Andre Yoskowitz
13 Jul 2010 23:46
XPRT Ventures has sued eBay for $3.8 billion this week, accusing the auction giant of infringing on six patents used by the PayPal payment system.
The company says eBay stole confidential information from the inventors of XPRT's patents and used them to create certain features in PayPal and PayPal Later.
eBay filed a patent application in 2003 dubbed "Method and System to Automate Payment for a Commerce Transaction." It failed, according to XPRT, however, to disclose that it knew of XPRT's own similar patent applications.
"This involves a trade secret theft, along with sheer patent infringement," adds Steven Moore, who is representing the plaintiff. "It is bad enough to take someone's technology, but it is a bit much to use it in your own patent application."
XRPT is seeking $3.8 billion in monetary damages, based on current and future earnings thanks to PayPal.