Evil Attorney 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Ancient Online Shopping Cart Patent Still Biting Retailers

    Evil Attorney ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2010 @ 01:59pm

    Re: Re: Where is the prior art?

    Typically judges will stay litigation if a non-frivolous reexam request has been filed and prosecution has been reopened by the USPTO.

    If I remember correctly, RIM filed for reexam AFTER losing at trial and during appeal. I believe this was because they didn't find good prior art until after trial.

  • On the post: Ancient Online Shopping Cart Patent Still Biting Retailers

    Evil Attorney ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2010 @ 01:47pm

    Re: Prior Art: An Actual Shopping Cart

    Yes, it's basically one message sent from the buyer's computer that includes a product code, payment info and a digital signature that authenticates the message. The digital signature is a hash of the info in the message based on a network key.

    NewEgg is a great company. If someone has slam-dunk prior art for this, they should forward it on to them. Just yesterday I ordered a hard drive enclosure from them and it came the same day with the cheapest shipping! Outstanding.

    Here is a sample claim:

    A network-based system for processing payment messages, comprising:

    a buyer computer; and

    payment computer;

    the buyer computer and the payment computer being interconnected by a public packet switched computer network;

    the buyer computer being programmed to send to the payment computer a payment message for purchasing a product in response to a user request,

    the payment message comprising a product identifier identifying the product,

    the payment message comprising a universal resource locator containing all information required by the payment computer for authorizing purchase of the product and an authenticator that comprises a digital signature based on a cryptographic key;

    the payment computer being programmed to receive the payment message and to authorize, based on the payment message, purchase of the product.

  • On the post: Ancient Online Shopping Cart Patent Still Biting Retailers

    Evil Attorney ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2010 @ 12:59pm

    Re: Re: Where is the prior art?

    Prior art searches and analysis can typically be performed for under $5k. Drafting and filing a reexam request is typically about the same.

    The settlement offer would need to be VERY low for a company to consider doing that. Most settlement offers for cases like this are much, much higher (e.g., hundreds of thousands of dollars).

  • On the post: Ancient Online Shopping Cart Patent Still Biting Retailers

    Evil Attorney ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2010 @ 12:32pm

    Where is the prior art?

    When any company is sued for patent infringement they immediately do the following:
    1. Review their product and the claims of the patent to see if their product falls into the scope of the patent claims.

    2. If their product falls anywhere close to the claims, they perform detailed prior art searches to asses the validity of the claims.

    3. If there is invalidating prior art, they either take it to court or more likely file a reexam on the patent.

    Either NewEgg has horrible attorneys or there is more to the claims than simply a "shopping cart". Can anyone point us to the actual opinion?