Free Republic

I agree - the patent is garbage. For example, when was the last time you used a bar code scanner (as claimed in the patent) to buy something over the internet from your home. In order to infringe this patent, each of those "checklist" items must be present. If any of them are missing, the patent is not infringed.

So MercExchange, which seems to have validly come up with a new idea of practicing a method that necessarily embodies each and every one of those things listed in the claim (back in 1996 mind you), is enforcing a patent that Ebay probably has violated with any number of Ebay retail stores or outlets.

Why shouldn't MercExchange be entitled to protect their idea? Evidence seems to show that they wanted to license it to Ebay anyway. Ebay probably shrugged this tiny company off and dared them to file infringement suit. Now Ebay's tactic has come home to roost, albeit for a rather small amount of money ($5.5 million)

Get a grip and read the patent before you go commenting on it. It's easy to demagague the language chosen by the media (selling items over an electronic network) while ignoring what was actually patented.

The claim reads:

A system for presenting a data record of a good for sale to a market for goods, said market for goods having an interface to a wide area communication network for presenting and offering goods for sale to a purchaser, a payment clearing means for processing a purchase request from said purchaser, a database means for storing and tracking said data record of said good for sale, a communications means for communicating with said system to accept said data record of said good and a payment means for transferring funds to a user of said system, said system comprising:

a digital image means for creating a digital image of a good for sale;

a user interface for receiving textual information from a user;

a bar code scanner;

a bar code printer;

a storage device;

a communications means for communicating with the market; and

a computer locally connected to said digital image means, said user interface, said bar code scanner, said bar code printer, said storage device and said communications means, said computer adapted to receive said digital image of said good for sale from said digital image means, generate a data record of said good for sale, incorporate said digital image of said good for sale into said data record, receive a textual description of said good for sale from said user interface, store said data record on said storage device, transfer said data record to the market for goods via said communications means and receive a tracking number for said good for sale from the market for goods via said communications means, store said tracking number from the market for goods in said data record on said storage device and printing a bar code from said tracking number on said bar code printer.


Now that is a far cry from patenting "selling on the net" much less your television example.