News.com is running astoryabout the man that invented online auctions. Well, he didn’t necessarily invent them. He patented them. The problem is that no one knows who was first. Well, I do, but no one listens to me.
MercExchange founder Thomas Woolston, an inventor and patent attorney who has been granted four online auction-related patents since 1998 and has some 10 others pending, said he sued eBay in 2001 after negotiations broke down over the auction site’s offer to purchase his patents.
The company first contacted Woolston in 2000 with an interest in buying the patents. E-mail to that effect is expected to figure prominently in the case because it indicates that eBay knew about Woolston’s patents but continued to infringe them, he said.
What about Prior Art? This time, eBay mightbethe prior art required to win this. eBay was first put online in 1995. Mr. Woolston filed his patent in 1995.Thismisc.forsale.non-computerpost clearly shows Pierre Omidyar (eBay founder) offering auctions at the eBay.com address a full two months before Mr. Woolston evenfiledhis patent. He doesn’t even have the protection of a “patent pending” argument, although if he can prove he had the idea within a year of the filing date, he may have a chance.
