Federal government supports "Buy It Now" patent

Vikingod

In the world of patent disputes, the recently settled tiff between patent holding company NTP and Research In Motion, makers of the popular BlackBerry has dominated the scene for the past year or so. At the same time that battle was being played out, another case of infringement was wending its way through the federal court system. This one involves eBay and a company called MercExchange LLC, which says eBay's popular "Buy It Now" auction feature violates patents held by MercExchange.

The Office of the Solicitor General of the United States has filed a brief with the Supreme Court, taking the side of MercExchange. In it, the Solicitor General's Office argues that eBay should be barred from using Buy It Now due to the decision of two lower courts that upheld MercExchange's patents.
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Read More / Source: ars technica

Matth

Beats me why such a thing should be patentable at all, since it is an obvious progression that can be logically arrived at.

The whole idea that, just by being first to get some bit of paper that puts your name to an idea, you can then extort large sums of money from anyone else that comes up with the same idea, is completely wrong.

Contrast with copyright, where the code developed to implement a feature deserves proptection, though other solutions can then be arrived at.

DVDKingdom

How is something like this infringement. IMO this is the same as purchasing & checking out at any other website that don't use auctions. Ebay just gave it a nice name to make certain the buyer knew it was nolonger part of an auction.