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Judge Permits eBay's "Buy It Now" Feature
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."
Peace sells, but who's buying?
Is this the beginning of the end for patent trolls?
Signature applied for, Patent Pending
A link to the article may be useful :)
Judge Permits eBay's "Buy it Now" feature to continue -- 96+ articles found in Google News.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Merc.
Merc Who?
MercExchange.
MercExchange Who?
I know, I know, don't let the door hit me on the way out.
I dislike software patents, and I dislike patent trolls. But think of the consequences of this decision: Only large companies with "market share" or a "brand name" are afforded the protection of software patents. Which only promotes the status quo by keeping all lobbists in favor of it. On the other hand, a big company can use patent law to protect their legal monopoly.
I know it's not news that laws apply differently to the rich and powerful, but I thought that at least there was a veener of similarity.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
We have become so much more complicated these days, where now we take simple ideas that are difficult to work around like using the letter "i" or the "click" and suing people that use them for large amounts of money.
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
Why isnt anyone involved in this case pointing out that a patent has to be non-obvious? Is there something I am missing here? Legally that patent shouldnt be worth poop. At least in theory.
Great court, fast ruling, judge RECOMMENDED A+++++++
The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to enact laws relating to patents, in Article I, section 8, which reads "Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
The Constitution _only_ grants power to congress to establish patents for the promotion of the progress of science and useful arts. As far as I'm concerned, it is outside constitutional allowances for the government to enforce patents for other purposes, like protecting financial interests of companies that do not promote the progress of science and useful arts.
Somehow, somewhere, patent trolls have lost their way. They seem to have forgotten what trolling means, what stifling innovation meant, what shitting-on-the-little guy was all about. It's not just about making a patent that you can sue and make money offer, and about sticking it to every one else who found a way to actually make that profitable...
I swear, it's really a damn shame...
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
Common sense and judicial decisions regarding patent trolls are like matter and anti-matter; they can't exist in the same universe.
What was once true, is no longer so
I think I am going to patent how to run an organization evily and then sue paypal for stealing my business model.
Microsoft has prior art.
Table-ized A.I.
The injunction wasn't denied JUST because it wasn't a big company. It was denied because:
- MercExchange was not using the technology, AND
- MercExchange had never used the technology, AND
- MercExchange had no plans to use the technology, AND
- MercExchange had never licensed the technology, AND
- MercExchange had no plans to license the technology.
This ruling doesn't say you have to be a big company with a brand reputation to get an injunction. If, for example, you had sold an exclusive license to another company, you would still get your injunction. But, if you were going to patent something, then do nothing with it until someone else did, then when they do you sue them and demand that they stop, the judge is going to say no, force the infringer to pay you, and that's the end of it. 'Inventor' gets paid, infringer stays in business providing the service the inventor never had any intention of providing themselves anyway, and consumer gets to purchase the service. Everybody wins, but the patent troll doesn't get an inordinately large payment by holding an entire business hostage.
paintball
MercExchange Who?
I know, I know, don't let the door hit me on the way out. The only disturbing part of all this is that it would appear that perhaps the law favors large, recognized companies. Small companies and individuals would seem to have a substantial disadvantage under the law.
Don't get me wrong - I think patent law has been totally out of control for the last decade or more. I also think it has its place. But in all cases, I'd hope that the law would apply to everyone, and not just for the protection and benefit of the largest, wealthiest, or most highly recognized names.
This seems to be pop law. "I'm not ruling in your favor, as you're not the type of company/organization/person I think you should be, and some other things". It isn't that the law is being interpreted here - it's that a judgement is being passed on the qualities of one of the parties, without regard to the law.
Sounds like the new, crappy judicial system is coming back into town. The super-wealthy may rejoice.
I think what the court is trying to say is that because patents are intended to Promote useful arts and sciences, that a company without useful products to promote shouldn't be afforded a full monopoly on their patented methods. Obviously MercExchange seems to be a black case a patent holder without a product or intention of having one just trolling the system and there are many white cases where companies hold a patent produce a product and even license to competitors. The gray cases are going to be the tough ones, the small guy struggling to bring a product to market and eventually gives up and makes money through licensing alone.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
all it cuts out (apart from patent trolls) are defensive patent portfolios and small research houses which attempt to develop and then sell ideas.
But that's a huge deal. Basically then, if you're an inventor, you're screwed. Let's say you come up with a way to increase the efficiency of jet engines. According to this, unless you actually plan on selling jet engines, you've got no way to enforce your patent. You can offer to sell the patent to a jet manufacturing company, but why should they buy it from you, since you've got no leverage over them? They can just go ahead and use your invention, and since you don't actually manufacture jet engines yourself, you can't stop them.
And that's more or less what happened to MercExchange, at least according to this article. eBay came to them to offer to buy their portfolio, but really they were just looking it over to see if they could get away with violating it. And after eBay's legal team looked things over, they simply decided to pull a Microsoft and totally violate the portfolio with no compensation. And make no mistake, they did violate it, as decided by a jury. They're simply hoping at this point that they can render moot the jury verdict by getting the underlying patents invalidated.
Make no mistake here. eBay are the bad guys here. MercExchange aren't a patent troll company - they've got a homegrown portfolio and in my opinion deserve to have their ideas protected, insofar as ideas should be protected at all. If you want to rail against software or business method patents in general, maybe you're right, but let's start with the big fishes' huge portfolios first before we go after the guppies.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.