Word: ebay
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...eBay's fight against a Virginia company called MercExchange illustrates how small firms swat away at larger ones, at great cost to both. In 2001 MercExchange founder Tom Woolston, a former military pilot and CIA network engineer, sued eBay, claiming that the company infringed on three patents he filed in the mid-'90s, including one that set out methods for fixed-price online auctions (the so-called Buy It Now patent). In 2003 a jury ruled in Woolston's favor and awarded $35 million in damages...
Then, while the case was winding through the appeals process, the patent office in 2005 issued "initial" rejections of all three patents. Woolston, who is appealing the rejections, says eBay's infringements and dominance of online auctions virtually killed off his auction site, MercExchange, and says nothing less than an injunction will satisfy him. "We want the injunction so eBay's power sellers come to our site," he maintains. You can imagine eBay's view of that position. The case is so important that eBay has hired big-name lobbyists in Washington, such as the Ashcroft Group, a lobbying shop...
...have trumped eBay in terms of high-level access: it appears to have met with the patent office's general counsel, James Toupin, and another senior official, John Whealan. According to a document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and provided to TIME, RIM chairman and co-CEO Jim Balsillie was scheduled to meet with patent-office officials on Jan. 4, 2005, along with representatives from the U.S. Department of Commerce (such meetings are highly unusual). In February a Canadian government official contacted a patent-office lawyer to find out if the Canadian Patent Office should "exert...
Arcane as it may seem, the eBay case deals with the balance of power between patent holders and users, and corporate America is keenly interested in the verdict. Silicon Valley types from Yahoo! to Intel have lined up behind eBay, while more traditional companies such as General Electric (inventor Thomas Edison's outfit) and Procter & Gamble support MercExchange, along with the entire drug industry, whose business model hinges on patent protection...
...issue is whether judges should automatically issue injunctions against infringers, as they do now in most cases. eBay wants judges to have more discretion, which could weaken patent holders' bargaining power. "The only thing that will bring a major company to the table is that in the end they have to [negotiate]," says Nathan Myhrvold, former chief technology officer for Microsoft, who runs a patent-acquisition shop and knows a bit about how big companies wield power...