Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Ooh, Ebay in court too

Well, it's quite a day for tech giants and high courts. As Apple celebrates their 30th birthday by going to the UK high courts thanks to a tussle with the Beatles (see the last post), Ebay defend themselves in the US Supreme Courts.

And should they fail they may even face an injunction. Ebay was found by lower courts to have infringed 2 e-commerce patents owned by MercExchange, a small tech company. They concern the "buy it now" feature on the site, which allows users who don't want to take part in an auction to buy an item at a fixed price.

But isn't that what you can do at any commerce site? I buy at fixed prices at Amaxon, iTunes etc etc. Isn't it really the same thing? How can these guys have a patent on it?

Anyway, should Ebay fail they may have to settle for large chunks of change. The tech industry seems very much behind Ebay on this one and I wholly agree. Some of these patent disputes are going too far and could end up in stifling innovation for all of us. Good luck Ebay!

1 comment:

Philip Letts, blur Group said...

eBay reported today that the US Patent and Trademark Office has upheld an earlier decision that a patent recorded by MercExchange was "obvious" and should not have been issued.