by Playfuls Staff |
14th March 2006
The shopping feature on eBay may be halted because of some copyright problems the company is facing related to its "Buy It Now" option. The company was sued by MercExchange, the ones who initially patented it in 1995, around the same time eBay was starting its activity. [more]
The feature is meant to facilitate the direct acquisition of goods, rather than bidding for them and it is of great help when somebody prefers a quick sale instead of the whole auctioning fuss.
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court, the Office of the Solicitor General said that eBay willfully infringed on patents held by Great Falls, Virginia-based MercExchange LLC and should be enjoined from using its "Buy It Now" feature.
The Online auction giant argued that they shouldn't be forced to shut down these features because MercExchange LLC has not been using them since 2000. However, MercExchange tried to defend itself from these accusations and said it does practice using these features by licensing them to other companies such as Ubid.com and Autotrader.com.
Should they have to give it up, this could be a great hit for eBay, as an estimated one-third of eBay sales come from customers using the "Buy It Now" feature.
The trial will be taking place on the 29th of March.
Whichever the final decision will be, this whole situation puts a question mark above patents on intelectual property and the way such issues tend to be solved in court.
