This time, a major part of eBay's very existence could be on the line: A former CIA expert - said to have once helped build the agency's communications network - is suing the online auction kings for patent infringement involving a key to their operating programming.
The trial was expected to begin April 23 in federal court in Virginia. Patent attorney Thomas Woolston - described as hoping to build a baseball card trading business online - sued eBay in late 2001, charging them with infringing two patents that cover the way people make binding offers secured by credit cards, Reuters reported. Woolston's complaint says he filed for his first online auction patent in April 1995, five months before eBay went online the same year.
Publicly, eBay expressed confidence in bringing their defense to a judge and jury. The e-auction giant refused to settle the case, filed in late 2001, Reuters said. But eBay's own filing acknowledged that if Woolston prevails "on any of (his) claims," eBay would be forced to pay "significant damages and licensing fees" as well as modify their business practices and possibly lose "a significant part" of their American business.
The trial was expected to begin a day after RCI Internet, the online arm of Rick's Cabaret, withdrew a lawsuit against PayPal, after the eBay subsidiary agreed to stop making eBay transactions an exception to its no-adult-transactions policy.
And Woolston isn't exactly a featherweight when it comes to patent infringement, Reuters said: he won earlier lawsuits against GoTo.com (now Overture Services, Inc.) and ReturnBuy over his technologies.
