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Technology Stocks : EDTA (was GIFT)
EDTA 0.00Nov 20 4:00 PM EST
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To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (889)12/24/1996 1:44:00 PM
From: Rob S.   of 2383
 
Thanks for the thread. I suggest that anyone interested in E-Data take a close look at the patent. I've just dropped into this site from time to time and have just read the patent. If I understand correct;ly, E-Data is aserting that the patent covers all transfer of electronically encoded information from a seller to a buyer, such as over the internet between a service provider or software merchant and the customer. It also claims to include the credit card transaction part of it. I have a few problems with these braod claims;

The patent can easily be narrowly construed to cover just the specific methods detailed. Patent law dictates that for an invention to be deemed patentable it must be a unique creation and non-obvious to those versed in the subject. So what may not be obvious to Joe Bloe consumer may be very obvious to software and systems engineers and is not patentable. Another criteria is that the "invention" must not have been in use or publically disclosed prior to it's invention.

To make it short, I think that E-Data will have a difficult time making their claims stick for general transfer of computer programs and digital information over networks. They have a better chance for upholding claims for transfer of information between a specific machine configured to deliver the data as detailed in their patent.

Transfering computer programs, graphics, and text documents using PCs has been a comon practice for a number of years prior to the filing of the E-Data patent. Some of these programs required a code to be transmitted as well for the program to be "un-locked". Sometimes the code was transmitted from another site. It can reasonably be argued that data was transmitted and payment or compensation of some type was received. The automation of the payment proces is the only area I see that comes into contention. Electronic payment systems have been common for years prior to the patent application. It can be argued that valuable data was transmitted from say a bank card authorization station to a vendor along with information such as credit approval for which the vendor is automatically charged in his account as a transaction fee. These alone may establish that the methods existed in prior art. A likely succesful argument against the patent claims is that the combination of capabilities expressed in the patent were obvious to those versed in the art and only awaited the willingness of the public to accept them.

I am not a patent attorney and a good one versed in the field would have a better explaination. Anyway, that's what I think.
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