eBay Appeals to the Supreme Court for Common Sense

With all the ridiculous patents that have been approved by the broken USPTO, eBay is fighting back and I hope they win. eBay is heading off to the Supreme Court to argue that just because there was a ruling that they did violate a patent does not allow the judge to issue a permanent injunction barring use of that technology - the “buy it now” feature in this case. I will not even get into the issues of patent validity other than saying that this was for an obvious feature.

This case is interesting in that eBay is not arguing the patent, but instead the next step. They lost the fight against MercExchange, a company that exists soley to sue others and make money from licensing patents that it purchases. They were ordered to pay millions in damages (later slightly reduced after one patent was invalidated), but they were not ordered to suspend use of this feature. MercExchange wants them to stop using it immediately (really they want eBay to pay through the nose to continue) as the appeal that invalidated the one patent also reversed the lower court’s denial of MercExchange’s request for a permanent injunction against eBay.

eBay’s argument is pretty basic, as outlined by an eBay spokesperson

“We have believed all along that MercExchange–which does not practice its own patents and only exists to sue others–should not be entitled to an injunction.”

They are also arguing that the courts have discretion in deciding to grant injunctions and that the appeals court in this case took that discretion away from the trial court.

Let’s hope that eBay can make some clear arguments and start some real patent reform that will still uphold the inventors rights, but end the ability of mercenaries using the courts as a business model.

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