Australian Gov't Moves To Block E-commerce Patent 103
ColaMan writes "Surfacing in the Australian version of GoogleNews,
moves are afoot to block a patent covering (it seems) general ecommerce practices on the internet. This comes after the recent strongarm tactics against New Zealand businesses by D.E. Technologies , holder of the patent overseas."
Perhaps... (Score:5, Informative)
Google link doesn't work (Score:3, Informative)
Additional coverage in NZ (Score:5, Informative)
InternetNZ (the old Internet Society of NZ) is helping pay for a legal opinion on the matter also.
Surely it's about time we all got organised enough to stop this kind of nonsense before it costs someone an eye? Right? Amazon one-click/BT patents internet/etc...
Extra stories here from NZ Herald and Computerworld NZ - sorry about links, no time to pretty them up.
Lumbering reaction to software patent claim
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm
Patent threat to NZ e-tailers
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay
InternetNZ puts up cash for patent opinion
http://computerworld.co.nz/webhome.nsf/n
Govt should act to save e-trade
http://computerworld.co.nz/webhome.nsf/n
Re:e-Commerce patents? (Score:5, Informative)
Even worse, read the D.E. Technologies letter and try to imagine anyone doing any kind of business app on the Internet without violating that rubbish patent. "We displays stuff in yer language and currency, you selects stuff, we totals it, you give okay, we run the transaction, Bob's yer uncle!" People shouldn't be allowed to patent a common business transaction just because they added "computer", "internet" and "world-wide web" to the application. They matter as much as wearing clown suits.
Patent examiners need to be taught to use that big red rejection stamp "Fscking Obvious!" more often.
probably a more understandable article on this (Score:3, Informative)
Plans are afoot in Federal parliament to derail a controversial patent claim that could see Australian businesses charged millions of dollars to conduct international transactions over the Internet.
Re:e-Commerce patents? (Score:5, Informative)
We don't know how many they've tried and failed in though, do we? In some countries (*cough* US *cough*), it doesn't take much more than a correctly filled out application to get a patent. It's not whether you can get the patent that matters but whether you can successfully defend it in court.
(With some luck, the US patent office is serious when it says it will change its evil ways)
"Fight the Patent" site (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Additional coverage in NZ (Score:1, Informative)
Retailers join forces to beat licence fee [nzherald.co.nz]
Fight the Patent Homepage [fightthepatent.co.nz] [fightthepatent.co.nz]
Re:Not too suprising (Score:4, Informative)
I believe that is how it is supposed to work. And indeed when many patent infringement cases have actually gone to court, either the patent got thrown out altogether, or the defendant was found not to be infringing because there were differences in the details of their method, like the British Telecom hyperlink patent case.
The two major reasons why patent holders can get away with suing anybody who does something remotely similar are: (1) Technically ignorant juries. There is no way eBay would have lost the case [msnbc.com] if the jury was technically competent and had common sense. (2) The lack of funds to fight it out in court. Even if the patent would get thrown out after a court challenge, many small companies cannot afford the cost of litigation so they cave in and pay up the license fee.
Rather than promoting innovation, software and business patents have become nothing more than a legalized form of extortion.
Patent full text link... (Score:1, Informative)
I can't believe this patent is going to stand up if it gets tested in court. There has to be prior art out there somewhere, aside from that it should fail the on the "nonobvious" criterion...
Sounds a lot like (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe those in Chicago remember divine [zdnet.com.au].
They tried the same exact tactic last year using their broadly defined shopping cart patent. Let's hope this action ends the same way, divine was out of business 4 months later. (But succeeded in licensing the right to use a shopping cart for $25,000 to a couple dozen small companies before they went under)
My guess is this DE Technologies will soon be bankrupt, so I'd just ignore any of their demands. As with divine, I think the only company that's dumb enough to try something like this is one that is already going under and so has nothing to lose. These companies know their patents are bullshit and will never stand up in court, that's why their licensing fees are always in the $10k to $25k range, just low enough so that it's cheaper for the mom and pop shops they abuse to pay the license rather than hire a lawyer. Their worst nightware would be to end up in court, I don't think a company would even have to actually hire a lawyer to make them go away, just tell them you're not paying the license and will see them in court, they'll back off just out of fear of going to court and seeing their whole ponzi scheme fall apart.