Online Auctions Patented, eBay Sued 614
mattfusf writes "This article from News.com talks about a guy who has filed a lawsuit against eBay for patent infringment. Patent 5,845,265 covers a "method..for creating a computerized market for used and collectible goods""
One more ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole issue of patents for "doing things with computers" is getting a bit out of hand. I'll be curious to see the outcome of this.
Patent for On-Line Auctions (Score:2, Insightful)
This might actually help... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's that saying? The worse the better?
Defense of patents (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:One more ... (Score:3, Insightful)
And in his filing against Priceline, it's pretty obvious that they were already engaged in that business model before he filed the patent.
Hopefully, however, common sense in the judge will reign, and he will not only throw out any case against eBay, but hit this lawyer with extremely large financial sanctions and strip him of his license to practice law.
Kierthos
Re:Defense of patents (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll admit, I'm stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
But am I missing something?
Patenting an online auction in my mind is akin to patenting the idea a selling milk in refrigerated display cases, ie,
This patent is for a system that creates a refrigerated marketplace for milk using a refrigerator in a store. The patent also covers the use of a payment-processing service to allow purchasers to pay for the goods.
I mean, where's the creativity that patents are supposedly supposed to protect? In my mind, virtually any business transaction can be ported to the internet. It would be like someone patenting sales calls over a telephone when telephones were first invented.
Inventor AND Patent Lawyer (Score:2, Insightful)
Tedious (Score:2, Insightful)
He has a case (legally) (Score:4, Insightful)
So LEGALLY, it appears that eBay is at fault. This doesn't address the fact that there is such a huge hole in the entire software patent/intellectual propterty concept.
Legally, this guy has a claim, but by all rights he shouldn't. This is exactly why patenting ideas and business models is stupid. This guy is a lawyer (patent attorney no less), and has gone after priceline.com and goto.com for infringements on some of his other patents.
As long as the system is broken, people will take advantage of it.
My brain is patented too... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad that the patent system protects people who have no product or service at all.
Instead, you can just "think" up some "intellectual property" that exists only in your brain, fail to implement any form of it, and then get a patent.
Seems to be a trend here, especially with the recent the JPEG issue [slashdot.org], the mp3 issue [slashdot.org], and now this. Looks like all you have to do is "think up" something and patent it, sit around for a while for someone to do all the implementation work (the real work, mind you), then sue their behind off. I suppose that means lazy bums like me have a chance in this world..
Re:Patent for On-Line Auctions (Score:1, Insightful)
An entirely new business model! (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder if this is not the single largest problem with a service economy, defining the value that you produce. Put another way, if this guy sold shares in his company, MercExchange, publicly would you buy them? And what would that say about you?
Who cares... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, just can't buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)
One. Patents are not made to stifle business. They are made to protect the inventor.
However, the whole concept of inventing an "online auction" is so damnably ridiculous that there is no way that he should ever have been granted a patent for it. This whole argument is founded in the fact that the man said "uh, auction on a computer!" and got a patent. WTF ever. Auctions have been around for centuries. People can not apply the phrase on a computer on the back of every tried and true business model and expect to get royalties or the ability to sue the bejesus out of people.
Oh, and when you use the phrase unasailable uber-company, it makes us all think of you as a useless leftie that thinks that eBay is "evil" simply because it is big. The last thing I checked that eBay did to ruin or world and our freedoms was consume electricity. So go attack Dow Chemical, Halliburton, or McDonald's. All eBay has done for me is make sure that I am not getting price gouged. At the very least, if you are going to go after corporate America, go after the ones that are fucking up people's health, the government, and the planet.
Re:Has anyone here actually READ the patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Patent claims are judged individually. If EBay violates one claim and it is decided that said claim is valid, then EBay is at fault. The claims do not have to all fit, or even all be valid.
Re:Sorry, just can't buy it. (Score:2, Insightful)
One. Patents are not made to protect the inventor. They are made to give people incentive to invent.
Re:Sorry, just can't buy it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh yeah, well I'm going to claim:
Oh wait, that's already been done in "Methods and Systems for Commerce [uspto.gov]" just one of the many business method patents that reference [uspto.gov] the auction patent, which appears to be one of the pioneers of just slapping "on a computer" or "over the internet" or "using an electronic database" onto an existing business model to come up with a patent. Look for these guys to start suing EVERYONE.
Most of the referencing patents were filed at the height of the dot com boom and are just being approved now, including ones from priceline and lendingtree. Expect to see a whole lot more of these lawsuits as troubled and bankrupt companies, and their creditors and investors, start preying on the dot com survivors and other established businesses with their newly approved patents.
Edison actually invented (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, just can't buy it. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the rationale, not the implementation. The implementation most certainly qualifies as "protection". Patent law works by "protecting" the patent holder from competition in the market, which would certainly arise in the absence of patent law, given that the product in question is valued by others.
Re:Sorry, just can't buy it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it's to give inventors an incentive to publicize their inventions so that (after a lapse of time) the inventions will become public domain. That's the sole purpose, the raison d'etre. The alternative would be inventors keeping their ideas as trade secrets as the only possible defense against competition, and that would be worse for society as a whole because other inventors would then be unable to build on the work and advance the state of the art.
Problem is, the way patents are enforced makes it easy to start thinking of ideas as "property" that can be "stolen"--which is, if you really think about it, absurd. But we've all been mentally contaminated by this false notion of "intellectual property", and now people think that patents are based on some kind of god-given right to profit from whatever you happen to think of first at the expense of whomever happens to think of it second.
Re:Patent Pending for New Business Model (Score:3, Insightful)
If you put a little thought into it, one could come up with a whole raft of "speculative patents" and conceivably make a killing in the future. All it takes is a little thought.
- 1. come up with an idea for a money-making business that is currently impossible due to technological limitations.
of course, the REAL trick to this is coming up with a business idea that can't be done yet, but WILL be possible before the patent expires. Here's one off the top of my head:2. patent the impossible notion
3. wait for:
- (a)technology to make it possible
4. sue the bejeezus out of them for "stealing" your business model(b)someone to start a business using some variation on your idea
(c)them to start making money
"method of extending cellular communications" - a cell phone not in range of a cell tower instead merely connects to the nearest other cell phone which is in range and uses it as a relay for the call. I'm sure this idea has been thought of, but has it been patented yet? Could one write up a vague patent spec that would cover any future implementation of the concept? maybe...
Re:Sorry, just can't buy it. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll give him some credit for attempting to implement the idea. That puts him on higher moral ground than the bottomfeeders whose entire business model is based on patent extortion.
However, the fact remains that the patent probably never should have been granted in the first place. Patents are supposed to protect nonobvious inventions, and we're seeing droves of patents granted that are patently obvious. I believe software patents and business method patents are particularly susceptible to this sort of stupidity, and should be subject to heightened scrutiny as a result.
I'm not categorically opposed to all software patents; RSA was a brilliant invention deserving of a software patent if anything was. It was a true invention, and now that the patent has expired, it's in the public domain, for the benefit of all. This is the sort of innovation that patents exist to encourage, and the only justification for them.
The problem is that the USPTO is out of control, granting ridiculous patents on everything from XOR cursors and one-click shopping to swinging sideways on a swing! If the USPTO actually applied the "nonobvious" test properly, very few patents would be granted, and they could serve their intended purpose. Instead, the current system is legalized extortion, and a great tool to dampen economic activity.
Discuss the most egregious examples (like swinging sideways) with your congresscritter. That's the only way this situation might improve.
Re:*sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably not. Personal greed is the American Way. It's more important that I get MY piece of the pie, even if it means letting the rest of the pie spoil -- at least I got mine!
What a bunch of crap! There is nothing wrong or immoral with asserting your rights. There's two models of society: One where everyone works only for the greater good, not caring about personal gain. The other where everyone focuses only on satisfying their personal goals.
The first is the communist system. It's a great idea in principle, but as anyone older than 15 will tell you, it just doesn't work.
The other is the capitalist system we are in - which has been proven to work great. Individuals assert their own rights and work to benefit themselves and in doing so, benefit society at large.
eBay is one of those *few* examples of a pure internet business that is doing well and making money. Given the state of the economy today, I feel this kind of attempt is almost criminal in intent. It's pretty close to sabotage for this corner of the technology sector, way to go! Make sure your lawyer asks for the firstborn of their CEO too!
Someone fighting for CEO's rights - on Slashdot! That's when I begin to think this is a troll. eBay is a business. The CEOs and shareholders are getting rich off what they do. Now, if it turns out that they are doing so by infringing on someone elses patents, then it should be the patent holder not the CEO's who should be profiting from it. If as you say, it would be impossible for eBay to succeed without infringing the patent, I see nothing wrong with eBay sharing some of their profits with the inventor who they owe their success to.
Re:Defense of patents (Score:2, Insightful)
I think what bothers me is that in the fast-paced world of the dot com boom it took three years for the patent application to be granted. In those years, while the patent application was secret, Omidyar turned his idea into a huge business that is one of the few internet success stories of the time. I am sure that Woolston feels justified in defending his patent. I am sure that EBay feels justified that the patent doesn't apply. In the end, they both may be right; the patent system is broken when it ignores any attempt at identifying "obviousness", allows any real-word process to be transported to the internet and considered an "innovation", takes years for patents to be granted, allows monopolies to exist for over a decade, and allows business process patents to exist in the first place.
Off topic, but if I read another "i'm going to patent 'breathing'" posts I think my head might explode.
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a common misconception. If juries were obliged to base their decisions on literal interpretations of the law, what would be the point of having juries at all? Juries are made up of people, and people have common sense. This is intentional.
Of course, if the attorneys on either side find out you know about this during juror selection, you won't be serving on that case -- lawyers don't like presenting to unpredictable jurors.
Re:Sorry, just can't buy it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Close, but no cigar. Government holds a monopoly on the *initiation* of force (force as a means to an end, or a "business model" so to speak). I should have been clear about that, admittedly. Consider that the term "legal" is defined by government in the first place, so we're walking a circular rope by defining government's use of force via "legality". And don't forget about self-defense, which is a type of force that can be used legally by civilians.
There is a subtle difference.
I would hardly call it subtle. I would call it fundamental. The orginization called government is *defined* by it's monopoly on [the initiation of] force. In fact, this is the only definition or description of government which stands under *all* circumstances, at any point in history, under any society. At the bottom of anything and everything that government does is [the initiation of] force.
Randite alert! Randite alert! (Score:3, Insightful)
No. The robber barons of the early steel and oil industries did not work to the good of society. They amassed massive personal wealth in order to create personal dynasties that still last to this day (Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.). This was done to the detriment of the mass of society (low wages, child labor, massive numbers of industrial accidents, union busters, etc.). It is an inverse proportion: the smaller the concentration of wealth, the greater the rest of society is screwed. Look at every accumulation of massive person wealth through history and you will see the exploitation of societies for the gain of a few.
The first is the communist system. It's a great idea in principle, but as anyone older than 15 will tell you, it just doesn't work.
And that same person will tell you the same about capitalism. We live in a complex world and any simple model will eventually break down. Sure, capitalism works great at first (as does communism). There is a level playing field, lots of entities competing, fast innovation in the industry. But then one or two players emerge as the strongest and the competition dies away. The industry consolidates, barriers to entry are raised, and there is a hardening of the arteries. At this point, capitalism fails because the barriers to competition are prohibitvely high and competition dies. And this is the best case; if some players start with an unequal advantage, the hardening and consolidation can occur before the industry even begins. E.g., Microsoft entering a new industry and using its billions to bar others from competing by giving away the product or the broadband providers using legislation to make it harder for competitors to compete.
The same thing happens at a societal level. Face it, if a person is born rich, they have a large head start on everybody else. If the gap between rich and poor becomes too great, it doesn't matter how in-bred, weak, and dumb a blue-blood gets, no one can catch up. Government (societal) regulation is needed to help narrow the gap between rich and poor, to ensure that we all start on a somewhat even playing field no matter who we are born to. No society will be perfect (imperfect world again), but the society that gets closest has the best chance of success because it is less likely that their next Einstein will be shot dead in a ghetto at 15. Competition is great and the best competition occurs when everyone starts from the same place.
If...it would be impossible for eBay to succeed without infringing the patent, I see nothing wrong with eBay sharing some of their profits with the inventor who they owe their success to.
Ah, but there is an incongruency in that statement. eBay infringing the patent and owing their success to it are two entirely different things. Yes, your disclaimer says you are using a fictional patent (not very sporting, changing the subject of debate halfway through). But you don't say that it is any more meritorious than this one, only different. I do agree that the original poster's argument is flawed, but your's is equally so.
It used to be that patents were for inventions; patent applications required a working model or plans for the invention being patented. Some good examples of this (and the patent system at its best, although there were also abuses) are provided by the American gun industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the lever-action repeating rifle (the Winchester). Anyone could invent a repeating rifle, but they couldn't use the same lever mechanism to eject the spent shell and load a new one (which was an ingenious solution, both reliable and elegant) unless they licensed it (for a period of time).
Now, however, an applicant can be so abstract as to patent a general idea and not an invention. There is a level of specificity missing. You should have to provide source code, a UML design, something that goes quite a bit beyond what "software" and "business plan" patents require.
How many ideas are truly original? We are all standing on the shoulders of giants, afterall. What is important is the application of an idea, the creation of something unique.
So, eBay can not avoid infringing the patent and yet does not owe any of their success to the "inventor" (a misuse of the word) of the patent. That is a telling sign that our patent system needs some revision. Besides which, the patent was filed a couple months after the first post on eBay. Another problem with our patent system.
Yours,
Nathan
Of course, eBay might not be the good guy here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh.
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahhh, but "obviousness" is a valid defense against a claim of infringement. _Proving_ obviousness seems harder.
And, since you read slashdot, you obviously know too much to be allowed to sit on jury for a software patent infringement case. One side or the other would insist you go...
You do not understand jury duty (Score:3, Insightful)