. There's nothing novel or unique about them. Someone just said, Hey, you could do auctions on the Internet, let's patent that! or Hey, you can do email on a cell phone, let's patent that!. I might as well start applying for patents for Email in Space! or Auctions in Space! That'll make me rich.
These things are so stupid and obvious I'm surprised that Judges will uphold them. Technically I suppose they're probably just following the law and their hands are tied. But that just means that the law needs to be changed - fat chance of that though considering the lobbying power of the large patent holders.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes