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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Bid.com International (BIDS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: donkeyman who wrote (5904)	1/13/1999 7:06:00 PM
From: waldo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37507

Major indexes for Internet stocks Five research tools for fund and stock investors cbs.marketwatch.com W

To: donkeyman who wrote (5904)	1/13/1999 7:08:00 PM
From: Ruyi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 37507

"Doug, some see a cup is 1/2 full others see it 1/2 empty.!!" Some cups fall and get broken, either way you get soaked.I wonder what would have happened to investors money,had the company mentioned in this suite gone public, as they were just days away from doing ?? This process sounds so familiar , I just can't put my hands on where from, can you??. Inventor Disputes Business Patent of online auction company. , Legal Action Takes Internet Patent Debate "Where No Man has Gone Before" Thomas Woolston, the founder and president of MercExchange, LLC, Wednesday announced a legal challenge of the key business process patent of Priceline.com, an online auction house founded in 1998. The MercExchange patent interference claims Woolston invented the computer-driven "buyers auction" long before the key patent held by Priceline.com. "On the official record of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, I was the first inventor by seventeen months," Woolston said. "That's a lifetime on the Internet." A Wall Street Journal story published today highlighted Priceline.com's registration papers, which said if MercExchange prevails in their legal action, it "could prevent us from exploiting our business model." Priceline.com is in the midst of organizing a much-ballyhooed public stock offering planned for early 1999. Woolston applied for a patent on his creation in April 1995 and then began circulating his business plan in the hunt for venture capital. Priceline.com practices a patent applied for by Walker Digital in September 1996. Due to the bureaucratic processes of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Priceline.com patent (U.S. Patent No. 5,794,207) was awarded in August 1998 while Woolston's first patent (U.S. Patent No. 5,845,265) issued December 1, 1998. When Woolston heard the now-familiar Priceline.com radio advertisements featuring Star Trek's William Shatner in October 1998, he took a closer look at the Priceline.com patent. His investigation showed that the claims of the '207 patent read on his much earlier patent application. Expecting his patent to be issued any day, Woolston entered into discussions with a Priceline.com representative, proposing they work together to fully develop the technology. These negotiations subsequently broke down, as Priceline.com expressed no serious interest in cooperation. When the Woolston patent was issued, the MercExchange filed a petition for interference with the '207 patent at the USPTO - a procedure which recent case law made necessary if the MercExchange intends to practice their "buyers auction" patent. "The MercExchange business plan has been circulating among potential investors for the nearly four years since I applied for the patent," Woolston said. "Good ideas will always be copied if they are not protected and defended. We're just doing what is required to prevent competitors from ripping off intellectual property we created." "Our focus has always been to open a successful business, not to litigate," said Woolston, a computer engineer and patent attorney. "But we'll certainly play the game however it's structured."