eBay sued for $3.8 billion in patent suit

XPRT Ventures has sued eBay for $3.8 billion this week, accusing the auction giant of infringing on six patents used by the PayPal payment system.

The company says eBay stole confidential information from the inventors of XPRT's patents and used them to create certain features in PayPal and PayPal Later.

eBay filed a patent application in 2003 dubbed "Method and System to Automate Payment for a Commerce Transaction." It failed, according to XPRT, however, to disclose that it knew of XPRT's own similar patent applications.

"This involves a trade secret theft, along with sheer patent infringement," adds Steven Moore, who is representing the plaintiff. "It is bad enough to take someone's technology, but it is a bit much to use it in your own patent application."

XRPT is seeking $3.8 billion in monetary damages, based on current and future earnings thanks to PayPal.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 13 Jul 2010 23:46

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8 comments

Mysttic

Great return some of that for those that got screwed by ebay by either non-payments or users not shipping out items.

14.7.2010 11:59 #1

Josipher

if your buying new items,ebay is mostly a place for saps unless your ordering abroad

14.7.2010 13:55 #2

Mysttic

I order collector systems for the most part, but its rare I get em off Ebay and usually when I do so its only from Ebay Canada, as it's where I live. No offense to Americans, but I found I had more trouble getting items over the border than I do within it and there is absolutely no protection to the Canadian buyer if the seller doesn't send the item. Any protection stated on Ebay.ca or ebay.com is strictly noted that it is for US citizens only, so another way we get screwed.

14.7.2010 14:34 #3

Xplorer4

Originally posted by Mysttic: users not shipping out items.
I can top that. I ordered an item. Usual Mail Carrier was on vacation and the temp screwed up and marked it return to sender. I provided a document from the USPS that showed the screw up, and Ebay/PayPal STILL refused to return my money. When I asked them to investigate the matter further from there end, they refused.

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15.7.2010 02:34 #4

empulse

So everyone here misses the big picture again. The US allows patents on software, which makes us corporate c*ck suckers. Man do we love to get on our knees and service the patent trolls.

This company has actually probably never invented a goddamn thing, just someone who wishes upon a star every night that one day they will hold the patent on the word "the". And most of you will snooze right through it.

15.7.2010 19:30 #5

topmeat69

removed by author,member.

17.7.2010 00:04 #6

Mr-Movies

Originally posted by Josipher: if your buying new items,ebay is mostly a place for saps unless your ordering abroad Not even close to true but there are issues as to warranties on new items sold through eBay. I've bought new Routers with full warranty on eBay, brand new, for almost half the cost than going to a retailer or iRetailer. If you are smart you can get great deals through eBay and that would be the only reason I use eBay as I truly hate the company itself.

As to scammers, eBay isn't the only place to find scammers and in fact it is less common than other auction sites since eBay will kick them out and go after them. Craigslist has much more scamming going on and it gets worst from there.

eBay/PayPal are extremely difficult to deal with when they screw up and some of there policies are just horrid. I'm not suprised that they have stolen registered software.

17.7.2010 04:28 #7

wazzat

ebay will sock it to you if you try to post bad rating for a seller. i had a bad rating for a year because i left bad feedback for a seller who sent me a knockoff product.

18.7.2010 17:14 #8

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