Do We Really Need A Patent Battle Over Group Buying?
from the seriously? dept
Back in the early dot com days there were a couple different "group buying" sites. I remember Accompany (whose name confused people when employees called them on the phone: "Hi, I'm calling from Accompany" "What company?" "Accompany") and Paul Allen's Mercata. There were a few others as well, and they all went away. However, in the last year or so, group buying has picked up steam again, with Groupon leading the way and lots of others entering the space quickly. And, of course, as with any "hot" area, you have to expect patent lawsuits to follow, as jealous folks who couldn't or didn't execute start suing those who executed better. Earlier this year, we already noted that Groupon clone Tippr bought Mercata's patents and were threatening Groupon over them. More recently, the small MobGob sued Groupon over some other patents... and now Groupon has responded by suing back with its own (acquired) patents.I'm really trying to figure out how patents are helping anyone here, so perhaps the regular patent defenders can explain. Here's a highly dynamic market, where there are lots of competitors entering the space and trying out different things. The general concept of group buying is pretty straightforward and simple. It's hard to see how or why that deserves a patent. In fact, if you look closely at the space, you begin to notice that Groupon's success has had very little to do with the idea -- but with a few underlying tricks: in particular the fact that Groupon works really hard at good content production. It employs a bunch of writers, which make their deals seem more fun. So, quite seriously, if someone could explain how patents have benefited this market, I'd like to know. Because right now it seems to only be helping out a bunch of lawyers, at the expense of users.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: group buying, patents
Companies: groupon, mercata, mobgob, tippr
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
read that too fast
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
obstacles
Not necessarily. Each entity faces its own unique set of obstacles. Small entities are heavily dependent on patents to get funding. When they have to fight for their patents over a course of many years it greatly hinders and delays their ability to commercialize.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: obstacles
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: obstacles
Asking you for facts is pointless though.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
History of Group Buying
See my comments to this article for more detail.
http://hnn.us/articles/116092.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
On patents and lawyers
The claims are very broad, probably too broad to stand up in Court, either on subject matter or non-obviousness, as they appear about as mental and abstract in nature as those invalidated in Bilski and it is hard to see how having a private pre-sale could be nonobvious.
For example. claim 1 of US Pat No. 7263498:
"1. A method for sourcing a featured item for an on-line group-buying sale, comprising: communicating to a supplier a featured item quantity and a featured item time reservation; receiving the supplier's consent to reserve the featured item quantity for the negotiated featured item time reservation for sale in the on-line group-buying sale; conducting an on-line group-buying sale for the featured item during the featured item time reservation, selling at least a portion of the featured item quantity to one or more buyers; and supplying the featured items sold in the on-line group-buying sale to one or more buyers by instructing the supplier to provide the items to one or more buyers."
Now, another benefit of these patents, even if invalid as I suspect they are, is that they spur creativity. Groupon, if they have the creative ability, should be actively working on getting around these patents, and that activity may well lead to advances in the art of group buying online. If so, the patents will have helped an American company to progress the useful arts and sciences to create a competitive advantage by designing a better group buying experience. And Tippr, if it is to compete, will have to create a better method than the design around method Groupon will create, and so on. That is progress of the useful arts, promoted by patents, and is what the Constitution expressly sought to accomplish in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8.
One final though about lawyers getting rich. Yes, lawyers will make money, but if a right is to be protected, it may take legal expertise to protect it, as it often must be, in the courts and administrative bodies. Lawyers are not the bad guys in legal battles any more than soldiers are the bad guys in military battles, unless they are on the side against you or lose your case. They are soldiers of the law and protectors of their clients as well as officers of the court and administrative bodies involved, and unlike their clients, must comply with an ethical code of conduct. For us lawyers it is better to win and be considered greedy and smart than to lose and be considered greedy and incompetent. In fact, in most cases it is the lawyers that act with civility and tone down the clients, not the other way around as commonly portrayed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: On patents and lawyers
and yet the USPTO granted the patent regardless. and you're OK with this? You're OK with the fact that lots of money and time and effort could be wasted to overturn a bad patent that shouldn't have been granted to begin with?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: On patents and lawyers
[Citation needed]
Sorry, getting a bunch of broad patents does nothing to spur creativity, it only restricts it by preventing anyone from doing anything. Telling someone what they can not do does not help them become more creative.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: On patents and lawyers
So a bunch of unsubstantiated speculation is all you have.
Killing people might actively lead the magic fairies to resurrect them. See, I can play this game too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: On patents and lawyers
Your analogy illustrates the distinction between actors (soldiers) and the system (the war) that simply doesn't exist with lawyers. Lawyers (for the most part) make the laws, make the regulations, become judges, and represent clients. Lawyers are thus far more responsible for the system in which they practice than any soldier might be.
Besides, just like we might "win" in Iraq and come home bankrupt and having utterly failed to make the world more secure, lawyers often deliver a "win" for their clients that means bankruptcy and business failure. In most cases, win or lose, the lawyer "wins" in a conventional sense (i.e. makes off with the cash) while the client/business/consumer pays.
Lastly, how did patents in this case do anything you claimed they did, when both sides of this fight went and bought their patents from some other organization? And I would also point out that working around patents does not uniformly progress "the useful arts" when such efforts could have been far more productively spent making their business as effective as possible.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I think you should speak for yourself, as some of us that follow this blog do care about Mike's opinions, and admire how he is able to "execute" on his ideas with this blog and elsewhere.
Claiming Mike's ideas are worthless doesn't impress anyone if you cannot articulate *why* you think his ideas are worthless. You are just an anonymous Troll.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Fair enough.
"Claiming Mike's ideas are worthless doesn't impress anyone if you cannot articulate *why* you think his ideas are worthless."
The same reason the ideas in patents are worthless, because ideas do not matter, only execution matters. That is the standard techdirt take on ideas. If that logic applies to patents then it certainly applies to techdirt too.
We have not heard about cwf+rtb lately, how is that working out? Mike's execution is poor as far as I can tell, based on that the ideas behind them are even worse.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You haven't been paying attention, have you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]