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How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

arstechnica.com

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Re: How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

#91

Post by fpgeek »

DigitalJack wrote: post #67
lubujackson wrote: post #63

So the patents were invalidated because CompuServe did it first. The problem doesn't seem to be in any way improved. If CompuServe held the patents, this would still be a valid lawsuit, no?

Compuserve's prior art was in 1984, so if they had patents on it, they'd have expired in 2004. I take your point though. Can you imagine having to pay royalties to Compuserve over a shopping cart in 2003?

Not necessarily. 20 years from application only just became the law. Compuserve would have been working under 17 years from grant. And, IIRC, they could have been evil and kept filing follow-on claims to delay grant until a time they though was advantageous (e.g. waiting until after Amazon became big).

You'd think that's crazy, but the universal search patent Apple is bedeviling Android with has a priority date that goes all the way back to 2000 (this is why Google Desktop Search is not the vaporizing prior art it should be), but wasn't actually issued until December 27, 2011! And if I understand the rules correctly, absent successful invalidation that means we're stuck with Apple "owning" universal search until almost 2029.

See: http://www.google.com/patents/US8086604

Re: How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

#92

Post by nextparadigms »

creamyhorror wrote: post #72

A victory for common sense, the tech industry, and right-thinking citizens everywhere. May the gods of the market continue to smile upon Newegg (a prosperous Lunar New Year to them!). Points of interest to me: Lee Cheng: And we'll take a case through trial as a matter of principle because we want to accomplish the purpose of making good law. Like eBay did, like Quanta did when they challenged LG. It's part of our dut…

I think that's why many Android manufacturers decided to pay Microsoft, instead of trying to fight them like B&N - which probably would've won if Microsoft didn't give up and settled with them (they called it an "investment").

Re: How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

#94

Post by nova »

taf2 wrote: post #10
arbuge wrote: post #9

Comparing patent trolls to bacteria would be an unforgivable and entirely unwarranted insult to bacteria everywhere. Even the plague bacterium deserves better. We need to see alot more of this happening - hopefully this will show people there is another way to go, i.e. never ever settle with a patent troll, no matter how scary the alternative may seem to be. 3 patents invalidated but thousands to go. It is disgusting…

I think you might be going a little far and taking this a little far... considering the black plague killed between 75 - 200 million people e.g. 30-60% of the population in europe... I agree patients are bad, but let's not take things out of perspective ... ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

I wonder how many people have died because of inefficiencies caused by the patent system, or just the whole healthcare thing. I don't know if the medical patent landscape is a wasteland like the software one, but probably it's not the best we could do.

Just a thought: abolish the patent system. Pay the pharmaceutical research companies directly, by the State, like we do with military research or civil works. I prefer free markets but anything touched by patents is not a free market either.

The cost could be shared by the rich countries. Research is expensive but is a fixed cost. Manufacturing could be done by the free market, because all drugs would be generic. Rare diseases could be researched instead of just profitable ones. We would avoid all the "convincing" doctors to buy expensive patented drugs. Some companies would be specialized in research, others in manufacturing. Developing countries wouldn't have to be worried about patent fees they can't afford.

IP lawyers would lose, I guess.

Re: How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

#95

Post by nordsieck »

creamyhorror wrote: post #72

A victory for common sense, the tech industry, and right-thinking citizens everywhere. May the gods of the market continue to smile upon Newegg (a prosperous Lunar New Year to them!). Points of interest to me: Lee Cheng: And we'll take a case through trial as a matter of principle because we want to accomplish the purpose of making good law. Like eBay did, like Quanta did when they challenged LG. It's part of our dut…

"This seems true enough - from a (rational) game-theoretic perspective, why should any victim really fight hard to overcome a troll, if in doing so they risk big losses, and don't gain any advantage over their competition even if they win?"

This might be true over a single iteration, but I don't think it holds well over indefinite iterations. Developing a (credible) reputation as an entity (government, corporation, person, etc.) who doesn't "negotiate with terrorists" can be quite a valuable asset.

Just like productive companies have an incentive to give in to the demands of patent trolls, patent trolls have an incentive to avoid companies who "don't negotiate with terrorists", in part because there is a very high (> 50%) rate of claim invalidation across the industry (what does that say about the quality of the original examination?), and in part because it costs the patent trolls just as much money to go to court as it does the productive companies.

Re: How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

#96

Post by sounds »

creamyhorror wrote: post #72

A victory for common sense, the tech industry, and right-thinking citizens everywhere. May the gods of the market continue to smile upon Newegg (a prosperous Lunar New Year to them!). Points of interest to me: Lee Cheng: And we'll take a case through trial as a matter of principle because we want to accomplish the purpose of making good law. Like eBay did, like Quanta did when they challenged LG. It's part of our dut…

Without assuming Fred Chang or his associates share my views, in my position I'd be willing to bet the whole company on a principled stand like this. In other words, I don't always take the game theoretic rational local maximum – lots of business is like that.

If for my company to survive I must pay "rent" to a patent troll, taking a stand against them would be my first choice. (Obviously this only works in a position like Fred Chang's where he can unilaterally make such a choice.)

Just like more trolls may appear out of the woodwork after settling with the first one, Newegg gets a karma boost for defeating one. But consider that it might just make it all worthwhile to go home at the end of the day smiling.

Re: How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

#97

Post by chetan_prasad »

likeclockwork wrote: post #79

I can't even believe there WAS a shopping cart patent. I mean, what? How else are you supposed to do it? I mean.. seriously? They patented the concept of keeping track of things a customer intends to buy? If no one had ever done this before, how many people would arrive a this solution tomorrow? It's not hard to implement and absurdly obvious to even think of.

these patent trolls are everywhere, whats worse is even the big names in the industry are doing similar things!!!

patents if anything should allow innovation but not be a bump on the way to innovation!!!

Re: How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

#98

Post by gabemart »

creamyhorror wrote: post #72

A victory for common sense, the tech industry, and right-thinking citizens everywhere. May the gods of the market continue to smile upon Newegg (a prosperous Lunar New Year to them!). Points of interest to me: Lee Cheng: And we'll take a case through trial as a matter of principle because we want to accomplish the purpose of making good law. Like eBay did, like Quanta did when they challenged LG. It's part of our dut…

    > This seems true enough - from a (rational) game-theoretic perspective,    
    > why should any victim really fight hard to overcome a troll, if in     
    > doing so they risk big losses, and don't gain any advantage over their    
    > competition even if they win?
If prices were at a near-optimal level to begin with and then are raised across-the-board by some external factor, each firm may retain the same slice of the pie they had before but the pie will be smaller. Any given firm will see a reduction in their profits after everyone in their market starts to pay the troll-toll.

The demand curve will remain constant but the supply curve will shift to the right. Less product will be sold at a higher price and there will be dead-weight losses.

However, you bring up a very valid point--what happens if the losses for each individual firm are less than the cost of paying off the troll, but the losses as a whole are greater? Then it would be in the interests of all firms in a market to band together and fight the troll collectively.

Re: How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail

#99

Post by raverbashing »

nextparadigms wrote: post #92
creamyhorror wrote: post #72

A victory for common sense, the tech industry, and right-thinking citizens everywhere. May the gods of the market continue to smile upon Newegg (a prosperous Lunar New Year to them!). Points of interest to me: Lee Cheng: And we'll take a case through trial as a matter of principle because we want to accomplish the purpose of making good law. Like eBay did, like Quanta did when they challenged LG. It's part of our dut…

I think that's why many Android manufacturers decided to pay Microsoft, instead of trying to fight them like B&N - which probably would've won if Microsoft didn't give up and settled with them (they called it an "investment").

Not to mention major manufacturers have a couple of patents they could use against Microsoft

I think it's a mixture of lawyers believing their own BS about patents, lack of understanding that the patents are bogus and going for the easy way out.

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