Judge Permits eBay's "Buy It Now" Feature

Posted by kdawson on Saturday July 28, 2007 @02:52PM from the there's-still-that-25-mil dept.

stalebread points to a Reuters story reporting that a federal judge refused to issue an injunction against eBay's "Buy It Now" feature. Quoting: "Judge Jerome B. Friedman of Federal District Court denied a motion by the Virginia company, MercExchange, for a permanent injunction to stop eBay from using the feature. The Supreme Court ruled last year that, although eBay infringed upon MercExchange's patent for the service, it was up to the lower court to decide whether eBay had to stop using it. 'MercExchange has utilized its patents as a sword to extract money rather than as a shield to protect its right to exclude or its market share, reputation, good will, or name recognition, as MercExchange appears to possess none of these,' he wrote."

2 of 139 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Re:Link by Stalus · 2007-07-28 15:03 · Score: 4, Informative

Google FTW - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/business/28ebay. html
Re:This is horrible news... seriously by ozric99 · 2007-07-28 15:47 · Score: 4, Informative

Secondly, E-Bay has had this feature for years. If MercExchange was really trying to protect something so vital to their business as to require an injunction, they should have filed years ago.
What? This battle has been going on for years. Ebay first approached MercExchange in 2000 offering to purchase the patent(s) they were about to infringe upon. MercExchange refused their offers, Ebay went ahead with their plans anyway. MercExchange filed suit againast Ebay in 2001 and won the lawsuit in 2003.