eBay in 'Buy It Now' Patent Dispute 292
smooth wombat writes "The Office of the Solicitor General of the United States has filed a brief with the Supreme Court, taking the side of MercExchange who is in a patent dispute with eBay over eBays Buy It Now feature. Two lower courts have already upheld MercExchange's patents including finding that eBay had willfully infringed on the Buy It Now patent.
Later this month the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments. The Office of Solicitor General is arguing eBay should be barred from using Buy It Now due to the decision of two lower courts that upheld MercExchange's patents. eBay is arguing that infringements should not automatically result in injunctions and shutdowns."
Business Method vs. Business Technology Patents (Score:4, Interesting)
If you can "patent" a method of doing business, isn't the first company to ever use a cash register entitled to receive business method patent royalties from all the copycats who started using them later?
Re:The Details (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The Details (Score:4, Interesting)
The price on the tag could be considered the "buy it now" price at which the store owner has already indicated they'd sell.
Buy It Now and dealers are killing eBay (Score:5, Interesting)
The article clearly states that eBay was in negotations to license this patent but negotiations broke off. eBay then went ahead, knowing that someone else held the patent to this service, and instituted Buy It Now anyway.
Further, Buy It Now is becoming the norm rather than the exception. When eBay started they were an online auction company. People put up stuff to sell and let the market determine the price.
Now, Buy It Now is overtaking the auction feature and dealers are holding sway. For example, I'm looking to add to my camera equipment. When I do a search for my particular type of lenses I get 11 pages back. Of those pages at least half are Buy It Now from dealers.
Do a search for lens accessories and 3/4 of the pages are from dealers. Camera cases? 90% of the listings are from dealers using Buy It Now.
I was fortunate enough to pick up a lens last weekend. I took a look at the bid history and checked the last person to bid (2 seconds before the auction closed). Sure enough they were a dealer and everything the person had for sale on their site was Buy It Now.
This is alot like flea markets nowadays. In the past the people selling stuff were like you and I. Now when you go there are dealers galore.
I'm not against the market system, that's what eBay was originally founded on. However, by allowing people, particularly dealers, to set a specific price, defeats the whole purpose of an auction.
Yeah, yeah, I know. If you don't like it, don't buy from the dealers. I don't. The point is that when dealers control the vast majority of the listings that will drive the price up for everyone else since there will be fewer true auction listings for people to choose from.
Personally I can't wait to see Buy It Now be done away with.
Would it be possible... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:erm ... shops (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"critical mass" (Score:3, Interesting)
Hate to tell you, but this is alreay at critical mass. Look at the number of big-time patent fights that are going on now:
The list continues to grow. Somewhere, someone is writing code in the warm little cocoon of ignorance and once they have released it into the wild, they will be set upon by flocks of hungry vultures^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlawyers and will eventually be sued into backruptcy and destitution. Ah, it's a great time to be a programmer!
Re:Business Method vs. Business Technology Patents (Score:5, Interesting)
No. The auction is not capped at the BIN price. Once a bid has been placed (provided the reserve price, if there is a reserve has been met or exceeded), the Buy It Now option goes away, and the item goes to the regular auction format with no upper limits.
I myself have been pleasantly surprised the few times I have had items end up going for higher than what the Buy It Now was. And in a few instances, I have been amused to discover that the winning bidder in those instances ended up being the one who initially bid and popped the Buy It Now, paying more in the end than what he would have paid had he just made the purchase with BIN.
Re:How is this an "Invention"? (Score:3, Interesting)
The average person has no idea fucked up the patent situation is in this country.
Getting someone to invent it again? (Score:2, Interesting)
I seem to remember a case where company Y considered patented method A so vital that it screened engineers/programmers (I believe the latter) for those who had never heard of method A, and then employed them, without any guidance how, to solve the problem, and in doing so they came up with method A? Which was subsequently allowed?
If this is the case - isn't it just a matter of scraping together a focus group of punters from somewhere who have never used Ebay, and ask them to design a feature-rich online auction system?
Easy way around this. (Score:4, Interesting)
These patents are just so f'ing stupid.
Re:Buy It Now and dealers are killing eBay (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking as an eBay seller, it seems that eBay wants it to be this way -- at least for small items -- and I'm not happy. I, for one, would prefer to use the classic bid option to sell my photographs [ebay.co.uk] but with the way eBay nickel and dimes you to death, it's just too costly by the time I'm done with gallerly fees, category fees, initial price fees, final price fees and paypal fees. I'm hoping the ebay killer comes along soon so I can switch ships.
-CGP
Patent Requirements (Score:2, Interesting)
This patent is obviously invalid. It falls into two categories which violate major rules of patentability:
-Nonstatutory (method of doing business)
-Obvious (does not take an inventor to "buy it now" at a predetermined price)
Yet somehow, they have a patent, they've managed to fight a long court battle over it, and apparently, the government educated morons running the Solicitor General's office think it's valid!