TELEPHONE GIANT AT&T has filed a legal action against Ebay and Paypal claiming that the auction giant is breaching patents it owns. According to the law suit, filed in a US federal court yesterday, both Ebay and Paypal technology breaches an AT&T patent for transactions using trusted intermediaries processes payments over the Internet. The US giant wants Ebay and Paypal to compensate it for using what it claims is its technology.
The patent in question is 5,329,589, which describes "Mediation of Transactions by a Communication System". What this patent describes, essentially, is the sale of goods using a credit card or a bank account number through a third party, which completes the transaction without passing on customer-sensitive information.
According to the law suit, AT&T had approached Ebay/Paypal to discuss the alleged infraction, but the firm wouldn't stump up the cash. One inventor of the 589 patent, Alexander Fraser, was a chief scientist at AT&T, while another, Roy Weber, worked for AT&T Bell Labs. The third, Carlos Perea, was a manager of AT&T's business services.
News source: The Inq
The patent in question is 5,329,589, which describes "Mediation of Transactions by a Communication System". What this patent describes, essentially, is the sale of goods using a credit card or a bank account number through a third party, which completes the transaction without passing on customer-sensitive information.
According to the law suit, AT&T had approached Ebay/Paypal to discuss the alleged infraction, but the firm wouldn't stump up the cash. One inventor of the 589 patent, Alexander Fraser, was a chief scientist at AT&T, while another, Roy Weber, worked for AT&T Bell Labs. The third, Carlos Perea, was a manager of AT&T's business services.
News source: The Inq
Changes:
- feature: implemented ringtone manager
- feature: implemented 'block user' feature
- feature: "delete" key works in address bar dropdown
- feature: friends list hints show username and Fullname
- feature: improved voice quality and call setup
- feature: added check for audio hardware presence on startup
- feature: added application-wide hotkeys and keyboard tab under options
- feature: "Esc","N" and "H" act like the hangup button on the calltab, "Y" and "A" act like the green button on the calltab if there is an incoming call
- feature: "F1" key anywhere in main window opens the help url
- feature: autocompletion in send contacts form
- feature: users can set global hotkeys for using main features of Skype under options
- feature: added view text message history items to Friends List and call-log context (right-click) menus
- change: faster online presence updates
- change: new Estonian language file
- change: new English language file
- change: calltab context menu (right-click) has mute/unmute item
- change: picking up usbphone focuses Friends List tab now
- change: space key is disabled on call tab (some users were inadvertently answering calls)
- change: call and search results tabs can be closed with Ctrl-F4
- change: some minor changes in Dutch translation
- bugfix: echo cancellation is enabled even when little echo is detected (fixes version 0.94 echo problem)
- bugfix: confirm dialogs are unicode enabled now
- bugfix: usbphone support - several bugfixes, more error handling
- bugfix: fixed problem with detection of multi line hyperlinks
- bugfix: sound streams are now always correctly closed after they are played
- bugfix: friend is now marked as offline when message or call fails with "user not online" message.
(yes I know bell labs is now Lucent and has nothing to do with AT&T)
I can't believe they actually expect to successfully get money from Ebay and Paypal for employing an escrow service. This is an exaggeration, but it's almost as absurd as patenting a letter of the alphabet. AT&T are going to hell.
btw... wtf did they invented there? what brilliant mind worked hard to achieve this amazing "patent"?
Last edited by 17557 on 21 Nov 2003 - 13:13
I think that I will apply for a patent for the process of the inhalation of oxygen and the exhalation of carbon dioxide within a Nitrogen-Oxygen environment. My second patent will be for the transmission of data across something i'll call 'the internet' in digital form. I'm going to be soooo rich.
Well hell, I'm suing my 5th grade teacher for going on sick leave for the rest of the year and affecting my educational track!
I first read about AT&T at Penny Arcade... where they spoke of AT&T getting a patten to circumvent a certain kind of spam filter. (For the safety of their customers, of course!
Now, they're doing this. Sueing Ebay and Paypal. Two big names on the internet. This will be interesting to observe.
hah, are you serious?
It's "AT&T is going to hell."
Check out this Flash animation that shows what I'm talking about: All Your Base Are Belong To Us
Last edited by 3270 on 21 Nov 2003 - 20:26
Oh, and AT&T, your phones suck.
B
Maybe the only thing tangible that it does have is the license fees that it has suckered some companies into paying!
if its few hundred bucks ..I am sure in hell going to patent some stuff ..
All your parents ..belong to us ! ( well ..it will be me .. )
So you can get proper education, visit http://www.sirlinksalot.net/ayb.html.
We found the one computer person on the planet who's not heard of "All your base are belong to us." That is sacrilegious!
Everything is patented , all including oxygen and water is taxed and so on ...
Man o man where we are going to learn some ideas must be patent free or whole market stuck in patent web ...
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