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Patents The Almighty Buck

EBay Fined $29.5M in Patent Case 317

Posted by CmdrTaco from the absolutely-ridiculous-patents dept.
pigreco314 writes "As reported by Washington Post and many others a federal judge Wednesday ordered online auction house eBay to pay $29.5 million to a Virginia inventor (former CIA engineer) who accused the company of stealing his ideas." This case has been going going on for awhile, but this looks to have some finality. Patenting "Buy it Now" is almost as stupid as One Click Shopping.
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EBay Fined $29.5M in Patent Case More

EBay Fined $29.5M in Patent Case

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  • This is very bad news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mjmalone ( 677326 ) * on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:24PM (#6638091) Homepage
    If a large corporation like ebay can't win a case brought up against them for infringing an obviously frivolous patent then what chance do the rest of us have? Drastic reform in the uspto is necessary. Since the government started cutting federal funding they have started looking at the organization as a corporation in place to serve their "customers." This is a horrible model for a patent organization, their customers should be every citizen of the country, not just those who file patents. The patent clerks are overburdened and they are rewarded on the basis of how many patents they accept and file, which means any patents they find not suitable are not beneficial to their careers.

    Also, how does the court system justify an award of $29.5 million? This seems like a huge amount for such a simple patent. Does the defendant own his own auction house? Is ebay's use of buy it now seriously impacting him financially? This is just absurd.

    In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Jerome Friedman said he would not require eBay to abandon the disputed technology, saying Woolston's lawyers failed to show that he would suffer irreparable harm if the court did not issue an injunction.

    If they failed to show that there would be irreparable harm from future use than how did they show that there was harm from prior use? I guess they don't need to prove any harm, they just need to show they own the patent and they get a huge sum of money. Wired's article [wired.com] says that both sides plan to appeal, maybe ebay can get a better deal in this process.
    • This is very bad news

      No, it's not bad news. Ebay is known for trouncing on people who claim IP infringement, yet slapping others for using "their" IP. They are an example of all that is evil with regard to corporate America and intellectual property laws. They may not be as bad as Microsoft or others in this regard, but that's probably because they're not quite as broad or powerful yet.

      They deserve this, and maybe it will teach them to play nice in the future.

      • Re:This is very bad news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Hayzeus ( 596826 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:44PM (#6638339) Homepage
        They deserve this, and maybe it will teach them to play nice in the future.

        While they may well "deserve this", given their own portfolio of ludicrously obvious patents, the lesson that eBay will most likely take away from all of this is that they should be even more aggressive with their IP portfolio, not less. Clearly, if an individual was able to prevail over them in court, surely this implies that their own patents are at least equally defensible.

        The bottom line is that this is in no way a good thing for anybody -- except perhaps the patent holder and the IP legal industry.

        • The bottom line is that this is in no way a good thing for anybody

          I disagree. It serves as a message that "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword". If companies like eBay keep getting slapped like this, if the IP wars become too absurd, then maybe the message will get across that our IP system must change. And maybe real change will happen. As long as big and powerful companies can do all the slapping without getting slapped themselves just as hard, nothing will change.

          • Re:This is very bad news (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Hayzeus ( 596826 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @04:13PM (#6638675) Homepage
            "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword"?

            Get serious -- this biblical maxim is understood by lawyers only in the following modified form:

            He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword, unless he has a bigger sword than everybody else. And in any case, we still get paid.

            There is no sense of "karma" in the intersecting corporate, political and legal worlds than dominate the tech industry.

        • Why is everyone talking about this guy like he has no right to sue for something he came up with that a VERY large company may very well ahve stolen from him (indeed a very educated judge thinks so based on evidence presented him in a scientific manner: court that is).

          Does anyone here at SlashDot think for a second that companies like E-Bay or Yahoo were waiting for a judgement like this to start their own lawsuits based on their "patent portfolios"? Come on.

      • Re:This is very bad news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sweetooth ( 21075 ) * on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:46PM (#6638357) Homepage
        Change Ebay to the name of some other company that you think is a good wholesome business. Do you still think a decision like this is good? Probably not. The fact that you don't like ebay shouldn't be a factor in your opinion of this being a good ruling or not. You should consider the precedant this would set and the effect on other peoples ability to do business. If ebay is having to pay 29 million dollars for the use of this technology do you think any small shop will be able to afford to license this technology and build a competing service? Not a chance.

      • Re:This is very bad news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Transient0 ( 175617 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:48PM (#6638383) Homepage
        Maybe they do or maybe they don't deserve it. That doesn't change whether the fact that it happened is good or bad news.

        Maybe the GWB deserves a bullet in the head, but I would be tremendously unhappy to see someone give it to him and get away with it. Mostly, because it would set a tremendously bad precedent for when someone decides that I deserve one.
    • If a large corporation like ebay can't win a case brought up against them for infringing an obviously frivolous patent then what chance do the rest of us have? Drastic reform in the uspto is necessary.

      Actually, it's not the PTO's fault. If anyone is to "blame" (and how can you determine blame unless you've actually read the patents and heard the evidence) it would be the jury that found the infringement. Remember, even if the PTO grants a patent, the courts can still strike it down as being invalid.

      • Re:This is very bad news (Score:5, Interesting)

        by BobTheLawyer ( 692026 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @04:00PM (#6638529)
        it's not the jury's fault: the problem is with US patent law, which allows the patenting of business methods. This isn't an example of Congress being bought, it's an example of a legal system out of control.

        Historically, patent systems in most countries haven't allowed business methods to be patented. This had always been the case in the US - the most well known precedent involved a guy named Hicks in the 1890s who tried to patent a bookkeeping method which he claimed reduced shoplifting; he successfully registered the patent but it was held by the court to be invalid.

        However to just about everybody's surprise, the Federal Courts overturned all this in the State Street case in 1998, and the AT&T case a year later. The law is a mess, but it seems anything "useful" can be patented.

        It's extraordinary that so radical a step (and one that's arguably a violation of the US constitution) can be taken by the US court system, and neither Congress nor the Supreme Court seems willing to do anything about it.

        so don't blame the jury.

        End of rant.
        • Of course, you're right. The jury just applied the law to the facts and determined that Ebay infringed. My point was just that blaming the PTO is also wrong. In this case, a jury determined that the patent was valid, in effect, vindicating the PTO.
        • Actually, I thought the trend started earlier in Diamond v. Chakrabarty when the SCOTUS uttered the most stupid phrase "Anything under the sun made by man" is patentable. And the way it's looking, imho, is being useful or promoting the arts and sciences has nothing to do with obtaining a patent anymore.

    • Re:This is very bad news (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Does the defendant own his own auction house?

      Not that this is really news, but the plaintiff, Thomas Woolston, who brought the suit, is a patent attorney. [uspto.gov].

    • My auction site uses something called "Snatch-It", which is essentially "BuyItNow".

      Hope I don't get fined $30,000,000 for it. Especially since I don't make a dime.
    • Surely there must be some prior art here. I vaguely remember some /.ers bringing up some in the original story.

      Anybody got anything?
    • If a large corporation like ebay can't win a case brought up against them for infringing an obviously frivolous patent then what chance do the rest of us have?

      "obviously frivilous" how? Why would you possibly imagine a patent is obviously frivilous after surviving a jury trial? Certainly, the patent may, in fact, be invalid, but where do you come off suggesting that the patent is invalid at all, let alone obviously frivilous?

      If they failed to show that there would be irreparable harm from future use

    • Drastic reform in the uspto is necessary

      Amen brother.

      1. Moratorium on Software and Business Method patents aka, S&BM (which coincidently also stands for S*** and Bowel Movements). 2. Reduce filing fees to zero so that the USPTO no longer generates revenue. That would give the government an incentive to reduce USPTO instead of expanding it. 3. Alternatively, impose fees only on rejected patents. That would give them an incentive to reject as many patents as possible, while still passing a fe

  • he wanted more than Buy it Now. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:24PM (#6638099)
    The jury said that eBay's "Buy It Now" option, which allows auction surfers to do the same thing, infringed on Woolston's patent.

    From: Another [uspto.gov] patent of his (February 1999)...
    Auctioning an uniquely identified item (e.g., used goods or collectibles) with a computerized electronic database of data records on the Internet includes creating a data record containing a description of an item, generating an identification code to uniquely identify the item, and scheduling an auction for the item at the computerized database of records. The item is presented for auction to an audience of participants through a worldwide web mapping module executing in conjunction with the computerized database. The data record connotes an ownership interest in the item to a seller participant on the computerized electronic database of data records. The worldwide web mapping module translates information from the data record on the computerized database of records to a hypertext markup language (HTML) format for presentation through the Internet. Bids are received on the item from participants on the Internet through an auction process that executes in conjunction with the computerized database of data records. Auctioning of the item is terminated when the auction process reaches predetermined criteria. The auction participant is notified of the high bid in the auction process. The unique identification code is provided to the auction participant with the high bid to uniquely identify the item.

    Seems like this fool was trying to go after EBay by filing patents that were VERY similar to what EBay had already been doing. Nevermind "Buy it Now", he wanted it all.
    • The unique identification code is provided to the auction participant with the high bid to uniquely identify the item.

      No kidding.. I was at a Super Auction [superauctions.com] in May, and after following the EXACT same procedure I was givin a unique identification code to identify the item(s) I bought.

      I just don't see the difference between a clipboad listing items for sale, and a web page.

      Other than that, the processes are identical.

    • Seems like this fool was trying to go after EBay by filing patents that were VERY similar to what EBay had already been doing.

      Actually, this is not the case. If eBay could have shown that the ideas in the patent were significantly similar to their own IP work at the time the patent was first under development, they could have invalidated the patent and won the case. The fact that they failed to do so shows that Woolston's patent development was begun prior to anything eBay had developed along those lines

  • At least (Score:2, Funny)

    by Eezy Bordone ( 645987 )
    The lawyers are going to make money, both parties are considering an appeal.

  • This is a bit wierd. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Prince_Ali ( 614163 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:26PM (#6638122) Journal
    He was able to defend a patent for how a normal sale works. I guess in the context of an auction it could be novel, but it still seems odd.

  • In other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by SoVi3t ( 633947 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:27PM (#6638132)
    E-Bay will now be charging a 15,000% "We Got Sued" tax on all completed bids over the price of $0.01
    • SCO just caught wind of this frivolous victory and is now suing eBay and Thomas Woolston for IP infringement for $699 per instance of the Buy-It-Now implementation.

      SCO executives were quick to point out that a User (referred to by SCO as \usr) has, with their IP, always been able to use the Buy-It-Now (\bin, for short) feature which is embedded with SCO's software.

      SCO spokespuppets advised users to please check their comupters for \usr\bin and to pleeeeeease buy some SCO stock this week as their lawsu
  • I hope that the other cases against eBay are not bolstered by this win.
    eBay has hundreds of lawsuits against them currently.

    Their stock dropped like mad after this as well http://quote.money.cnn.com/quote/quote?symbols=eb a y&submit3.x=0&submit3.y=0 [cnn.com]

    But.. on the good front, so did SCO's ( http://quote.money.cnn.com/quote/quote?symbols=sco &submit3.x=0&submit3.y=0 )

  • Stupid? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mhayman ( 673607 )
    The patent system may be stupid, but he ain't if he made $29.5 million!

  • Something needs to be done soon (Score:3, Insightful)

    by slusich ( 684826 ) <slusich@gmail.COMMAcom minus punct> on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:29PM (#6638148)
    If this type of thing is allowed to continue, it will certainly put a damper on real innovations. Vauge patents will keep many companies from implementing anything for fear of being sued.

  • Just wait... (Score:5, Funny)

    by creative_name ( 459764 ) <pauls@o[ ]du ['u.e' in gap]> on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:29PM (#6638151)
    ...until someone sues this old coot for infringing on their patented idea to sue companies for patent infringement of frivilous patents.

    Wooo man will the judges have fun with that one.
    • ...until someone sues this old coot for infringing on their patented idea to sue companies for patent infringement of frivilous patents

      Which is actually part of SCO's new Extortion Business Model (tm) v1.0 and land whoever it is that sues the old coot in court as the target of a lawsuit as well.

      On a side note, when are we going to get the 'I got sued by SCO and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' t-shirts?

      Anyone?

    • Re:Just wait... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ejaw5 ( 570071 )
      Good thing Patent and IP laws weren't in place when:

      -The wheel was invented
      -The method of sparking a fire using stones and/or sticks was found
      -The idea of using some kind of 'tender' as exchange rather than plain trading.
      -A design of a boat/ship were devised
      -Crop-rotation was invented and implemented
      - etc, etc, etc

  • what if the patent office was always like this? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Comsn ( 686413 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:30PM (#6638166)
    i can just imagine what it would have been like in the past if the patent office was what it is like now...

    horsenbuggy: your car uses four wheels!
    ford: oops
    $29.5M found in favor of horsenbuggy.

  • How is this new (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Megor1 ( 621918 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:31PM (#6638176) Homepage
    Why is it that the patent office approves any obvious idea that has existed in the real world for a long time as something new if a computer is involved?

  • i hope... (Score:5, Funny)

    by LinuxHam ( 52232 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:33PM (#6638201) Homepage Journal
    he has a verified paypal account!

  • Buy It Later (Score:5, Funny)

    by yamcha666 ( 519244 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:33PM (#6638211)
    I think I'm gonna patent my own shopping method - Buy It Later

    - You click it and it charges your credit card on a random date and sends you the merchandise whenever the seller feels like it!

    Or maybe not. Sshhhhh... no stealing .... sshhhh

    • Back in my retail days we had management come give us lectures about 'suggestive selling' or 'upselling'.

      "Would you like fries with that?" is obviously the most famous, but "do you want to buy any blank tapes?" is another classic at mall music stores. (Who actually goes there any more?). Or "would you like an extended warranty with that?"

      Anyway, I'd thought 'forced' selling might be fun, unique model for ecommerce. Put product X in your cart, checkout, and you've instead purchased product Y. I thought
    • I think I'm gonna patent my own shopping method - Buy It Later
      - You click it and it charges your credit card on a random date and sends you the merchandise whenever the seller feels like it!

      I think someone beat you to it. At least, this is what happened the last time I ordered something from buy.com ...

    • This feature is already present on Ebay: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32222.html
    • I've already managed to patent "Buy it Never" at my store. [pixeltees.com]

      I hope to increase my product line to 100 shirts, then just start suing the crap out of everyone.

    • nope, www.tigerdirect.com already could claim prior art.
    • Sears has been doing this for YEARS! I'd think they own the prior art on this one ;)
  • I've decided to file a patent for "using a numeric error code to indicate a failed transaction in the HTTP protocol." That way, I can nail every web server in the world for a $10 licensing fee and get outrageously rich! Muahahahah!

  • Jury? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GreenCrackBaby ( 203293 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:37PM (#6638254) Homepage
    How can you have a Jury on a patent trial?? Of course eBay lost...what person off the street would be able to realise how stupid a patent like this is.

    This is like presenting a Jury with DNA evidence:

    DNA Expert: "There is a 1/1,000,000,000 chance that this DNA comes from someone else."

    Jury: "Holy crap! That guy wasn't 100% certain. Not guilty!"
    • Yup like they should do. DNA proves that you have been in contact with a person or somewhere that person has been. It's one thing if it's semen and there massive ammounts of blood (a speckle could be somebody sneezing while walking down the street) Still with semn you prove that something put the semen wherever it ended up. Blood can be defensive wounds blood can be planted. Realy at best you have proven that the person had a good chance of being there unless somebody set them up (ok thats a tin foil h
    • How can you have a Jury on a patent trial?? Of course eBay lost...what person off the street would be able to realise how stupid a patent like this is.

      Then eBay got what it deserved by choosing a jury, although the judge reduced the damages.

      Jury: "Holy crap! That guy wasn't 100% certain. Not guilty!"

      This is a civil case, not a criminal one. There is no "guilt" or "innocence" -- simply damages awarded to either side.

  • He did the right thing (Score:5, Funny)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:38PM (#6638268) Journal
    The man did the right thing by protecting his patents/IP from infringement.

    I hear that you can avoid litigation yourself by leasing his IP for $699 for small auction sites, $1499 for sites utilizing 20 servers or more.

  • It should be noted that... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ipandithurts ( 516079 ) * on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:41PM (#6638307) Homepage Journal
    ...the judge:

    1.) Reduced the jury award from $35 million to $29.5 million. Not a LOT, but a few million here, and a few million there, you're soon talking REAL money.

    2.) Did NOT make the case "special" even though the jury found that eBay was a "willful infringer." The judge COULD HAVE tripled the award AND added attorney fees.

    3.) Ruled that eBay could STILL maintain their "infringing ways" even though patent law clearly provides that a patent holder has the right to excluded others from practicing their invention. Of course, the reports could have failed to notice that eBay was required to post a bond pending appeal and that that's the reason they can keep "infringing" the patent, at least until the Federal Circuit rules on this in a year or two.

    These facts lead one to believe that the judge didn't agree with the jury in this case. While it most certainly will be appealed, I still wonder if the judge is concidering overturning the jury verdict, not withstanding the verdict.

    So, while the posted comment seems to make it look like the judge is "going after eBay" and this now has some "finality" it actually appears to be quite the opposite.

    And as to it being "stupid" to patent this? I can site 29.5 million reasons it wasn't for the inventor to patent it. ;)

  • Original Patent (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sage Gaspar ( 688563 )
    I may be interpreting the original patent wrong (IANAIPL), but it seems like the intent of the patent was to establish a series of franchised nodes throughout the US through which consumers would put up items, buy items outright, or bid on auctioned items. Sort of like a little kiosk at a local store that you would go to visit (the patent used the example of a man visiting a card store and putting up one of his cards for sale, while the owner was using it as an online storefront), complete with a digital c

  • Verdict and Patent in question (Score:5, Informative)

    by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:47PM (#6638373)
    From this useful Slashdot post [slashdot.org]:
  • I'm going to register this buy it now idea with the European Patent office so when the wasters in Brussels decide to allow software patents I can have 29 million dollars as well.

  • Well, that explains everything. (Score:3, Funny)

    by AntiOrganic ( 650691 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @03:53PM (#6638434) Homepage
    former CIA engineer

    Of course it's a dumb patent.
  • And if so, could it be construed as a conflict of interest? Perhaps they could have settled out of court with the "buy it now" option?

  • Vague Patents (Score:5, Interesting)

    by markclong ( 575822 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @04:00PM (#6638537)
    My company recently applied for two patents for which I am named the "inventor". the patents are pretty obvious ideas. In my opinion, there is nothing there worthy of a patent, in other words, there is nothing that is not obvious about the ideas.

    While speaking with the patent attorney and describing the details of the "invention" he said that his job is to make the patent as broad and general as possible (read vague) to make it easier to litigate an infringement. You could see his mind working as he worked out the patent application in his head.

    While I agree we need patents to protect intellectual property, patenting obvious ideas, not even actual working inventions, is amazing. Customers have been able to "Buy it Now" at any retail store in the world since the dawn of time! Why is it that when we get a computer involved we need a patent and ~$30 million USD in compensation for this idea?

    The attorney would constantly look at other things we were doing and ask about them. The only plus to this is that I'll have my name on a few patents soon, if you call that a good thing. I was also told that if in a few years the need to litigate the patents arose I would be deposed. I'm imagining myself at a different job in a different location getting a letter saying I need to be present at a law office some where!

  • Buy it Now? (Score:2, Funny)

    by mopslik ( 688435 )

    The jury said that eBay's "Buy It Now" option, which allows auction surfers to do the same thing, infringed on Woolston's patent.

    No worries. Since there is no single instance in time [slashdot.org], how can one claim to have a patent to buy something "now"?

  • ebay plays the same game (Score:5, Interesting)

    by utmecheng ( 682922 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @04:09PM (#6638635)
    ebay plays the exact same game here. They are banning people from using vauge e-commerce buzz phrases from advertisements regarding to ebay, claiming a patent. They have even started a business group to sell the rights to use these words. They get what they deserve.
    http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/ m08/i07/s0 2 (the banning)
    http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2003/06/2 4/rtr10094 38.html (about the selling of words)

  • I dunno, maybe this does sound right. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sunking2 ( 521698 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @04:11PM (#6638653)
    I clicked on the article and all it really says is that the jury found that eBay willingly infringed on his patent. If we take this to actually be true then this settlement sounds about right. The Buy Now feature is something that eBay uses to attract people. By attracting people eBay makes money, tons of money. If they did see this first somewhere else then they should pay that person for his work.

    The $30m is stated as punitive, a pretty good slap on the wrist. Maybe next time eBay will actually license a patent from the little guy and save some money in the long run rather than have a free lunch
  • i'm serious. the way patents are going is out of hand. a new, more stringent patent system is probably needed, and it seems the best way to achieve that is to simply scrap the USPTO and start over with it.
  • Customer goes into CVS

    Oh good, Pepto Bismo, just what I need.
    "We're sorry sir, but due to US business patent laws, you're not allows to buy that Now."
    Uh what?
    "Sir, you'll have to put it back on the shelf and come back Later."
    When is Later?
    "Later would be not Now, say tommorrow."
    But, but, my stomache...

  • Should we restrict certain types of patents? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by geekee ( 591277 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @04:26PM (#6638852)
    It seems like a lot of people are filing patents that simply combine 2 or more already existing technologies. This case is basically a patent combining online auction with online purchase, two separate things that the patent owner didn't invent, but simply called the combination his invention. Then there's the RIM case where NTP patented sending email over a wireless device. NTP invented neither email or wireless devices. There's also a guy trying to sue people for compression in streaming video, who didn't invent either streaming video or compression. It seems to me a patent that talks about combining 2 technologies in a vaugue way is not fair. All you're doing is patenting an application of an existing technology. It seems unfair to be able to restrict the use of a technology for which you don't own the patent by coming up with a specific application of the technology and patenting it. For instance, if I owned the patent for a streaming video system, and someone came along and sued me because I decided to use compression technology to stream the video, they're limiting what I can do with my own invention.
  • "Your honor, Amazon stole some ideas from me."

    "How exactly did they steal them?"

    "They implanted radio transceivers in my skull while I was sleeping, and listened to my thoughts, your honor."

    "How do you know this?"

    "I used to work for the CIA."

    I'll bet he was serving as his own council, too.

  • The patent... (Score:3, Informative)

    by dark-br ( 473115 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @04:30PM (#6638905) Homepage
    I just had a look at Patent 5,845,265 [164.195.100.11]. The bit covering online auctions says:

    At the auction date, perspective participants log onto the consignment node auction mode locally or through the consignment node network and await the first good to be auctioned. It is understood that in the best mode of the invention the participant will have a data terminal with a digital to analog converter such as a "sound blaster" and speaker, the digital to analog capability may be used in the auction mode to bring the aural excitement of an auction, e.g., the call of the heckler, the caller and bidders, home to the auction participant. This is discussed in more detail below.

    The consignment node takes the first item to be auctioned and posts the image of the good and the good's text record to the participants. The consignment node then posts the opening bid. It is understood that the bid postings may be in a protocol that invokes the generation of an auctioneer's voice at the participant terminals. The participants may then respond with a higher bid. The consignment node mode scans electronically the participants for bids and accepts the highest bid. If bids are tied the consignment node may take the first highest bid by the participants log on order. A particular bidding participant receives a special acknowledgment from the consignment node that her bid was accepted. The consignment node then posts the higher bid to all the electronic auction participants. The consignment node repeats this process until no higher bid is received for a predetermined amount of time and closes the auctioning of that particular good.

    Doesn't sound anything like Ebay to me. If the patent is meant to cover every single conveivable form of "competerized auction house" why don't they just say so? If they were really honest they could say "Joe bloggs has thought of something to do with auctions and computers. He isn't going to do anything with it, but has provided enough techno-babble to convince non-technical people that he could do something with it. Therefore, if anyone else tries to do something remotely similar they must give him money."
    • The thing is that the description in the patent isn't what matters. It is the claims that matter. If you read the description, the patent contemplates a system where antique dealers have computer terminals and people bring in items to sell. The inventor didn't contemplate people owning their own digital cameras and placing the items up for sale themselves. But that is not what the jury determines. The jury determined that the following claims were infringed:

      8. A market apparatus for use with a posting termi

  • Haven't I read all these comments before? Oh, that's right, it was on every other Slashdot story about patents.

    It amazes me that John Q. Slashdot believes he knows more about whether a patent is legitimate, non-obvious, applicable, etc. than professional Patent Examiners. How many of you have actually ever read the relevant U.S. Codes?

    • Re:Redundant (Score:3, Informative)

      by hether ( 101201 )
      True, the /. crowd likes to complain about patents. And it's likely most of us don't know a lot about the patent process, or the legalities involved. Unfortunately in this case the jury was not made up of Professional Patent Examiners either. It was made up of people who probably have no clue about either the technology being used or the patent process. More than likely they did not raed the relevant U.S. codes, but got each lawyer's interpretation. I don't put a lot of faith in their decision, and I am wa

  • This is really bad for small companies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vicegrip ( 82853 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @04:38PM (#6639001) Journal
    I work for a small company that has managed to survive the tech downturn so far. So, from a small company that currently employs about 25 people, let me just say really loud: this kind of landmine would kill us dead.

    Whilst nothing in our systems is so exceptionally original or complicated that it should warrant a patent, this news now means that all the obvious problems we've solved in developing our product so far are potentially vulnerable to being extorted by paper-idea profiteering sleezebags-- and it's all legal and fair according to Uncle Sam.

    The only good thing that might come out of this situation is it might wake up america's sleeping legislators and force them to face and solve this situation that is quickly escalating to an environment lethal to REAL innovation.

    Why should anyone try to start a business on the internet in this climate? Every idea you come up with is susceptible to having a prior patent claim the way things seem to be currently working. It's already bloody hard enough to start a business without having to worry that the processes you want to implement are owned by USPTO licenced crook who is going to wait until it hurts-not-to-pay to come collect on you.
    • I'm starting to think that the only good way to get a new business off the ground in this environment is to have some hit-men on the payroll, so that every time some USPTO licensed crook comes out of the woodwork to sue you over some vague, obvious patent, he's quietly "disappeared".

  • You can't steal an idea (Score:5, Informative)

    by dmeranda ( 120061 ) on Thursday August 07, 2003 @05:06PM (#6639290) Homepage
    ...to a Virginia inventor (former CIA engineer) who accused the company of stealing his ideas.

    Why do people always use the wrong words? You can not steal an idea, except perhaps in some far-out science fiction where neuron transplants occur (Spock's brain?).

    Now you can copy my idea, you can be inspired by my ideas, you can derive the same idea I had by examining some tangible expression of the idea (e.g., product reverse engineering), or you can have the same idea as me all on your own. The later is actualy the most likely reason why two individuals have the same idea, they just had the same thoughts. Thoughts are not mutually exclusive.

    Now, you can steal blueprints, computer printouts, prototypes, webservers, money, or even customers; practically anything that's tangible and where ownership is by nature mutually exclusive. But you can not steal ideas.

    If I actually could steal your idea, then three things must be true:

    • You no longer posses the idea you once had as a direct result of my actions,
    • I obtained the idea directly from you--I did not come up with it on my own,
    • You did not not give me permission to do the above two things.

    Short of that, it's simply not stealing. So the headline should have more correctly read:

    ...who accused the company of using the same ideas that he had.
  • The 1-Click patent was equally obvious and should not have been patentable. Amazon suing Barnes and Noble was ridiculous and should have been slapped out of court from the start.

    But at least Bezos had the balls to call for reform afterward. Straight from the horses mouth. But does anybody honestly think eBay would do anything that would harm their precious portfolio? Somehow I can't see Meg coming out against the whole patent system.

  • Robert Heinlein made a comment about the patent process in one of his books, perhaps The Door Into Summer.

    He said: "You try to claim the whole wide world in your patent and the examiners try to chisel you down."

    Very apt about the claiming the whole wide world, but obviously patent examiners today don't chisel anything down. Maybe it used to be different before all these software and business method patents. The system is swamped and has started handing out patents like toilet paper. The patent office shou

  • Prior Art (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Oregon Health Sciences University has been using the exact same system to sell surplus equipment since at least 1991. When you go to one of their auctions, on some items you have the opportunity to purchase the item before the auction for a set price, or else bid on it once the auction begins. Maybe this bozo went to an OHSU auction before he "invented" this idea.

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