Everyone is familiar with the online auction giant eBay. It has often happened that a small time company sues a bigger company to hog the limelight and to get a piece of its earnings. This has precisely what has happened with eBay.
A small company called XPRT Ventures has slammed eBay with a hefty $3.8 Billion over a claim that eBay had stolen XPRT’s previous patented technology, back in 2003. Supposedly, the technology in the online payment system that PayPal had introduced was shared confidentially by XPRT’s representatives. PayPal had incorporated that technology in an April 2003 patent called “Method and System to Automate Payment for a Commerce Transaction”.
If eBay is found to have violated the terms, then it has to pay upwards of $11.4 Billion in damages. eBay representatives, on the other hand, say that this claim is without merit and that they are looking into it. In fact, XPRT has claimed that eBay has infringed upon six patents that allow users to pay online with alternate routes without using their credit cards.
Basically, XPRT doesn’t want eBay to stop using the technology. On the other hand, it just wants it to pay XPRT. What comes to the forefront is the fact that though the patent was infringed in 2003, XPRT waited all these years to file a lawsuit. Though, some sources say that this is a genuine lawsuit and eBay could be in big trouble. Let’s see how this shapes up. We will definitely keep you updated. Do you think this claim is for real or is it just a tool for XPRT to gain attention?
