A patent is a right that is granted to the owner or inventor by the
federal government. It excludes others from making, using, or selling
the invention for a period of time. The patent encourages inventions
that are useful to society and unique. For a patent to be granted, it
has to meet four requirements. It must be patentable, it must be
novel, it must be useful, and it must be nonobvious. In this case, the
plaintiff had a patent on her concept, which met the first
requirement. However, her patent lacked the other requirements. In
addition, when the plaintiff created the process in 2001, the internet
was pretty new, so online shopping wasn't extensive during that
time. Furthermore, the internet had to figure out how to handle
online security before online shopping could be trusted. Now, the
internet offers many things, such as booking trips, keeping us
connected, comparing prices while online shopping, etc. The
plaintiff's idea to streamline her online shopping platform to add
more value to her customer's shopping experience was a great idea
and met the third requirement of being useful. However, she failed
to research other shopping platforms to compare and determine if
the other shopping platforms have already used the same or similar
process. Therefore, it resulted in the process not being novel or
nonobvious. Customer profile and data mining are nothing new to
online shopping. Shopping sites such as Amazon are really good at
remembering customers' online searches and even offering them
ideas for similar products. I use Amazon quite often and appreciate
the search history because I can go back and buy a product after
doing more research on it. The judge decided the defendant did
infringe on the plaintiff's patent because the defendant offers the
same or similar process as the plaintiff to his customers. However,
the judge also concluded that the plaintiff's patent did not meet the
requirements of being nonobvious, which also makes it not valid. I do
agree with the judge's decision because the plaintiff did not meet all
the requirements for her patent. The defendant had already been
using a similar process to the plaintiff, so the process was not
nonobvious or new.
Reference:
Reference: Kubasek, N., Browne, M., Herron, D., Dhooge, L., Herron,
D., Barkacs, L. (2020). Requirements for Holder-in-Due-Course
Status. McGraw-Hill Connect. Retrieved from https://prod.reader-
