I retired from personal blogging in July 2008 but you can find me over at blog.xero.com
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AndrewS just alerted me to this successful Method of Business patent, developed with the assistance of local Intellectual Property identity John Terry. The patent has been recently licenced to Yahoo.
Kiwi mum of three scores $6.5M in web patent auctionÂ
The patent is available to read here …
Integrated interface for vendor/product oriented internet websites
The abstract reads … A method of effecting commerce in a networked computer environment in a computerized system is disclosed. A database of vendor product data and an associated database interface is established on a first computer. The interface allows remote access by one or more user(s). A local user interacts with the database by querying the database to specify a local users product/service specification. The database provides the local user with a selection of remote vendor network sites, where the selection is determined on the basis of the user querying the database. After the local user interactively connects with one or more of the remote vendor network sites, the user selects products/services from the information provided on the remote vendor network site. The selection of a particular product/service triggers a transaction notification which records the users selection and associated financial transaction data which is transmitted to the database and associated database interface…. which I think means “Any old eCommerce site”
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It’s a nuisance patent, but still real none the less. The trouble now is that it is owned by someone with potentially very deep pockets who can use it to bully any ecommerce site owner. It will probably be a nice little revenue generator because how many site owners have the resources or knowledge to be able to prove prior art?