eBay May Lose 'Buy it Now' Button in Patent Case

Spamicles writes "A judge has delayed his ruling on the eBay patent infringement case. eBay has been involved in a legal dispute over the use of its popular "Buy it Now" button, which allows consumers to skip the bidding and purchase items on eBay directly. The patent suit was filed six years ago by MercExchange L.L.C. In May of 2003, a jury ruled in MercExchange's favor finding that eBay did in fact infringe on the patent, but in 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that MercExchange was not automatically entitled to a court order blocking the offending service, essentially handing a victory down to patent reform advocates. However, the ruling by the Supreme Court does not affect the final judgment of the court."

The summary is inaccurate.

[Jack9]

What this ruling is, is a concession by the courts for big business interests. The state has no interest in patent reform.

Re:Guess they'll just have to make it...

[Archangel Michael]

Better yet .... "Screw the Patents" button.

And they will replace it with

[ATAMAH]

"Purchase it straight away" button, or something along those lines... We are a community where the mindset of "can't make profit? Litigate !" - and it is only getting worse.

The ultimate in stupid patents

[davmoo]

I thought seriously about tagging this story with the tag "bull shit", because that's what this patent is. This should become the new poster child for "patent troll" and "patent office stupidity". This is even a more boneheaded patent than Amazon's non-innovation of one click buying (which always seems to take me two or three clicks anyway).

What's next, they're going so take Walmart to court because Walmart lets me buy something without bidding on it? Are they going to take the owners of the live auction I go to each week to court because after high bid is set on an item, they allow those present to buy multiples of that same item for the same high bid without running another auction process?

I'm all for the rights of a business to prosper and benefit from their original ideas. But this patent is about as far from "original" as you can get, and is as original as my getting up out of bed each morning and taking a piss. This company should be exterminated like the worthless parasite that it is. I said it before about SCO, and it applies here too...those who can innovate, while those who can't litigate.

The stupidity of the current Patent situation

[FraterNLST]

The current patent laws are so stupid that it causes me physical pain to witness the things that actually make it to court. When the people envisaging the patent system designed it, had they recieved applications like the ones routinely honoured today, they would have laughed the applicant out of their office. What they are claiming to have a patent on is the idea, or process, whereby you buy an item for a set price rather than bidding on it... ..... ...... And your court system is happy to deliberate on this. Seriously, how much deliberation do they require? I bought some sushi today from the local sushi bar, and I didn't have to bid on it... they are obviously in violation of this patent... and I bought some hardware components from an online retailer, didn't have to bid there either. The idea of patents was to enable people, particularly individuals on limited budgets, to profit from their original inventions. One of the core requirements of a patent is that it not be for something obvious. Lets be honest. Does it get more obvious than the purchasing of something for a set price? Is there anyone that isn't familiar with that idea? I think i'm going to burst a blood vessel on this one.

Independent Creation

[eepok]

Could someone please explain to me why certain patent battles, such as this, aren't just investigated for "independent creation" on the part of the accused infringer?

I'm pretty sure that I was taught in college that 2 people can hold the patents to 2 very similar products so long as both came up with their respective products independent of each other. With such a simple idea as "Buy it now", wouldn't a rational judge throw such a case out?

Besides simple corruption of the legal system by big money, what am I missing?

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, does this mean that the auction house in WoW will lose its 'Buyout' button? O NOES!!

Re:Independent Creation

[Tim C]

You're thinking of copyright, not patents. Patents grant an absolute monopoly, it doesn't matter that you came up with the infringing idea/product/whatever completely independently. All that matters is whether or not you can demonstrate prior art and have the patent invalidated.

That's one of the reasons why a lot of companies file vapourware patents on ideas before they're ready to actually implement them. If they took the time to do all the research, someone else might beat them to getting the patent and they'll be in danger of having wasted their time and money. In an ideal world, of course, they could be secure in the knowledge that if they can genuinely demonstrate independent, concurrent development they would at least be granted some sort of "shared patent", but that's not the way it works.

Re:E-bay needs "overtime" bidding

[great throwdini]

I'm tired of all the 1-second-till-end phantom biding programs and online services screwing me over. [Bidding should] continue to be extended ... as long as there still bidding going on. Only when there's a period of inactivity, the bid is closed. [...] So WTF is holding E-bay back? Do they WANT to piss everyone off?

Oh, I dunno. Is it because people have lives and aren't interested in listings on the glorified yardsale that is eBay being extended indefinitely with nickle-and-dime bids? Or perhaps it's the potential for abuse as shills hammer open-ended closings to maximize gain at the expense of others? Then again, it could just be that eBay doesn't think it worth the effort to rewrite the codebase so an item can climb from $1.00 to $2.00 over the course of another hour?

Compared to real-world auctions, the vast majority of items on eBay aren't worth much and the potential number of bidders is far, far larger. Both these factor into why open-ended closure isn't as cut-and-dried a process as you lay out. It just doesn't make sense, especially to eBay, a company that wants quick sell-through (look at their fee structuring) rather than lingering listings. That was the motivation to the introduction of Buy It Now in the first place, and your proposal runs counter to that.

There's no magic to beating last-minute dropped connections or competing automated bids: just bid what you're willing to pay up front, and if you don't win, wait for the item to turn up again (and again) from another seller. Even under your plan, those two self-indentified evils would still exist, only moreso, as the timeframe for each would be extended. I don't see how sliding auction closure does anything to address either in the least.

Judicial System: Redo from Start

[BillGatesLoveChild]

Is it any surprise the courts make these sort of decisions?

A few days ago we had an idiot judge (yes, a *judge*) suing cleaners $54M for the emotional stress of losing is pants http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/06/12/AR2007061201667.html?hpid=moreheadli nes [washingtonpost.com]
and hot on the heals of that we had an idiotic ruling by a U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian decreeing that RAM shall be archived. And we've got an Attorney General, the #1 lawyer in the country, who smirks "I don't recall" for hours of testimony, then goes back to work and it's business as usual.

The entire judicial legal system is an anachronism. As we've seen, it contains some very clueless (and sometimes downright stupid) people making important decisions. We've got patent law which is way out of control and anti-trust law which might as well not exist at all. The law is written for and sometimes even by corporations like the RIAA and Disney http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_s prigman.html [findlaw.com] , in exchange for campaign donations http://consumerist.com/xml/comments/264638 [consumerist.com] . And lets not forget about hot cups of coffee. The entire legal system is a joke. The problem is people like Judge Pearson, Magistrate Chooljian and Attorney General Gonzales don't know it. They think they're important public officials part of a proud tradition who are loved and admired by the population they rule^H^H^H^Hserve. Suspect many people think otherwise.

Time to turf the whole thing out and start again. I mean, how much worse is this going to get?

At least Americans are lucky they don't like in the former British Empire where you get some senile git wearing a black cape and a powdered wig banging a hammer and glaring at you, and expecting to be taken seriously. "This is my court!" they thunder. If any other public servant did that in their workplace, they'd be taken away for psychiatric assessment.

How long is it going to be

[simong]

Before someone in say, the Trade Department, realises that every stupid patent awarded, every 10 year old summonsed by the RIAA and every stupid copyright restriction imposed or self-imposed on websites is adversely affecting the trading position of the USA in the world? It's not to say that real world issues should be ignored by the Internet but there has to be some common sense applied and less of this blind gold rush. Ebay's response could be as simple as lifting their servers and moving them somewhere where software patents don't exist, which would probably be cheaper than paying whatever stupid licencing price these parasites want to impose. It's a shame that Neal Stephenson's Kinakuta doesn't yet exist, as every big US online company that has been screwed over by the cretinous US patenting system, and every company that has fallen foul of the ridiculous protectionist policies of the current government would be falling over themselves to set up there. Anyone got a spare island?

Re:Yeah

[vadim_t]

Shaming won't work against patent trolls.

They won't give a damn about their reputation, lawsuits and patent licensing is how they do business. In fact, probably the more infamous they become the better, as companies would be more likely to just pay up.

What is needed is anti-patent troll legislation: If you don't make it, you don't get to own a patent on it.

Re:Yeah

[GeckoX]

How about simple rules for obviousness?

The fact that this can even be patented is frankly asinine.

If it's not truly original, if it's just stacking a bunch of existing lego pieces together in another configuration, if it's blatantly obvious, then No Fucking Patent!

What I don't understand is why the court system doesn't get this, why it continues to foster this situation by allowing this crap to go on.

It's a fucking BUTTON.

It's NO different when it comes right down to it to walking into a store and buying something from the clerk.

INVENT something and I'll fully support your right to capitalize and prosper from it. Re-package the fucking wheel again, and try to gain the same protection, and you should have your head forcibly rammed as far up your ass as it will go, and then a bit more just to be sure.

Re:Yeah

[KDR_11k]

How? Their income isn't from customers willing to open their wallets but companies that were defeated in court. They can't be beaten with that method as they don't do anything so they can't run afoul of any patent. Nothing short of a well placed bullet can end it in a way that doesn't make the troll happy.