eBay's IP gripe, Google's gaffe (and Hackman defense)

Duck! Here comes IT Blogwatch, in which eBay gets a patent lawsuit, and we giggle at Google's misfortune. Not to mention Gene Hackman as you've never seen him before...

As it was with RIM, so it is with eBay. Grant Gross has the story: "Supreme Court hears arguments tomorrow in a patent infringement case, its examination of what may seem to be a narrow point of law could have far-reaching implications ... the court will examine whether near-automatic injunctions should be granted when a company is found to be infringing a patent (see 'High court to hear landmark eBay patent case'). Much of the tech industry is siding with eBay Inc., which was found guilty in May 2003 of infringing a 'buy it now' patent held by MercExchange LLC, a small auction site ... The case could shift the balance of power between inventors ... A court ruling for eBay could make it harder for inventors to collect patent damages and easier for large vendors to market their products without fear of a court shutting them down ... Many large technology vendors [say] injunctions issued in patent infringement cases hurt their ability to bring products to market ... In the eBay case, the company would still be able to operate if the courts bar it from using its 'buy it now' feature ... EBay backers argue that courts should weigh several factors before issuing an injunction, such as the public interest and the potential damage to both the patent holder and the accused infringer."

» As AdBloggers reports: "The lawsuit that nearly shut down the country's BlackBerry e-mail devices vaulted the normally obscure issue of patents into the national spotlight this winter ... pales in significance to a similar case -- entitled eBay v. MercExchange -- that will be argued at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ... The key issue in eBay v. MercExchange is the same as in the BlackBerry case: Should the holder of a valid patent have the nearly automatic right to an injunction shutting down the operations of a company that is found to infringe its patents? In this case, an appeals court upheld a jury's conclusion that eBay's buy-it-now service infringed a patent held by a tiny outfit called MercExchange."

» Patrick Ross, IPCentral: "I think it would be a mistake for the Supremes to use the case to dilute or diminish the power of injunction. For many independent inventors or small businesses, the threat of injunction is about the only lever they have against an infringer of their patent ... I'd have the court side with MercExchange here. BUT. I think it would be reasonable for the Supremes to suggest that lower courts can have some discretion on imposing an injunction, because there are some really bad patents out there ... Perhaps, I'm not a patent attorney. But I do think that not every case should necessarily go straight to injunction just because almost every case before it has ... In an ideal world, the PTO would issue patents after having complete access to prior art materials, they would apply consistent obviousness standards, and there would be a brief appeals process after patent issuance ... Reducing injunction power reduces intellectual property power, but if patent quality doesn't improve, the temptation on Capitol Hill -- and possibly in the Supreme Court -- to dilute injunction authority will grow."

Google provided us with a bit of a giggle, at its expense, natch. As Chris Gilmer says "First off - NO, the Google corporate blog was not hacked. It was however deleted ... Google blog hosted on the Blogger platform ... was off for a short while last night, and it appeared as though the system was hacked due to vulnerabilities. This is not the case ... Jason Goldman (Blogger Product Manager), has written on the corporate blog that they quickly uncovered that the glitch wasn’t a system wide vulnerability, and that they had mistakenly 'deleted' the entire blog ...  Quite an exciting night for Google I would imagine, and it took quite a few of us off guard."

» Philipp Lenssen: "Google deleted their own official Google blog... allowing the blog to be claimed by another user, Trey Philips from Texas ... screenshot of the claimed site ... is available at CybernetNews ... imagine if Trey would have posed as the real thing, sending out seemingly authoritative news ('We Decided to Leave China') – and what might have happened to Google stock ... I wonder what would happen to an average Blogspot user when they accidentally delete their own blog... would they get it back or receive form letters from Google support?"

» Can't you just hear the red faces in Jason Goldman's post? "The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d'oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user. This was not a hack, and nobody guessed our password. Our bad."

Buffer overflow:

• ITToolbox: Microsoft and Open - Microsoft joining OpenDocument
• Michael Pietroforte: Introduction to Continuous Data Protection
• Eric Bangeman: Lenovo laptop deal draws scrutiny from government agency
• Bob Sutor:  A dozen recommendations for corporate bloggers
• John Battelle: Search Share
• Ferris Research: Training Required for Office 2007 New User Interface
• Nicholas Carr: IT's risky
• Ben Rockwood: Nicholas Carr: Dumber than he looks
• Hu Yoshida: Authentication - How do I know you are who you say you are?
• Mrlayance2: Toshiba will exchange your old Laptop or LCD for a USB flash drive
• Martin McKeay: Don't get in the habit of using 3rd party patches
• Real Tech News: High-tech meets the restaurant industry
• Kay Sellenrode: Windows Mobile 5.0 in a enterprise
• Channel9: MS management shake-up attributed to new emphasis on the Web
• Ed Brill: The absolute last word on Microsoft Application Analyzer for Lotus Domino 2006
• Old New Thing: Why are there two copies of Notepad?
• Paul McDougall: Morgan Stanley E-Mails Reveal Outsourcing's Dirty Little Secret
• Paul McDougall: Better Have Season Tickets If You Want to Sell IT Equipment to Morgan Stanley
• Martin MC Brown: Microsoft delays Virtual Server to 2007
• Bert Latamore: The PDA Guerilla: entering data on your Palm
• Brian Babineau: Disk Drives and Razor Blades
• Martin McKeay: How's your resume looking?
• C.J. Kelly: Anti-Phishing volunteers needed
• Mitch Betts: The Vista 'hiccup'
• Robert L. Mitchell: The IT employment paradox
• Douglas Schweitzer: Looking for IT work?

And finally... Gene Hackman in 1960s civil defense movie

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk. Also contributing to today's post: Judi Dey, our very own Antipodean.