To All Dealers Who Sell over the Internet -

dimeadzn

You all may know about this already. However, if not, this may be of interest to those of you who take electronic payments.

I was watching The ScreenSavers on TechTV this morning and they were discussing a company called PanIP which is filing lawsuits against a wide range of small businesses on the internet. Apparently, this company filed for, and received, a patent pertaining to electronic payment systems. They are claiming copyright infringement against batches of small companies who process electronic payments over the internet. One collectible company has already been sued.

In case anyone wants more info, here are the links to the TechTV article and for a group who are fighting these lawsuits:

Scum Alert: PANIP

youmaybenext

P.S. I wasn't sure if I should put this article here or in the BST forum. If I posted incorrectly, please accept my apologies.

relayer

Since he patented the process, I think he deserves the money.

That is the whole purpose of the patent - to protect the inventor (and yes, you can patent a "process" - it doesn't have to be physical invention).

dimeadzn

I mean "patent infringement", not "copyright infringement".

coppercoins

Thanks for the info...a very useful bit to know about.

dimeadzn

Thanks for the reply!

It was my understanding that they had patented an already existing process. I'll need to find out the exact details, but it seemed in the TV story that PANIP had tried this before (patenting a pre-existing, freely available technology) and sued a large company with large legal representation, and had lost.

I'll see if I can find more articles with the specific details on the patents. I just thought dealers might be interested in the suits and the possible ramnifications of them.

I'm certainly for people being able to patent and profit from their work. However, I was left with the impression that this PanIP's legal position was tenuous and they were profiting from small lawsuit filings ($5000.00)against companies who would pay to only avoid legal/court fees.

I'm not sure if this impression is the correct one, since I'm not a patent attorney and I hope anyone with more knowledge than I will post with more information.

Russ

dimeadzn,

This potentially affects far more than just coin dealers.

relayer,

He doesn't deserve dick. The technology has been used for years, and he never once licensed it to anybody or even uttered a peep about it. He hid and waited until there were plenty of targets, than started extorting money from them.

Russ, NCNE

drsvenghali

Somehow this scum found a way to patent pre-existing technology. He didn't invent it, just patented it. Now he's blackmailing small companies into paying. The worst part is that at $5,000 it is easier to settle out of court than to fight it.

Russ

Look at how ridiculous and broad this slimeball's claim is:



<< <i>PanIP says its patents affect any web site that contains text and graphics that is capable of obtaining financial information, whether in an automated format or not. >>



It this garbage weren't so dangerous, it would be laughable.

Russ, NCNE

mdwoods

It this garbage weren't so dangerous, it would be laughable.

It's a shame we have to be on guard for jerks who are always looking for ways to abuse the system. mdwoods

DCAMFranklin

The maggot trial lawyers strike again. It is shame they can't be forced to find real employment!

coppercoins

Should I read this to say that any small dealer/collector who develops an online shopping cart to sell coins cannot have a button on the site that takes the purchaser to Paypal or some other online service and include a script that includes the price and shipping of the item(s) purchased?

I am currently working on such a project. I have a script that collects their "cart" total in a session variable, adds shipping to it according to the weight of the collective group of items, then ships that info to Paypal via link when the person is ready to check out and leave. Is that covered in this patent?

dimeadzn

Hello everyone,

Evidentially, the previous patent lawsuit was tossed and the patent rescinded because the patent was “too broad” in scope. This company seems to be claiming that their patent applies to any website which has text and graphics and can collect financial info.

Doesn’t this seem analogous to me inventing a new process for making cheddar cheese and then claiming I have sole rights to any cheese-making process?



Relayer,

Here are some links to more detailed articles that I promised to post. They do a much better job of explaining the retailers' position than I do.





http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=7954http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/05/15/020515hnpangea.xml

dimeadzn

coppercoins,

That seems to be what they are claiming. One of the articles I linked to states that this would probably be thrown out if they took on a major company like Amazon. That may even happen if the one of the smaller companies has the patience and resources to fight to the end.

dimeadzn

Russ-

You're right, it would seem that their claimed patent protections would apply to almost any financial transaction- even donating to non-profit orgs and electronic banking.

coppercoins

I didn't know something that general to technology could be patented. I'm not using their "software" or anything like that to do it...I'm using programming commands developed by other people for which I have the right to use by license agreement in having bought their software...then someone can sue me because I know how to use the software I bought? Something isn't right here.

Russ

<< <i>Something isn't right here. >>



What's not right is that we have 800,000 lawyers oozing around this country all vying for a slice of the pie, and when the slices become too small they start inventing new varieties of pie. Combine that with the usual sloppy government job done by the patent office, and we create all kinds of opportunity for extortionists like this lowlife.

Russ, NCNE

cascade

Thats funny. I couldn't even begin to count all the scripts developed under the GNU public license agreement that process web payments. Someone should bring that up to those guys.

robbnsc

Someone will countersue to void the Patent because there is a large body of "prior art" proving that electronic payments on the internet were here long before his Patent date. The Patent Office really fell on their sword on this one. I can not believe that they even accepted the filing, let alone issue a patent of this.