MercExchange is a technology development and on-line auction company. Their founder's name is
Thomas G. Woolston
Thomas G. Woolston is a patent attorney, and the patented inventor of several online auction business methods. He is also the founder of MercExchange.
Mr. Woolston served in the US Air Force, has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering f ...
.
Licensees
The following companies have licensed MercExchange technology as of April 2007.
*
AutoTrader.com
* Channeladvisor
*
uBid
uBid.com was an online auction style and fixed-price shopping website offering goods sold directly by the company and items sold by pre-approved third party uBid-certified merchants. The site specialized in excess new, refurbished and overstock ...
* Overture
* ReturnBuy
Issued US Patents
* Consignment nodes
* Method and apparatus for using search agents to search plurality of markets for items
* Facilitating internet commerce through internetworked auctions
* Facilitating electronic commerce through two-tiered electronic markets and auctions
* Generating and navigating streaming dynamic pricing information
Patent dispute
MercExchange was engaged in a legal dispute over an alleged unauthorized use of one of its patents by
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
, via that auction house's "Buy It Now" feature that allow customers to bypass the normal auction procedures. In the 2003 case ''
eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C.
''eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C.'', 547 U.S. 388 (2006), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously determined that an injunction should not be automatically issued based on a finding of patent infringement, but also ...
'', a jury found that eBay had infringed upon MercExchange's patent and that eBay's infringement caused $35 million in damages to MercExchange, later reduced to $25 million. However, in a 2006 US Supreme Court ruling, MercExchange was found not to be automatically entitled to a court order blocking use of the technology, due to no indication that 'irreparable harm' had been suffered by the company, that the company had never actually used the invention itself and that it had been more than willing to license the technology to others.
The District Court issued an order denying MercExchange a permanent injunction in December 2007,
and the two parties reached a settlement, the terms of which are confidential, in 2008.
References
{{Reflist
Online auction websites of the United States