U.S. Supreme Court Hears eBay Case Wednesday 184
siddesu wrote to mention an article on CNN Money about the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court patent suit involving eBay. We've previously mentioned the case. The SCOTUS will hear opening arguments on Wednesday, March 29th. From the article: "Lawyers for eBay and small e-commerce company MercExchange will square off over whether eBay should be barred from using its popular 'Buy it Now' feature, which infringes on two MercExchange patents. The case is being closely watched to see if the high court will scale back the right of patent holders to get an injunction barring infringers from using their technologies. Software companies complain they can be held for ransom by owners of questionable patents while drugmakers oppose any weakening of patent rights, which they say would chill their investment in new medicines."
Place Your Bids (Score:5, Funny)
Lobbying efforts center on legislation being drafted by Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who chairs a key House subcommittee.
Ironically, Lamar Smith is available on ebay [ebay.com] with "Buy It Now" options. I'm surprised Abramoff hasn't bought out the whole lot.--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
Re:Place Your Bids (Score:1, Offtopic)
It's happened to me four times in the last six days.
Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:5, Insightful)
ridiculous. I hope these cases keep coming and coming so political
pressure mounts to reform a backwards intellectual property system.
Even better than RIM v. NTP!-Extent. (Score:1, Insightful)
"Software companies complain they can be held for ransom by owners of questionable patents while drugmakers oppose any weakening of patent rights, which they say would chill their investment in new medicines."
Validity of the patent isn't what's being questioned, but extent of punishment.
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP!-Extent. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is because patents work for drugs, but not for software.
For a Drug manufacturer who spends 5 years and $10Million to bring a single drug to market (not to mention the millions more spent on dead ends), spending 250K on a patent dispute is just an annoying part of business... And by the time t
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:4, Insightful)
No offence, but I suspect that the US is going to have to seriously screw itself over on this issue in order to save the rest of the world from doing the same.
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:1, Insightful)
True. Instead, it requires a trial judge, an appellate panel of three judges, an appeals court of approximately a dozen judges (presumably eBay requested a rehearing en banc), and the entire eBay legal team to fail to show/rule that the patent is invalid. What are the odds that not one of these people had an EE/comp sci degree?
Every single one of those people has studied patent law extensively. Have you? Can you prove that
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:3, Insightful)
What should be on trial here is not this specific patent, but the state in which our patent system currently is. The fact that this case is likely to appear ridiculous to a common citizen with no technical or legal background helps make the case for patent reform, and hopefully serves as a dire warning to the legislature of any other nation currently considering implementing software and business process patents.
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:2)
That's exactly what's happening, to a degree. The patent was already found to be valid. The only question presented to the Supreme Court is:
You can get more background by reading the low
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:3, Informative)
The last time this was posted on slashdot, people did not get this point. A google search [google.com] on th
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:2)
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:2)
Better than average.
No, they aren't; they're an attempt to stifle dissent. They boil down to "trust the system or you're an arrogant ass". The syst
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:2)
Every single one of those people has studied patent law extensively. Have you? Can you prove that the patent is invalid, and if so, why haven't you been hired by eBay or their counsel?... You appear to believe that everybody involved in this case is an idiot,
I am not saying that the patent is invalid; I am saying the patent law that allows patenting of business practises (and software models) is ridiculu
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:2)
Er, No. If this is the patent that I think it is, it's still in the preliminary stages. On an application for a preliminary injunction, the trial judge looked at things and said "All this company wants is money, the patent looks a bit shaky, the defendant is quite capable of paying any award and issuing an injunction would be quite disruptive, so I'm not going to issue an injunction.
The appeals court fired back
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:2)
Re:Even better than RIM v. NTP! (Score:2)
Supreme Court's role (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
-Rick
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:4, Interesting)
That is not completely accurate. The Supreme Court does not merely pass on the consitutionality of legislation; it also gets the final word in interpreting existing legislation. In this case, the constitutionality of the legislation is not at issue. What is at issue is the interpretation of existing legislation. Specifically, the arugment is what standard should be used when deciding whether to grant a patent holder an injunction. The statute provides that courts "may" grant injunctions "in accordance with principles of equity" and "on such terms as they deem reasonable." 35 U.S.C. 283. Over the past 20 years, the Federal Circuit, which has appellate authority in patent cases, has interpreted this clause to mean that injunctions should be granted almost automatically once infringement has been established (with some exceptions for when safety is at issue). One hopes that the Supreme Court will interpret the clause to mean that District Court has discretion to issue an injunction, but only on a showing that an injunction is equitable.
Thus, for example, a company like RIM probably wouldn't be shut down by a patent troll, even on a finding infringement. Instead RIM would just have to pay a court ordered fine/licence to the troll.
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
Not really, no. In American jurisprudence there is a presumption of the competence of the legislature for most classes of cases; all the government must show is that the legislation bears some rational relation to a
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
On the contrary, while courts generally defer to the legislature on intent, they do look at whether the stated purpose of a statute is manifested in reality. A law that does not "work" may well be unconstitutional for the obvious reason that Congress is abdicating a constitutional requirement to provide for som
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
So yes, they could certainly find that the implementation of the Patent system is unconstitutional and direct Congress to fix it.
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
Well yea, especially since the law of the land is the Constitution.
That's so insanely wrong . . . (Score:2)
Nonsense. False. Inaccurate. Mistaken. Did I mention that it is also wrong?
Article III vests the judicial power of the United States in one supreme Court, and such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The power extends to all cases in law and equity. The Supreme court has original jurisdiction (to try cases) in rare and obs
Re:Roe is definitely pertinent (Score:2)
You have to be kidding me. If the gestation period was 7 months, they'd just call a trimester 65 days. The gestation period isn't exact so it doesn't really matter. That has to be the stupidest comment I've ever read.
Re:Roe is definitely pertinent (Score:2)
"They pulled the trimester thing out of the air" because it is how every medical professional in the previous 150 years measured the progress of a pregnancy. There are certainly many reasonable moral and legal reasons to disagree with Roe v Wade, I find it amazing that you have hung your hat on a rather meaningless issue of semantics that any middle-school student could have explained.
Re:Roe is definitely pertinent (Score:2)
* However, I would support euthanasia for newborns with truly crippling and untreatable disabilities such as fetal alcohol syndrome, AIDS or cystic
Re:Roe is definitely pertinent (Score:2)
Re:Supreme Court's role (Score:2)
It probably never occurred to them that if the Constitution said they weren't allowed to do something, that you'd have to set up a completely different process to make sure they didn't do it anyway. They probably figured that any blatantly unconstitutional law wouldn't get a majority in both houses o
Where will it end? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where will it end? (Score:2)
Not that cross licencing is wonderful either. It's just a way to artificially keep smaller more efficient players out of your nicely carved up market.
There has to be a way... (Score:4, Interesting)
THERE HAS to be a way to define this and adjudicate accordingly. I'm fully aware that there are gray-area patents, but some things just shouldn't be patented.
Re:There has to be a way... (Score:2)
Re:There has to be a way.... not in this case (Score:3, Informative)
The only issue before the Supreme Court is when should a patent holder be entitled to an injunction against an infringer. Courts have already determined (several times) that MercExchange's patent is valid and that eBay infringed the patent. Validity (i.e. is MercExchange's "invention" actually an invention?) will not and cannot be considered by the Supreme Court because it is not the issue being appealed.
Instead, the Court will determine if an injunction should automatically issue once infringement i
Re:There has to be a way... (Score:2)
As much as this article speaks of Rep. Smith as though he were a wholly owned subsidiary of whatever evil company you hate, his H.R. 2795 actually addresses this. I don't agree with everything in his patent reform bill -- in fact, I don't think anybody likes all of it -- but I think it's a gen
You don't say. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps that's because, as we have been saying for years, patents on software impede innovation whereas patents increase (or so I am imformed - I don't work in the industry) innovation in the drugs industry.
Patents on software make as much sense as patents on books or music. Get rid of them now before they give patents in general a bad name.
Re:You don't say. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You don't say. (Score:2)
In the context of software this is simply not true. There is no evidence that is is true and lots of evidence that patents on software are hindering competition.
If people cannot compete on their own merit without being granted a monopoly on their software ideas then they should find another business. There are many many people queueing up to replace them who
Re:You don't say. (Score:2)
There is no evidence that companies spend money - and lots of it - in R&D when creating different software products? There is no evidence that MS spends money creating Windows? There is no evidence that Blizzard spent money on WoW?
Re:You don't say. (Score:2)
No, there's no evidence that the availability of patent protection had anything to do with the motivation to finance development. The fact that you keep bringing up World of Warcraft illustrates your ignorance. Name a patent that Blizzard has on any part of WoW.
Re:You don't say. (Score:2)
Microsoft spends money creating Windows and they get protection for that investment in the form of copyright. What they do not do is research unique solutions to specific problems that are then so obvious to the outside user that the user can copy the solution without infringing copyright.
How pharmaceutical companies differ from software:
1. Software does not require ten years of testing by the FDA before it can be used. This is the single large
Re:You don't say. (Score:2)
The problem with software patents is that they are incredibly restrictive in an industry that requires freedom and rapid innovation. As pointed out on the page I linked to, something that was innovative in the early days of modern computing would still be p
Re:You don't say. (Score:2)
A software product like WoW doesn't need protection using patents. It already has protection, a little thing called copyright.
Re:You don't say. (Score:2)
It's too late for that. I shared your position, until I realized that some of the arguments against software patents are true for many other kinds of patents as well. Society should reexamine the goals of the patent system and determine if they are being achieved by the current implementation. Are there any patent success stories? How do they compare in number and impa
Re:You don't say. (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad IS in the drugs industry (or more specifically, in immunology research), and to hear him tell it, the situation's just as bad there as it is with software. There are tons of companies that do nothing but buy up patents and sue anybody who comes out with a new drug, hoping to get a share of the profit.
In fact, the situation might be WORSE for medical research, because researchers often have to curtail their research in order to avoid using patented chemicals or techniques. Everything has to be filtered through a lawyer.
Of course, there is a difference (Score:2)
Software vs. Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
They spend MILLIONS of dollars developing drugs. At least they have some right to patent what they created, because they actually created something. I'm not going into whether they SHOULD or not. That's what the law is right now, and it should probably be changed. I'm getting off track here.
Software companies with "patents" like these have spent little or no time "developing" anything. I mean..."One click"? "Buy It Now"? That's what you get when you have marketing people patenting things.
Geesh.
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
Back on topic, I concur. My company does the same.
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe for one minute that they are concerned about the level of investment in medical research. They are concerned about the level of profit to be gained from that investment in medical research. A legitimate concern for a business, and an important one in a
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
Personally I think everyone else can have a different kind of patent where you are forced to allow others to use your idea, but with royalties paid to you. But patents like "Buy now" can fuck off and screw themselves or i
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
But the drug companies don't do "medical" research. They do "drug" research. They care about the disease just enough to know how to treat it. They spend nothing on trying to cure disease. If they were to cure it, they couldn't profit from it. They just want to know how to treat it. They aren't in a field that is altruistic. They are just as money grubbing as Microsoft, or Altria (Philip Morris),
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:4, Funny)
Help a man cope with his symptoms - you get fish for life.
fuck the pharms
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
You've got to be shitting me. I work at a pharma company that has a handful of compounds in phase 1 and 2 trials, but nothing on the market. We've been through millions of dollars to get this far. If there weren't any patents, we'd be producing the competitors' compounds and trying to undercut them, not testing dozens of compounds each week in the hope of finding something better. Developing drugs is insanely expensive, and it's not going to happen without th
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
I work with tens of thousands of dollars of equipment each day. So will any other person in a biotech lab. Why do we pay so much money on equipment? Because, believe it or not, it costs less in the end to not pay for all the man-hours. When your staff is full of PhDs and MDs (some peo
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
I just get somewhat annoyed when people who aren't in biotech want to know why we don't have cures for cancer/HIV/the common cold, and why we can't get them out faster and cheaper.
That said, the salaries of CEOs of the successful companies are absolutely insane.
I know one more! (Score:2)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:2)
The risk is that drug companies would continue to do research, and would actually hoard their knowledge via trade secrets. I don't think tha
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
Re:Software vs. Drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
The public doesn't have to know about the new drug, only doctors really need to know about it. Then, when a patient has the appropriate symptoms/illness, they can prescribe the new drug. Now... if advertizing for the doctors involves "meetings" in Tahiti or Hawaii, then you can really wonder why the costs of advertizing are so high, but it's really not t
Why not have 2 patent systems? (Score:4, Interesting)
Software companies complain they can be held for ransom by owners of questionable patents while drugmakers oppose any weakening of patent rights, which they say would chill their investment in new medicines.
I understand how drugmakers feel, but why should those rules affect the patents of software. Software is as it says "soft", drugs is "hard". A different set of patent rules should be applied in my opinion.
How about attacking this instead (Score:5, Interesting)
How about striking down this lower court ruling
# 1998 The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in State Street Bank v. Signature Financial.[46] holds that there is no prohibition in U.S. law on patents for business methods as long as they are new, useful and non-obvious.
Considering that business methods are NOT new, useful and non-obvious its time to reverse this error in one judge's career sign-off opinion.
Re:How about attacking me instead (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about attacking me instead (Score:2, Interesting)
Control and power (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way for the proles to fight patents and copyrights is to ignore them. This is, of course, impossible if there are only a few printing presses or factories that exist. But now there are more than a billion printing presses (everyone can publish and discuss ideas on the web); there are a probably 500 million CD burners in the world (wild guess) to pass around music and video, and we can even do better than that just by sharing data directly over the net.
The Internet is like the next evolution of the printing press. Gutenberg's machine took away the power of the learned few to disseminate information. The Internet represents the natural evolution of that capability, and more.
The next step will be the dissemination of the ability to manufacture at the molecular level in your house, and then on your desktop. If you don't believe that's going to happen, consider the fact that anyone in the world with a net connection can read this posting seconds after I submit it, and how wildly that would blow your mind if you lived at the time of the invention of the printing press.
This temporary nonsense with patents and copyrights will be just that, temporary.
Re:Control and power (Score:2)
Too bad we don't believe it's okay to use military force to overthrow an oppressive government that violates the rights of the poor. I've been ignoring copyrights for years, and all I have to show for it is a bunch of free music.
suggested mod to the s
"Buy it now" is not technology (Score:5, Insightful)
They really need to tighten the rules over what is patentable. Sales gimmicks, business plans, mother nature, etc. should not even be considered. There should also be a rule similar to trademark law for termination of patent rights for non-enforcement to prevent crap similar to the JPEG nonsense from popping up out of nowhere.
Re:"Buy it now" is not technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Buy it now" is not technology (Score:2)
Re:"Buy it now" is not technology (Score:2)
I've read the whole ridiculous, tedious patent. No, there really isn't any more to it. It's a patent on buy it now, on a computer, with a database. It's absurd.
Re:"Buy it now" is not technology (Score:2)
It's apparent that Thomas Jefferson had this understanding that patents can includ
Patently mad, this is... (Score:1)
Me dost thing that the US patent system is patently mad...
John
So today... (Score:4, Funny)
This patent dispute is warranted (Score:2, Informative)
At least thats what I got from this article which is an interview with the guy who owns MercExchange
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y04/m09/i30/s0 1 [auctionbytes.com]
Re:This patent dispute is warranted (Score:2)
This is a red herring tossed by MercExchange, whether or not they got EBay to sign an NDA or other use contract prior to the meeting, and whether or not EBay violated such a contract, is a question for a different lawsuit, not for this patent infringement suit.
If the patents are determined to be obvious, then MercExchange's course of action would be to sue under breach of contract. If they didn't get EBay
Patents _stifle_ new drugs, not create them (Score:3, Insightful)
So, limiting Pfizer's ability to just sit on what it's already made, and profit for doing nothing further, is somehow supposed to _chill_ investment in new medicines? I would think that if you were no longer able to just sit on your patents, it would *enhance* competition and *increase* the need to innovate in order to stay profitable.
OK Ayn Randian Bushites, let me make your argument for you so you dont need to: "But no one is going to want to innovate anything unless they can get patents".
I'm not saying throw out the patent system, just fix it. Even if we cut the lifespan of drug company patents by something _dramatic_, you honestly think Pfizer is just gonna say, "OK, nevermind, we aren't gonna do this anymore." Give me a break.
Pentent reform needed (Score:3, Interesting)
I think one critical issue of patent reform should involve removing any patents whose novelty is linked to the media is uses. Consider "Buy it now." In the world of plastic money and paper receipts, this patent would be laughed out of the office. In a word, it's OBVIOUS. The fact that an item on an internet based sales site to me is irrelevant because the novelty lies in the medium being used. The medium is patentable, but should the WAY media is used really be patentable? If it should, then I'd like to patent driving down the road sideways. Heaven forbid someone create some form of cell-phone oriented sales/auction service and "Buy It Now" gets patented again because the medium is "wireless."
I'd really like to just be able to change the world, but I'd be more than satisfied if I could just change the ridiculous things going on with the patent world.
Buyer feedback for seller eBay (Score:2, Funny)
I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
Which I can respect, but is really a shame, as congress is so in-the-pocket they're just about useless in promoting anything that's for the common good over the corporate good.
Hope I'm wrong!
Reasonable Patents (Score:2)
Re:Patent? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Patent? (Score:2, Insightful)
Most good ideas are obvious in retrospect. The invention must only be non-obvious when it was filed.
Re:Patent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Patent? (Score:2)
Insightful, my ass. A "Buy it now" auction is precisely analogous to a classified ad in the newspaper saying "1978 Chevy Citation, $200 OBO". The first guy to pony up $200 gets it, and if no one comes up with that, the best offer is taken.
Most good ideas are obvious in retrospect.
And even old ideas seem novel if you've never heard of them before.
Re:Patent? (Score:2)
Patenting concepts that aren't even developed products is a dangerous thing.
Re:Patent? (Score:2)
Yes, British Telecom, about a billion years ago.
Then it is about time for them to start suing isn't it?
Re:Ugh... (Score:2)
If they were to, say, make a new cancer drug, how much would that cost to develop? Most likely hundreds of millions 5 (10, 20?) years. Now, the market for that drug is relatively small, so the cost per dose is then... high.
Interesting, no?
Re:Ugh... (Score:2)
Re:Ugh... (Score:2)
Noted. You are hereby informed that the posting of business plans without the obligatory ???? is not allowed on slashdot and never has been. Please get control of yourself!
all the best,
drew
Re:Science Friday (Score:2)