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Norwegian Company Claims to have Patented e-Commerce

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the attack-of-stupid-patents dept.

Bård Dahlmo writes "According to Norwegian e-zine digi.no, there is a patent on Internet shopping. It's in Norwegian, but includes a reference to IBM's patent database. " Of course, I'm totally unable to read Norwegian, so this could be the reporter's shopping list - but the notion of patenting /shopping/ is going to give me an ulcer.

1 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. A quick translation by ebohman · · Score: 5

    I'm a Swede, not a Norwegian, so don't sue me if I miss out on something.

    Norwegian has patent for net commerce - sits on a potential gold mine

    Kristiansand-based man filed a patent on ordering concepts used in web stores today in 1993.

    Oslo (28.09.99) - The small Kristiansand-company Bellboy filed a patent application in 1993 covering Internet-commerce in Norway and Europe, according to the news service digi.no. Now the company are asking fees from everyone selling goods or services over the internet or ordinary telephone lines.
    The small norwegian company Bellboy International are sitting on a patent on Internet commerce that makes it possible for them to ask for fees from all internet stores in Europe - and perhaps the US - until the year 2013. With the help of lawyers the company is now going to demand formal contracts and money from the whole internet sector.

    Rolf Wilhelmsen has shot the golden bird. Decmeber 17th 1999 he applied for a patent on a method to conduct real-time lookup and ordering over IT-networks or telephone systems. At the same time, the world wide web and the Mosaic client were introduced.

    But due to the incredibly slow patent application process Bellboy couldn't start demanding license fees from everyone who has launched telephony- or internet ordering systems -such as the international airfare booking system Amadeus, norwegian stores such as Rimi, Onlineclub or Filmweb - until now in 1999. The Bellboy patent differs from normal patents in that it describes only a method, and not any technical principles.

    - Our patent has been a closely kept secret, now we are going to publicize it. Most people are quite shocked when they realize what we have. You have to be pretty smart(?) if your are going to do to internet commerce and not fall under our patent, Wilhelmsen says to digi.no.

    OK, thats about half of it. I have some real work I have to do now...