[js1138]

You can patent a business practice? Who knew? Perhaps Microsoft should go back and patent its practices and avoid all that monopoly stuff.

[MediaMole]

Does Netflix have a patent on slowing down processing so frequent renters can't get as many movies?

[Jackson Brown]

If this goes to court, Blockbuster should win. These two "patents" have NO merit under patent or copyright law ---IMO!

[John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?]

I WONDER WHO HAD THE FIRST DRIVE THRU?
WHO HAD THE FIRST FOOD DELIVERY SERVICE?
WHO FIST PUT FOOD IN PAPER BAGS TO CARRY OUT?

As you can see this pattened biz is a bunch of BS.

[JerseyHighlander]

Maybe the Columbia House records company CD subscription division should sue netflix. What's the difference between their business models besides the data density of the discs?

[noblejones]

I patented the letter "e." You farking, sneaky bastiches better give me my props.

[DB]

Good thing someone didn't patent the grocery store...

These patents are ridiculous. It needs to stop.

[Caipirabob]

I wonder if the judges in question have ever had to pay "late fees" at Blockbuster. Payback time...

Don't laugh, either. If it's a Dim judge you better believe that this will be a factor in final judgement. After all, what would law have to do with it.

That being said, if the patent covers the website and method of movie selection, I can see that being upheld.

As far as a business model, outside of the particulars of the Netflix website, I can't see how you can protect or justify protection of a business model. Maybe someone can explain (or I can finish reading the thread - lol!) I mean, you can't complain because someone else competes with you in the same market, that stinks of a monopoly if you've outlawed the competition.

[JoeGar]

I seem to remember Amazon.com having a patent for "one button shopping".

[beaureguard]

Huh - I never knew you could patent a business process. Live and learn.

[Kokojmudd]

Now I have a reason to never use Netflix. Hope they go under.

[Rebelbase]

I'm going to patent the waking process of coffee, sh_t, shower and shave as being a prerequisite to any business venture.

I'll make millions.

[TChris]

"Blockbuster detrimentally relied on their silence as consent. If in fact (Netflix) feels so damaged they should have sought injunctive relief before Blockbuster rolled out its service."

Does "silence as consent" fly very far in these trials? That seems to be a frightening legal principle. How much silence equals consent? Doesn't that boil down to a principle of "whomever has enough money to defent their patents may be protected by them, the rest can kiss off"?

[Mamzelle]

Netflix does something that just amazes me--I'll put my return disk in the mail at 4:30 pm, and my email the next morning will show they rec'd it and my next movie is on the way--less than a 48-hr turnaround and I've got my next movie. Very impressive.

It is impossible that they could rec' it so quickly, so I have to assume they have some mechanism at the Post Office to scan and report it to their warehouse as "on the way" and they release the next movie before rec'ing the first.

If anyone knows how this works, I'd love to hear about it. Can they have scanning at every post office?

[Old Professer]

I'm going to take out companion patents on the:

"Method of discharging urine from the bladder of a human being while maintaining privacy..."

[Beckwith]

They'll lose.

[ContemptofCourt]

This is actually rather interesting. Netflix got the patent in June 2003 (U.S. 6,584,450)... Here is what NetFlix's CEO said in 2004, and an analysis of NetFlix's business model:To date, imitators such as Blockbuster and Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, news, msgs) haven’t stolen enough business to make it worthwhile for Netflix to spend the money in legal fees to enforce the patent and shut the copycats down, says [Netflix CEO] Hastings. So we don’t really know if the patent will hold up in court. But even if the big video chains successfully challenged the patent and ran a big online-based mail-order business, they’d still have a tough time competing because of their brick-and-mortar overhead.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P58723.asp

----

So what this means is that Blockbuster must be making inroads into NetFlix's business if they feel threatened enough to pursue this patent enforcement action.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

This is a bunch of BS on the part of Netflix. Whatever happened to duking it out in the free market? What a bunch of vaginas.

[Politicalmom]

Yeah. That's going to make me go back to "throttling" at Netflix.....