eBay in patent problems related to their Buy It Now feature

Online e commerce giant eBay is finding itself in patent problems related to their Buy It Now feature which enables their members to purchase items instantaneously at a fixed price from the seller.

A Virginia based company MercExchange is claiming that eBay is infringing on their copyright. They have now asked the courts to stop eBay from using its “Buy It Now” feature allowing shoppers to buy items at a fixed price.

Incidentally, a jury ruling said in 2003 that eBay had infringed on the MercExchange LLC’s patent. U.S. District Court Judge Jerome B. Friedman would now have to decide on whether eBay would have to stop using this functionality or not.

eBay lawyers have said in their statement that the company programmers have designed a workaround which does not infringe on the patented technology in dispute. They are also claiming that MercExchange has not suffered irreparable harm from eBay’s usage of the feature on their website.

MercExchange’s attorney Seth Waxman had this counterpoint: “Without an injunction in the face of an infringing monopolist that now has 95 percent of the market, MercExchange cannot make productive use of its patent in any way.”

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