The miracle child [Internet whose name, at the time of this writing, 1983, was] Videotex is like a caterpillar: prior to its metamorphosis to a butterfly, one is looking at a larva, and nothing visible suggests its later capabilities and splendid colors.  Despite the hype, Videotex is still a rather primitive, crude and tiresome medium.  And [despite the huge technological progress achieved in the past 16 years, it still] takes a lot of imagination, confidence and hard work to discover and bring to fruition its full potential.  Which is to create all the economic wealth that can be generated by enterprising citizens if they can freely and globally buy what they need in exchange for real values, i.e. for the goods and services they themselves are capable of producing and selling.  Technically, this requires the telephone network to be converted into a generally accessible global electronic market place for all sorts of barter and business transactions.  But this, of course, is not only a technical matter.  And if the potential beneficiaries, i.e. the enterprising citizens, are not not going to be frustrated by vested interests, many monopolies will have to be broken up, many habits will have to be changed, and many de-regulations will have to be adopted by the powers that be.

Granted, that is a tall order.  But it is not an impossible task.  Basically, it is foreseeable that even aunt Emma and uncle Willi may overcome the initial psychological hurdles and cover most of their household needs by way of an "intelligent television" - and most likely a mobile one at that.  Like most citizens and entrepreneurs, Mr. Sharpeye, the always alert businessman, too will routinely develop and apply his business contacts by way of this new media.  For this to happen to any significant extent, national, language and other borders will have to give way.  Interestingly, the French PTT - of all - have already established themselves as trail-blazing pioneers, providing for the entire French society a quantum leap into the information age.  For each French household is to be equipped - free of charge - with a first-generation but already interactive Videotex terminal.  Called Minitel, it is built to serve primarily as an electronic telephone directory.  Yet, as such, it is also uniquely suited for most adult and senior citizens to playingly overcome the psychological barriers which keep many of them away from electronic tools.

In this light - and as pointed out at Switzerland's first Videotex Congress in 1983 - success or failure of this new technology will not only be dependent on how the technology's development will progress.  Whether it will turn out to be the flop of the century, a panacea for a cultural, social and economic rebirth or anything in between will essentially be determined by our all related actions and inactions, by our imagination, by our capacity to innovate and by our readyness to take risks and venture beyond worn-out tracks.

1. Relevancy    The information thus made available must be easily understandable and directly relevant for the individual user.
2. Privacy    The acces to all these information must be protected against surveillance and taxation by third parties; it must be economical, easy and with a minimum of steps.
3. Effective e-mail    The electronic mail box must be usable discretely and in both directions; essentially it should be used and usable only for individualized information reflecting a genuine interest - junk mail, please keep out!

Overlapping all this are system-inherent and device-specific inhibitions, which keep many away from even trying out Videotex devices. Such inhibitions are particularly evident among those generations which did not grow up with electronic gadgets and the new media. Justified or not, many associate job losses, work place degradation and "screen illnesses" with these new work instruments.  Not being used to them, an environment not conducive to venture beyond what is considered to be safe, and an unwillingness to seriously examine the usefulness of a new tool all add up to a self-feeding vicious circle favoring the status quo and a corresponding slide backwards, relatively speaking.  Under such circumstances, a purely passive use of a television set is all that may pass.  However, this limits its use to a conventional, i.e. one-way form of communication, whereas Videotex [Internet] is designed to provide for and indeed is characterized by two and multi-path communications.

Accordingly, essential prerequisites are seen to be still lacking for such an active, dedicated use of this "intelligent" television.  To begin with, there is not only a problem of psychological but also of economic barriers standing in the way of the indispensable easy access to the offered - hopefully updated - information.  Already trying to find a needle in a haystack is for most a daunting if not discouraging exercice.  Yet, using a Videotex [Internet] search engine with its mostly unintelligent search menu, search tree or keyword system is not really that much more attractive.  For you are essentially still being asked to look for that needle.  The difference is only that you have now before you not a haystack, but a screen and a keyboard with an electronic pin hole through which you are about to fathom huge databanks.  Yet, this is the working tool for you - provided you are happy with mostly plentiful results and attention-diverting multiple choices, if not indeed often unmanageable numbers of and more or less relevant "needles".  Whether this adds up to a critical mass for making Videotex sufficiently attractive remains to be seen.

Undoubtedly, there are already now interesting, even attractive Videotex [Internet] applications.  And in the future there will be many more from which many users can draw the more benefit as they get used to the system and develop their capacity to focus and fine-tune their search strategies.  Professionally interested and some senior citizens may be found in this category.  For other segments of the population, it will take fundamental technical and economic improvements before this new media will generate any lasting interest and make a dent.  A key technical vehicle for achieving that critical public interest is to develop its potential for individualized messages which are not only highly relevant for the individual but - e.g. with regard to speed and costs - may only be obtainable through this medium.

The French PTT is on the best way to provide a corresponding break-through for the entire French society within a relatively short time. Instead of delivering every few years new telephone books, it already started in the Bretagne with its campaign to upgrade - free of charge - the telephone in each French household by replacing it with a Minitel, i.e. a Videotex terminal capable of providing interactive services essentially built around the telephone directory.  For its part, the Swiss PTT invokes cost - and printing jobs - for not following this ground-breaking French example.  Perhaps it takes the initiative of some energetic parliamentarian for this short-sighted bureaucratic position of the Swiss PTT to be reconsidered in time so as not to waste a unique opportunity for the Swiss people and economy to be also catapulted into the information age.

(under construction: the following segment will be translated into proper English as soon as resources permit; for the most part, it is an untreated automatic translation - courtesy by ALTAVISTA - of the more than ever relevant German-language original of the Keynote address of September 1983; meanwhile and alternatively, see the French translation which was also published in October 1983)
 
 

In this sense it appears to be indicated to consider the already available experiences with Videotex applications and projects in order to diminish the existing barriers actively.  In this sense determined efforts are required in order to  counter the information saturation, i.e. to effectively overcome the effects of the incessantly swelling flood of information. And in this sense new applications are to be developed, using technology refinements and method improvements.  Standardisation and combination of the several functions in one, i.e. the Videotex system, are called for (inclusive Edifon), Teletext, scanner, telex, fax, agenda, text processing, address administration, bookkeeping, printer, display disk, file, etc.  Diagnosing devices are in demand.  The primary guide should always be the conception aligned carefully to the actual needs; the anyway almost exploding hardware developments can be directed then rather in the desired direction. With such measures and devices can be worked against appearing to the obstacles promisingly. Under such prerequisites in our opinion real chances exist to raise the relevance and acceptance of this new medium crucially - and thus to avoid a failure.

We do not doubt that Videotex has the potential to be developed along these lines and to these effects both for the individual consumer and for the individual entrepreneur.  As such it can become an extraordinarily interesting, daily work instrument. However, the free flow of things does not seem to lead there in the foreseeable future.  In order to arrive at this target, therefore determined private initiatives might be indispensable, as are flanking political measures.
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Which solutions offer themselves?

Microelectronics enables the de-massification of production, the economic individualization of products and services. Videotex offers itself as the corresponding communication system. This combination of most modern technologies opens new possibilities for the business operation. Thus can be worked against to the further attenuation of the core of the free-market economy. Beyond that thereby its original function and meaning can be returned to the market to a large extent. The telephone network steps thereby to the place of the localbound market place. For this electronic market place we have chosen the term Selex (for: selective electronics exchange). Because Selex brings a new possibility for the setting up and for the handling of business relations, like goods, services and cash transactions.

Selex will represent a new base factor for all interested producers of hardware and software. This user-oriented standard will have to be developed in co-operation with interested entrepreneurs and circle of users; it will express their needs in relation to microelectronics and telecommunications. Thus also the compatibility of all devices which can be attached, as well as the software which can be used is to be ensured to be able. The composition of a Videotex page is to be able to take place therefore with the same ease, how this is possible now with the text processing software for the organization of a letter; the same text is to be able to be transmitted e.g. also easily on the telex rail to any addressees; graphic and written messages, which will receive e.g. in the electronic mail box, are to be able to be recalled on the display and/or the attached printer; etc.

To the usual services of Videotex [ Internet ] belongs the electronic mail box. This can be out-arranged to its own electronic market place. The demo box and the Promobox (for: demand, respectively. perduction motivator box) thereby the public storage tank for suggestions, demands and supplies forms. The private Selex mail box remains thereby for the qualified, i.e. on the non-standard needs if possible co-ordinated messages reserve.

All that will open homo oeconomicus new Entfaltungsmoeglichkeiten for everyone - regardless of like he its cash earns, or whether he is unemployed at present. Each housewife and each employed person will be able to draw use from these mechanisms directly. Because directed thus it a majority of their daily supply -, exchange and business needs and resonance-strongly to take off to be able. The purchases, for example, can be marketed so systematically with the sales be coupled , fallow-being situated capacities, and be increased thus conversion and yields. To return this without into the age of the simple bartering. I.e. nobody will have to do without cash; the own purchasing power is even increased. And also the own interests of discrete ion, as well as those of the addressed users, can be considered fully.

Selex opens thereby new dimensions of the business contacts and market entry. That results substantially from the connection of the following characteristics:

1. Possibility for the early recognition, waking and use of latent or conscious real needs.
2. Possibility for the addressing finely co-ordinated purchase -, purchase sales -, sales and exchange supplies to set of videotex express takers, any defined.
3. However possibility of following to the Selex signals alternatively in such a way that this remains either unidentified for the sender, or recorded, and to the further handling in such a way becomes accessible.

-     A dentist reminded systematically its customers, when the next control kontrollvisite appears displayed to him, and loads it for the definition of a date in. Videotex attainable the customers not via receive an appropriate message, which was printed out on the Selex system of the dentist on the post office way.

-     a Garagist offers his customers to buy the driven off tires of their car.

-     a building contractor subscribes himself on an individualized Selex news letter, which was offered to him by the building master federation, an enterprise advisor specialized by a specialized publishing house or. Thus it receives information, which is limited to its given sphere of interest in its Selex mail box (e.g. referring to building advertisements, free capacities, auctions, co-worker search, basic condition modifications, urgent drawer -, occupation or status messages, etc.). Since the messages are not bound to an appearance rhythm, and which postal feed time can be saved, the subscriber receives so economically most current and information directly relevant for its business activity, which he can recall selection wahlwelse on the display and/or by means of printers.

-     an investor is disconcerted by a note in the Wall Street Journal (13. 9. 83), according to which under American port port managerport managers and Boersianern the benefit of cocaine increases. It would not like to entrust therefore the administration of its fortune any longer substantially uncontrollable professional trustees; in addition, it has not sufficient time and expertise, in order to process the available decision bases within useful period or at all specialsufficient and to make or arrange all the other processes themselves. It entscheldet itself therefore for the optional asset management. This leaves it a at any time arbitrarily variable decision and influence free space, without he would have to do without those in each case as necessary and sufficiently felt early support by the best professional port port managerport managers. It obtains this because it subscribes itself with evenly this experts on investment recommendations, which are adapted to its given interest position, and which into its Selex mail box is sent to it time-immediately. These recommendations correspond to the purchase and sales instructions, which the respective trustee could make in accordance with an appropriate mandate without consultation of the investor and will.

Under the system of the optional asset management of an estate the investor has the selection under five options. It can convert the recommendation into an appropriate purchase or sales instruction. It can announce and e.g. to other sources immediately make their active check. He can do without a reaction. And it can place - e.g. with absence - to its terminals temporally and essentially limited on automatic, with which the recommendation is automatically converted into an authorized, appropriate instruction and thus no investment opportunity be missed may. In addition it comes that he can make this way a clear separation between analytics and Exekution, i.e. the respective experts are limited to their function and are not at the same time also still interested in the execution, since the execution is put into other hands.

-     a tax counsel received from the result of negotiation confidentially held for the alteration of the Swiss-French double taxation Abkomrnens Vorauskenntnis. The negotiated one-sided sovereignty reductions, gifts to the French treasury, and addition loads for local taxpayers cause him to fight this newest damage ability document of identification of the own negotiators after forces. By means of electronic mail box it represented in addition customers concerned, interested business circles and parliamentarians informed about still from the parliament which can be approved the supplementary agreement, the associated non-standard additional charges, and suggested a plan of action.

Those in particular, as well as the only in terms of figures registered information acceptance on the one
hand, and thereupon effected verbal and written reactions on the other hand give now substantial decision
making aids for his further procedure to the tax counsel. Among them notes over:

a) the status of information and the actual relevant interest of the addressees, in particular the customers concerned to carry appropriate early preventive measures;
b) the earliest promising measures; and
c) the resonance strength of the topic, the electronic advertisement and the sender with the addressees.

Our always arbeitsteiligere world brought it with itself that an attractive product offered for competitive conditions found its buyer with appropriate advertisement so far usually also. Calcifying and inertia of the Markttaktoren just like political manipulation and market alienation of the general article of exchange - i.e. the official currencies - impair the development of the forces now inherent in the market however appreciably. Among them increasingly also the development and handling of the being and service supply suffers. Tariff provisions, bureaucracy, as well as it usually zudienenden handels and action complications of all kinds influence the concrete price structuring already more, than the traditional factors work, capital and soil it do. The market value of each property, the market, expressed in cash, therefore is from market-other, and partly even market-restraining items intersperses. This applies both in the domestic, and within the externaleconomic area.

In order to be able to exist successfully in this verbuerokratisierten market of the present and the future, the actual entrepreneur will find appropriate means and ways out and will have to use. In demand aids, which are even resistant, particularly are or make immune in relation to the multilayered political pressionen and degradations of the basic conditions. For this belongs the increased use of real own and other exchange values, which are characterised like goods vouchers by as high a linkage at goods and services as possible. In addition, to it exchange possibilities belong, which make the check of a supply more probable, and which to the conclusion of a contract with itself lead a strong attraction. In this category are traditional supplysupply supplies. And for this purpose in particular easily successfully convertable exchange values might be able to be used, like Maple Leaves , Krueger edge, foreigncurrencies, hypotheken, obligations, changes u.ae.m in cash.
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Selex in the hotel trade

We take for example a Hotelier, which wants to again create its kitchen. Under the glossary word kitchen equipment he finds several whom are applicable providers, who are ready their goods and services partly with gegengeschaeften to couple in his Selex terminal. The Hotelier would like to consider a special business interest on this occasion, i.e. a better extent of utilization of its house in the low season. Its offer at the kitchen suppliers reads therefore, belspielswelse:

30prozentige payment of the kitchen equipment in unrestrictedly valid overnight accomodation coupons, which are valid in the low season for two each, which can be supplied, instead of for only one person.

In practice Selex traffic might handle itself generally about in such a way: Who has to offer a product or a service, this does opposite all videotex express takers in the substantially conventional art. new is with the fact first only that he is an electronic advertisement served, which may be out-arranged interactive substantially however passive. I.e. a user must look up from own stimulus for it actively, in order recall and to the knowledge to take be able it.

In addition, the same advertisement can be actively out-arranged. I.e. with the help of microelectronics and the data bases the provider < will throw > a if possible individualized supply to a carefully selected user set in their private electronic mail box. also with Videotex [ Internet ] and Selex applies: the more near the supply at the actual need and interest position of the respective addressee approaches, the rather it to attention will find and to reciprocally profitable more concrete contacts will lead. - apart from examples mentioned - active supplies are conceivable according to the following model:

Is offered the product, which service, which free capacity, or the result of research X, whereby the buyer the amount Y in normal currency, and which remainder in appropriate exchange values or returns has to hunt.

1. Who is not satisfied with the offers of the marktet, or who is annoyed by them.
2. Who wants to present a problem or an idea anonymously or in particular for discussion, without having to do without an appropriate participation in its utilization.
3. Who wants to express in any way a more or less specified need, something he is not willing to do with existing means of communication.

Who finally knows, which product, which free capacity or which service it needs, can itself serve in similar form the same Selex communication. Existing ones, as well as other which are applicable business partners are informed then via the private electronic mail box [ today email box ] of the fact that for their supply to that and the conditions - inclusive. special possibilitypossibility possibilities - a prospective customer ready to negotiate in the market is and in addition directly to be addressed can.

Into all these, which become whole market spectrum taking off cases the in such a way addressed potential buyers, salesmen or prospective customers then the supply more near check, and if necessary with the sender into contact step by telephone or in writing. They can want to check thereby to select, whether them cover the supply, thus anonymous, or whether the sender may identify them as supply readers.

This the data security requirement appropriate possibility gives a outstanding new to the sender marketing lnstrument to the hand. Because thus it will be able to execute privatim a so-called < resonance check > at any time over its electronic advertisement. Two different kinds is then indicated to it: first of all which Selex users consulted his supplyopenly, and thus registerable, and secondly like many it covered.

The contacts , respectable their being missing, beyond that actuallytaken place, help to bring him then its supply more near to the market. Thus the entrepreneur will have opportunity, without being able to make to delay an improved supply. This also opposite that user, who let its - conditioned - interest register, then however did not announce itself nevertheless.
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Exemplary Home Banking

In the case of the use of the in such a way out-arranged Videotex technology by banking clients a reversal of the controllability results in favor of the customer. Who always states an interest in an information concerning a certain customer or its account, or, will be able this transacts transactions over its account only under simultaneous registration of its own terminal number to do. Each account statement will be then accompanied from a list that Videotex more [Internet]Teilnehmer, whatever required contact to the account concerned and received if necessary.

The banking client will know so for the first time to be put into the position, who was interested when and with which success in its finances. This might be favorable the actual protection of its privatsphaere. In an extent, about which one can only dream in the conventional banking operations. Such an extension of the banking client protection offers to the bank trade also an important new marketing opportunity - and a possible response anf the PTT plans for the introduction of credit cards as the approximate Equivalent of PTT Gipfeli.

____________

Anton Keller, born 1940: originates from a commerce family of Winterthur; is dedicated to the study and the improvement of the basic conditions - originally as a student in architecture (Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich) focussing on the needs of the individual, and later concentrating on communal projects, such as the salvage of the Nubian monuments and the water regime of the Nile valley, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, minorities rights, etc., serving industry and lawmakers as adviser in particular on technical, legal and economic questions, as well as security, commercial and media matters.

Professor Dr. dipl. physics Thomas T. Ballmer, born 1945: Schools in Basel (MNG), study at the University of Basel (propaedeutische medicine, theoretical nuclear physics: Diploma 1969), parallel to it: Biology, chemistry, cybernetics, languages (Russian, sanskrit), mathematics, logic, 1970/71 system engineer at AEG-Telefunken, thereafter study of linguistics, philosophy and computer science at Technical University and Free University of Berlin, graduation in linguistics (1975), postdoc at the U.C. Berkeley (USA, l975/76), habilitation in general linguistics (1978 at the Ruhr University of Bochum), professor (since l982) at the RUB.  This academic background in natural, human and artificial intelligence evolved with the aim of contributing to the science of bio-cybernetics with a focus on cultural products with practical applications (e.g. in the fields of natural and artificial languages, techno-economic structures).
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...

The problems still which can be solved are thereby predominantly non-technical nature. The back-up of the directories by carriage free supplied Videotex devices, for example, already begun in France, to be outstanding suitable seems non-standard psychological restraining threshold to diminish. The question about the Flop of the century, asked at «first Swiss Videotex congress», is then marked also not from the system, but might have to be answered alone by our doing and leaving, by our imaginative power and innovation ability as well as by our prepared to take risks shank.

From the outset with it its and the future in the eye kept, the chance does not bring by the other one to be rolled over also the small one of the large one. Therefore one should argue already today with it. An assistance, in order to think today of the future acquisitions, is the following standard, if it concerns the acquisition of the devices.

Standard for evaluation

The Selex standard aims at the adjustment of the hardware and the software on the needs in particular that entrepreneur, who would like to be active on the electronic market place. It represents an appropriate need profile, which is to permit a comparative investigation of the offered devices and services, related to the check point in time and the relevant market. The following l0 test positions results in ever 0-5, 0-l0, or 0-15 points, altogether thus at the most 100 points.

1. PTT compatibility or - grant (5)
2. Environmental compatibility (Temperatur-und humidity tolerances) (5)
3. Design  (5)
4. Ergonomics  (5)
5. Working reliability  (10)
6. Service friendliness (e.g. self diagnostics)  (l0)
7. Acquisition and operating cost vs.Leistungen  (15)
8. Communication friendliness  (15)
9. Modularity for the economical use of the technical progress  (15)
l0. Possibility for the direct verkoppelung and extension of the functions telephone, telex, Fax, teletex, Videotex, editing, Videodisc, scanner, investor, DATA + Word processing, Speech management, printer, photocopying apparatus, etc., e.g. by means of active or passively intelligent Interfaces  (l5)

The addition of these inspection results becomes then a prozentzahl, which Selex degrees result in, characteristic of the respective product. Second, the Selex degree attached code number represents at the check point in time the valid respective average value. This results from the confrontation in the relevant market available, comparable competition products. The laser photocopying apparatuses of Olivetti and Canon, belspielsweise, whatever Videotex pages printouts could achieve, that relatively hohen.Selex degrees of 70%. The prospective buyer receives thereby for the first time a general yardstick for check to that already now hardly more overviewable supplies. The evaluation of point of ten coming from neutral, competent and reliable page is it besides to help to cover its non-standard needs optimally.
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Selex Development + Marketing AG
box 2580 - 1211 Geneva 2
swissbit@solami.com

Washington Post    March 30, 2006

At issue is the current rule in patent cases that patent holders who prove infringement get money damages and an injunction shutting down the businesses that violate their intellectual property rights. EBay, backed by tech firms such as America Online Inc. and Yahoo Inc., says the near-automatic injunction gives patent holders too much leverage, enabling patent holders who have no intention of using their inventions -- known as "patent trolls" -- to ambush companies with expensive lawsuits.

But MercExchange LLC, a Great Falls firm that says it created a process for selling goods at a fixed price online that eBay later infringed, argues that the real problem is the bullying of giants like eBay that refuse to pay patent holders for their intellectual property. Backed by the pharmaceutical industry, which has its own huge stake in patenting drugs that take years to develop, MercExchange argues that, without easy access to injunctions, small inventors would be helpless against the likes of eBay.

"This is not a patent troll case," MercExchange's lawyer, Seth P. Waxman, told the court. MercExchange came up with a legitimate invention that eBay offered to buy, he said, but when negotiations broke down, eBay "stole the technology." The invention is a method for allowing users to buy goods at a set price instead of bidding on them.

The case puts a spotlight on the nation's troubled patent system, which recent studies by the National Academy of Sciences and the Federal Trade Commission have described as plagued by questionable patents and costly litigation.

Research in Motion Ltd., the maker of BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices, recently settled a case brought by NTP Inc., a patent-holding company, for $612.5 million. RIM faced an injunction even though the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had concluded that the patents were largely invalid.

Some patent experts said yesterday that eBay v. MercExchange , No. 05-130, is likely to spur action on Capitol Hill. A House bill introduced by Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.) would essentially back software companies' interests by allowing permanent injunctions only in cases in which the patent holder could prove it would suffer irreparable harm without one. But the bill is on hold, stymied largely by opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.

"I think the biggest issue this is going to result in is a more urgent push for patent reform" among legislators, said Brian Ferguson, a patent attorney in Washington who did not represent either side in this case. "There is a concern that the patent office is overwhelmed and it isn't doing as good a job as it could" in reviewing existing technologies or issuing patents in new technology areas, he said.

The Bush administration, faced with a division within the business community, weighed in on MercExchange's side. But its cautious brief urged the court to address the specific issues in the case, instead of trying to address "general policy concerns respecting potential abuse of the patent system."

In 2003, eBay lost a jury trial to MercExchange. The jury awarded MercExchange $35 million, but the judge reduced the award by $5.5 million and denied MercExchange an injunction, saying the smaller company would not face "irreparable harm" without it.

The district judge reasoned that, among other things, MercExchange was not practicing the patents and was willing to license its technologies to other companies.

The judge also cited "growing concern over the issuance of business-method patents" as a reason that an injunction would not be in the public interest.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has nationwide appellate jurisdiction over patent cases, reversed that ruling last year, saying MercExchange was entitled to an injunction because a "general concern" about business-method patents did not justify "the unusual step of denying injunctive relief."

It said MercExchange was entitled to an injunction to shut down eBay's "Buy It Now" feature. "Buy It Now" continues to operate, though, pending the case's final outcome. EBay also said there is no need for an injunction because it is planning to install a work-around that would allow the feature to function without infringing on the patents.

At the hearing yesterday, eBay's lawyer, Carter G. Phillips, argued that the appeals court's ruling is too inflexible to encompass the fast-changing world of software technologies. Those realities demand that district courts be allowed to consider the circumstances of each case before determining whether shutting down a business is necessary to address the property concerns of companies like MercExchange, Phillips argued.

"The time has come for this court to say, 'No, this is not what the Patent Act protects,' " Phillips said. District judges should be empowered to limit the relief to patent holders to cash alone, he argued.

But Waxman countered: "It is critical that this judgment be affirmed, because this is a real inventor. . . . Any suggestion of uncertainty to come out of this case would dramatically destabilize settled law . . . and the investment-backed expectations of inventors large and small."

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. challenged Waxman, noting that since the lawsuit began, the Patent Office has rejected MercExchange's patent claims. Can the district court take that into account? Roberts asked.

Waxman said allowing parties to file for review after litigating cases in court would be an "open invitation" to manipulations of the patent process by infringers like eBay.

Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to agree with Waxman, asking questions that suggested he did not consider this case different from others regarding private property rights.

"We're talking about property rights; all he's asking for is, 'Give me my property back,' " Scalia said to Phillips. "Why isn't the free market adequate to deal with the problems you're talking about?"

A decision is expected by July.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

BBC NEWS    March 29, 2006

    The dispute relates to eBay's continued use of its popular "Buy it Now" tool. eBay argues that judges should be able to deny injunctions in patent cases and instead choose to fine the perpetrator.

'Coercement'
    The auction house says the current threat of firms having their services immediately closed down if they are found guilty of patent abuse is unfair. It further adds that it leaves large technology companies such as itself open to victimisation and attack from small "patent trolls", who use the threat of immediate shutdown orders to force out-of-court settlements for huge sums of money.
    MercExchange counters that patents need to be properly protected and the current injunction system should be kept in place. ebay claims that since the first 2003 court case it has sufficiently altered its "Buy it Now" tool to avoid breaching MercExchange's patents, but it remains to be seen what will be the final verdict of the Supreme Court.
    The eBay versus MercExchange case comes three weeks after Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the Blackberry email device, reached an out-of-court settlement in a similar patent dispute. Canadian firm RIM faced the prospect of the Blackberry service being shut down in the US after American patent-holding company NTP said RIM had copied some of its technologies. RIM eventually agreed to pay NTP $612.5m (£349m) to settle the dispute.

New precedent
    The eBay versus MercExchange case is being closely watched by both the wider technology and pharmaceutical industries, as a verdict in favour of eBay would set a new precedent. While other technology firms such as Amazon, Xerox and Time Warner have written to the Supreme Court in support of eBay, the drugs industry has sided with MercExchange's argument.
    Patent lawyer Steve Maebius said the case could have a profound effect. "Any time we talk about altering injunctions, we really are talking about altering the fundamental balance of power," he said. The Supreme Court is expected to take several months before it reaches its verdict.

Story from:    http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/4856370.stm
Published: 2006/03/29