Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: LePaul on April 04, 2006, 06:22:10 PM
-
Nice try, dont think it'll work...
From Yahoo News:
Online DVD rental company Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq:NFLX - news) on Tuesday sued rival Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE:BBI - news) for patent infringement, asking a federal judge in Northern California to shut down Blockbuster's 18-month-old online rental service and award Netflix damages, according to a copy of the filing.
Blockbuster declined to comment, saying it had not received a copy of the lawsuit.
Netflix holds two U.S. patents for its business methodology, which calls for subscribers to pay a monthly fee to select and rent DVDs from the company's Web site and to maintain a list of titles telling Netflix in which order to ship the films, according to the patents, which were included as exhibits in the lawsuit.
The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the method by which Netflix customers select and receive a certain number of movies at a time, and return them for more titles.
The second patent, issued on Tuesday, "covers a method for subscription-based online rental that allows subscribers to keep the DVDs they rent for as long as they wish without incurring any late fees, to obtain new DVDs without incurring additional charges and to prioritize and reprioritize their own personal dynamic queue -- of DVDs to be rented," the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit says No. 1 U.S. rental chain Blockbuster, which launched its online rental service in 2004, was aware that Netflix had obtained a patent for its business method and was seeking a second, but willfully and deliberately violated the existing patent.
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, who also is an attorney, said it was unclear whether Netflix's challenge to Blockbuster's online service would be upheld by the federal court.
"It's my opinion that it won't be," Pachter said. "Blockbuster detrimentally relied on their silence as consent. If in fact (Netflix) feels so damaged they should have sought injunctive relief before Blockbuster rolled out its service."
Netflix oughta worry about the Class Action lawsuit filed by customers...Netflix would give rapid service to new customers only, while existing folks had to wait several days for their returns and new selections to be processed.
-
Blood from a turnip. A few economists already predict that Blockbuster will disappear in the next five years.
-
Both are in bad shape. One leech feeding off the other is a sure way to kill both.
-
In 1991, we were dong a Florida canal cruise, in Miami I believe, anyway one fo the huge expensive mansions we cruised past was the owner of Blockbuster, and at that time he also owned Dominoes Pizza. Had a nice yacht sitting at its dock with a helicopter on its deck.
BB was a great concept at the time, movie and pizza to go!
-
If they really really wanted to cry foul, they wouldve done so after Blockbuster came out with their mail-system. But filing patents over the "technique" sounds like a really big grasp to me.
Maybe someone should patent taking a credit card number over the phone and suing the WORLD! :D
-
Originally posted by LePaul
Netflix holds two U.S. patents for its business methodology, which calls for subscribers to pay a monthly fee to select and rent DVDs from the company's Web site and to maintain a list of titles telling Netflix in which order to ship the films, according to the patents, which were included as exhibits in the lawsuit.
Wow.. how innovative invention... too bad it's not possible to sue businesses for stealing & patenting innovations by someone else. This kind of patents shouldn't even exist, totally unjust and restricts the free trade.
-
I'm amazed Baskin-Robbins hasn't sued anybody else that had the audacity to sell ice-cream over the counter.
-
Just FYI. You can file for a patent for anything (as long as it is unique). Whether or not it will pass muster in court, is something else.
-
Im gonna patent your name, Skuzzy! Be prepared! I'll see YOU on Judge Judy! :cool: :rofl
-
Might want to do a patent search first. :D