|
Here are 2 other related sites.
Should this Patent be enforceable, which I doubt it will be, then we may
see many New Zealand based companies looking closely at moving off shore, in our
business 98% of all sales are outside New Zealand. We, like many Internet based
business use Credit card merchants to process our transactions, these services
are offered by banks, but online verisign and other secure transaction processes
are used.
Maybe we should all contact our banks or Credit card merchant
processors and ask them to address this issue, being that you have contracted
them to provide your transaction services they should be responsible for
adhering to the legal issues this Patent will open, and they have the funds to
fight it.
I see them targeting small New Zealand business as an easy target who may
pay up based on threats of legal action, when and if I receive a letter I will
be filing it in the appropriate garbage bin.
Gary Rimell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, 10 July 2003 10:15
Subject: [csforum] NZ e-tailers dunned
for patent breach
Here's something to make you sit up and take notice, if you're
into
ecommerce services and solutions:
Canadian company DE
Technologies has been granted patents in New Zealand,
the US and Singapore
covering cross-border e-commerce processes, which
range from currency
conversion and electronic invoicing to creating
databases of purchase
histories, and local patent lawyers James & Wells
are already dunning
small operations here for a "signing fee" of US$10,000
($16,762) and a
"royalty rate" of 1.5 per cent of website transaction
value. DET also
wanted 11 centsUS for documents generated - from
commercial invoices to
packaging lists and import declarations.
DET are also taking on
internet providers with a licensing model that
would apply to ISPs which
host infringing e-commerce operators and would
involve paying an upfront
fee of US$25,000 covering 25 merchants and a
further US$1000 for each
additional e-tailer it hosts. This licence type
would attract a royalty
rate of 1.15 per cent of total transaction value
and 5.5USc per document
produced.
More on this story here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3511627
Any
IP law folks interested in commenting? Is this a beat-up, or something
we
should take note of? And if the latter, what, if anything, can be done
or
should be done?
Beats me how having a database of purchases can be
patentable (does this
actually differ substantially from non-electronic
practice??), but the law
works in mysterious ways...
Sounds like it
could mean a major shutdown of ecommerce for NZ operations
if this is
really enforceable. The Herald story covers one small operator
which sounds
likely to have to go out of business rather than continuing,
and there have
been a number of these letters go out it seems.
Maybe there's a whole
new business there -- see if you can get a patent in
NZ to cover a Web
solution of some sort and then see how many businesses
you can
bankrupt...
Gloomily,
Vicki
Hyde
======================================================
SPIS
Ltd, Box 19-760, Christchurch, NZ http://.spis.co.nz
* FREE TurboNote+ sticky
note trial: http://TurboNote.com
--> via
Canterbury Software email forum: Success through Connections
Email your
messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Searchable
list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Leave
or rejoin the list: http://canterburysoftware.org.nz/forum.htm
|
