Wait, What?:
"A small Virginia company in a patent fight with eBay Inc. asked a federal judge Tuesday to stop the online auction powerhouse from using its 'Buy It Now' feature allowing shoppers to buy items at a fixed price."
Some small company got a patent from the Federal Government covering people buying things at a fixed price? Isn't this called, "shopping?" Every time I go into the grocery store and buy milk, I'm going to be paying a fee to the patent holder?
Even if this patent doesn't cover your average transaction at the five and dime, it is absolutely ridiculous how far "intellectual property" patents have gone. Really, now - a patent on a button allowing you to buy something? I wonder if I can get a patent on the idea of an "E" key on your computer. I'd be owing myself for 7 "E's" all in the last sentence!
There are a lot of ridiculous patents out there, but this is one of the dumbest!
"A small Virginia company in a patent fight with eBay Inc. asked a federal judge Tuesday to stop the online auction powerhouse from using its 'Buy It Now' feature allowing shoppers to buy items at a fixed price."
Some small company got a patent from the Federal Government covering people buying things at a fixed price? Isn't this called, "shopping?" Every time I go into the grocery store and buy milk, I'm going to be paying a fee to the patent holder?
Even if this patent doesn't cover your average transaction at the five and dime, it is absolutely ridiculous how far "intellectual property" patents have gone. Really, now - a patent on a button allowing you to buy something? I wonder if I can get a patent on the idea of an "E" key on your computer. I'd be owing myself for 7 "E's" all in the last sentence!
There are a lot of ridiculous patents out there, but this is one of the dumbest!
posted by Lou Schwing at 8:22 AM
3 Comments:
Well, no, not really. What the patents cover is not the idea of buying an item for a fixed price but a method for buying, from an auction site (a complex bit of technology in and of itself, as I know because I watched Siebel attempt tod evelop auction software), an item that is currently at auction, for a fixed price that is sort of the opposite of a reserve -- by setting a "buy it now" price the seller effectively sets a limit to how high the auction can go. This needs to be done without violating the basic workings of auctions.
So what about the idea of buying something at a fixed price is patent worthy? Trademark, copyright - sure. But setting a fixed price and then having someone pay that fixed price is not a new idea. It doesn't deserve a patent, and it shouldn't hinder commerce by forcing workarounds to avoid violating the patent or paying the patent holder an extortion fee.
Again, it isn't the idea, it's the specific methodology for doing it. This falls under the larger question of whether an algorithm can be copyrighted or not.
Post a Comment
<< Home