From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Fri Nov 21 2003 - 14:17:42 MST
Can thet US patent office handle the Net? This one looks as good as Amazon's "one click purchase" patent.
AT&T filed a lawsuit against e-bay and PayPal for patent infrigement. It seems that AT&T has patented "a payment system that relies on a third party to act as a 'trusted intermediary' between buyer and seller, which makes it possible to purchase something online using a credit card without account details being made available to the seller."
AT&T sues eBay over e-payment patent
November 21, 2003
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7318493.htm
<snip>
In the suit, AT&T claims that eBay's PayPal division is a "trusted intermediary" that facilitates payments between buyers and sellers over the Internet. AT&T says it received a patent in 1994 for such a system, known in the patent as "Mediation of Transactions by a Communication System."
<snip>
"We are not trying to stop eBay or PayPal from doing the commerce that they're doing," said Gary Morgenstern, an AT&T spokesman. "We're just seeking to be compensated fairly for our intellectual property."
<snip>
Here is the patent:
Mediation of transactions by a communications system
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,329,589.WKU.&OS=PN/5,329,589&RS=PN/5,329,589@ˆ @ÙÏ
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