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I don't think the inventors, who spent several years and many thousands of dollars, long before there was an e-bay thought what they were doing was frivolous.

The key to eBay isn't the "idea". It's the investment of time and effort into implementation and marketing.

I will grant that there are some ideas which are, by their nature, sufficiently non-obvious but self-fulfilling that the mere act of thinking them up has value. My practical method for interfacing a RAM to an Atari 2600 bus connector (which has neither the phi2 nor r/w signals) might qualify (at least if such ability were useful outside the Atari 2600 homebrewing community). If I were to offer a short verbal explanation for the method, anyone knowledgeable in CPLD design would be able to impement it; I can relate from experience that it works beautifully. I would posit that the idea is non-obvious as evidenced by the fact that nobody else has done it even though all necessary technologies have existed for well over a decade (someine in 1984 would have had to have used custom silicon rather than a CPLD, but some cartridges of that area use more complicated custom silicon than what would be required here, so it would have been feasible).

In most cases, however, an idea is worth little until all the gaps necessary to implement it are filled in. Even in the case of my game cartridge memory design, I doubt anyone in 1983 would have been interested in paying me for my idea without proof that it would actually work.

hey super,

I don't know where your coming from so I'll just call it as I see it.

you said "The key to eBay isn't the "idea". It's the investment of time and effort into implementation and marketing."

To which I reply that you are dead wrong. Why?

First the constitution of the US, which grants a patent where the rights to a MONOPOLY to the patent holder (whether it be idea, implementation, prototype etc.) who is the first to conceive and apply; not first to file as in so many other countries, the first to conceive and apply.

Second, E-bay made the BIG mistake of not checking prior art for their little unoriginal idea. The mistake cost them $5 mil. Their loss the patent holders gain. So the constitution says your wrong, patent law says your wrong, the trial judge syas your wrong, and now the Supreme Court says your wrong. So actually that makes you wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. You must get a clue.

PS if your little idea for RAM to bus is novel, and teaches new art - then patent it.

The problem is no one would be interested in it as you stated.

You would never get an E-bay to infringe, but if they did you could sue and win if they were dumb enough to try and implement it without license from you.

Lurking'