eBay Patent Case Heads To Trial

Legal Issues

from the who-needs-venture-capital-when-you-can-just-sue? dept

Last year we mentioned the story of a guy who seemed to believe he had patented the idea of an auction a few months before eBay began. The guy was unable to raise money to start his own eBay, and instead decided to sit back and sue other companies that figured out how to execute where he had failed. The case is now going to trial, where eBay hopes they’ll prevail. However, they admit that, should they lose, it could have a very strong negative impact on their business. I would think that centuries of auctions would invalidate such a patent, but it seems the patent office believes that everything is different when it goes online.