eBay Faces Serious Patent Infringement Lawsuit
Trial is scheduled for next month in a complicated patent infringement lawsuit filed against eBay, according to the auction giant's annual 10-K report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And the stakes are high. eBay says in its filing that "if the plaintiff were to prevail on any of its claims, we might be forced to pay significant damages and licensing fees, modify our business practices or even be enjoined from conducting a significant part of our U.S. business." The suit was filed by Great Falls, Va.-based MercExchange LLC in September, 2001, but the patents involved date back to the mid 1990s, when MercExchange founder Tom Woolston applied for patents covering methods of creating and searching online marketplaces and auctions. That was about five months before eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched the eBay Web site. There's a complex history of motions for dismissal in the case, but the upshot, according to the 10-K document, is that claims regarding two patents are scheduled for trial April 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk. eBay's Half.com fixed-price subsidiary is also a defendant in the case.
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