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eBay May Lose 'Buy it Now' Button in Patent Case
Spamicles writes "A judge has delayed his ruling on the eBay patent infringement case. eBay has been involved in a legal dispute over the use of its popular "Buy it Now" button, which allows consumers to skip the bidding and purchase items on eBay directly. The patent suit was filed six years ago by MercExchange L.L.C. In May of 2003, a jury ruled in MercExchange's favor finding that eBay did in fact infringe on the patent, but in 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that MercExchange was not automatically entitled to a court order blocking the offending service, essentially handing a victory down to patent reform advocates. However, the ruling by the Supreme Court does not affect the final judgment of the court."
seriously, there's no point getting into a bidding war on any item on ebay and this is the approach i take.
I actually think that ebay (or $NewCompetitor) would do well to change the whole system over to blind bidding. That is you put in the max you're willing to pay at the start and have to wait until the auction is over to see who won and at what price and the auto-bid history behind that. Throughout the duration of the auction there would be no "current bid" on display, just the start price and the number of bidders. If person A bids $10 max and person B bids $15 max person B will still win with $10.01 but they'd both have to wait and see.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Thank you for explaining this.
The problem with eBay is stupid bidders. If everyone would figure out how much they were willing to pay, then bid that much and be done with it, we'd all be happier buyers.
The problem is the bidders who either (1) have no idea how much they are willing to pay but, by God, they're gonna win this auction, or (2) they don't understand the way the bidding process works. Some people belong in both groups.
The people in group 1 somewhat artificially drive up the price. They increase their bid a couple of bucks a dozen times in the last few minutes because, rather than simply bidding the maximum they are actually willing to pay, they keep on jacking up the price until they've either got the high bid or time runs out.
People in group 2 don't seem to understand that they could bid $1,000,000,000.00 on a piece of $5 costume jewelry and they'll only have to pay a few bucks more than the 2nd highest bid. That's right folks: the *second* highest bidder sets the selling price that the highest bidder pays. The people who don't get this concept may have actually come up with a maximum they are willing to pay, but they ease up to it in the last few minutes instead of bidding their maximum and walking away. This group only encourages group 1's behavior.
Because of these groups who don't know how to play the auction game, the only way to win many auctions is to decide how much you are willing to pay and snipe at the last moment (unless it's already bid up higher than your personal maximum). Otherwise someone will decide "I guess I could bid a couple more bucks" in the last minutes of the auction. It's no wonder than people have developed sniping software to do this automatically for buyers who are busy sleeping, working, or enjoying life.
And by the way, if you're bidding on any of *my* auctions, forget all this. Bid early! Bid often!
Shaming.
When companies engage in blatant absurdity, and try to abuse the legal system in the name of lining their wallets, the online community needs to publicize the fact that these companies suck much pond water.
After enough negative profit impact from bogus lawsuits, even the most pointy-haired of bosses will get the memo.
If the gubmint can't do the right thing, then let's rally the market.
Consider this still-steaming loaf of farce: RMS torpedoed this one nicely: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
Unfortunately, money both talks and buys legislation.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Which is why their business should be attacked in the marketplace through better visibility of a) who is the troll, and b) who are they doing business with. We need to create the anti-troll.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Actually there was a bug in Ebay that allowed you to place a bid up to 8 seconds after close if you used one of the European servers to place your bid. Lots of people used it for a while to snag a item after bidding closed until the hole was closed (It was a time slip). The other problem with bidding what you are willing to pay is that ebay is full of incredibly stupid people bidding. I have seen used items go for more money than what you could have bought it new for on Amazon or other online store. People get sucked into the bidding and "It's mine! I'm gonna outbid everyone" mentality, and many items get out of control fast. As a seller, I use tricks to incite the bidding stupidity (list everything starting at %0.99 no reserve) As a buyer, I snipe by hand in the last 10 seconds as most of the sniping software has not worked right for over a year now, nor can it get a feel in the last 30 seconds as to if you will even want to snipe.
Bidding what you think it's worth to you usually does not work. Sniping at the last second is what get's you a lightly used Canon rebel XT digital camera body for $145.00, Or a Toughbook CF-30 for a $450.00 price. Nither of those would have been won at those really low prices if I sat there bidding like everyone else. Coming in at the last second with less reaction time than the other guys have snaggs it, you get a good deal instead of a Ok deal. That is what Ebay has been all about from day 1.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
An abbreviated list:
I'm afraid I don't see much of anything non-obvious on their list, and there's likely plenty of prior art as well. The "online auction" patent was filed in 1999; eBay was founded in 1995. How bad is it when a patent troll gets away with patenting things that aren't even new?
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
I'm getting sick of these. You think if there's a million monkeys who bid on a random service no one would come up with proxy bidding (the site will bid for you up to a certain amount) or buy it now buttons, yet there's patents on both of them.
I get really sick when simplistic business practices are considered treated the same as "trade secrets" even when they are publicly released. I get the feeling that America has become less of a free economy and more of a "patent hell". You certainly can build a better mouse trap, until the first company says they thought up the idea of a mouse trap and then your screwed.