Topic: Supreme Court case: MercExchange v. eBay

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Posted at January 30, 2006, 11:00 am:

In a case to be heard by the US Supreme Court, eBay is trying to alter the requirements for injunctions to be granted under US patent law. The current law (which did not originate with the MercExchange v. eBay case) states that once a patent is found VALID and INFRINGED, an injunction will issue, absent exceptional circumstances. In non-patent areas, a court will engage in a balancing of hardships, but this is not done in patent areas.

The Supreme Court asked for briefing on a 1908 Supreme Court case (Continental Paper) concerning the issue of whether a patentee who does not make or use the items in the claims of a patent can still can injunctive relief. In 1908 (and since), the answer has been yes.

In eBay's brief, there is a ridiculous assertion that the US Patent Office grants patents on 97% of patent applications submitted. This is is not true. eBay's argument is that since virtually "anything can be patented," it is wrong to grant injunctions as a routine matter of course. Aside from the argument being based on a falsity, the argument is irrelevant to the case, because the lower court (the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) required that the patent be VALID before an injunction would issue. If there were an obviously bad patent, the court would find it INVALID and no injunction would issue.

Ironically, rather than showing that the USPTO grants patents on almost everything, the eBay brief stands for the proposition that almost anything, however untrue, can be submitted to the Supreme Court.

More details on the case can be found on Patently O (see news story on auctionbytes) and on IPBiz.blogspot.com.

Original of the message was taken from http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/

Replies:

Pretty strange.

Wouldn't you think that eBay would not contest the court ruling as the...


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