Judge Permits eBay's "Buy It Now" Feature

stalebread points to a Reuters story reporting that a federal judge refused to issue an injunction against eBay's "Buy It Now" feature. Quoting: "Judge Jerome B. Friedman of Federal District Court denied a motion by the Virginia company, MercExchange, for a permanent injunction to stop eBay from using the feature. The Supreme Court ruled last year that, although eBay infringed upon MercExchange's patent for the service, it was up to the lower court to decide whether eBay had to stop using it. 'MercExchange has utilized its patents as a sword to extract money rather than as a shield to protect its right to exclude or its market share, reputation, good will, or name recognition, as MercExchange appears to possess none of these,' he wrote."

If only...

[memojuez]

Is this the beginning of the end for patent trolls?

Obvious?

[jorghis]

Why isnt anyone involved in this case pointing out that a patent has to be non-obvious? Is there something I am missing here? Legally that patent shouldnt be worth poop. At least in theory.

Constitution vs patent trolling

[White Flame]

The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to enact laws relating to patents, in Article I, section 8, which reads "Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." [uspto.gov]

The Constitution _only_ grants power to congress to establish patents for the promotion of the progress of science and useful arts. As far as I'm concerned, it is outside constitutional allowances for the government to enforce patents for other purposes, like protecting financial interests of companies that do not promote the progress of science and useful arts.

Sounds just like...

[MeditationSensation]

...Amazon's one-click shopping. I wonder what ever happened to that.

Re:Obvious?

[Dun Malg]

Why isnt anyone involved in this case pointing out that a patent has to be non-obvious? Is there something I am missing here? Legally that patent shouldnt be worth poop. At least in theory.

As I understand it, the "non-obvious" part applies only to prior art, i.e. if someone skilled in the art would also seize upon the same solution naturally, given the starting point of prior art upon which the patent has been built. The trouble we have is that the USPTO only considers it "prior art" if it has been previously patented. This causes trouble when you're dealing with crap like this that has no patented prior art because it shouldn't have been patented in the first place.