eBay to pay $29.5mn over lost patents case

By Alun Williams

Posted on 7 Aug 2003 at 15:36

A US federal judge has ordered eBay to pay $29.5mn to one Thomas Woolston, an electrical engineer.

This is the price the company will pay for infringing an e-commerce patent that related to credit card-backed online bidding, reports Reuters. The juy had originally decided on a $35mn award.

Judge Jerome Friedman ruled that there was 'no dispute' of eBay's guilt over the matter. He stopped short, however, of issuing an injunction against eBay from further use of the 'technology', which must have been the chief concern of eBay.

It was back at the end of May that eBay lost its long running battle against MercExchange over online auctions.

Woolston claimed he had first patented the idea of an online auction in 1995 - shortly before eBay was founded. He said his original idea was to swap baseball cards online and had tried to set up his own online auction company but by the time he had the money to get his idea off the ground, eBay had already established itself.