"Buy It Now": U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of eBay

In its ruling on Monday May15, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a lower court decision to issue an injunction against eBay using its "buy it now" feature. In the unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled against the Federal Court of Appeals practice of issuing almost automatic injunctions in patent infringement cases. Proponents of eBay's position had argued that these injunctions make it easy for opponents to shut down entire product lines when only one part of the product infringes a patent. Opponents of eBay's position had argued that injunctions are one of the most effective tools in policing deep-pocketed corporations while protecting small inventor's interests. These small inventors and companies are now commonly called "patent trolls" because of their reputation for broadly asserting specious patents (for technology which they have neither researched nor manufactured) across an industry for the purpose of generating nuisance value settlements.

Time will tell how the lower Federal Courts will apply this ruling. However, you can be assured that courts will continue issue injunctions in patent infringement cases and large corporations will continue to operate under the threat of multi-million dollar damage awards.