Ebay patent on cryptocurrency

[mixan]

Can you lawyers explain this to the community what this means for us?
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20150302401.PGNR.&OS=DN/20150302401&RS=DN/20150302401?p=cite_Brian_Cohen_or_CoinTelegraph

Does it mean they are fighting it?

[doublemore]

I dont know if it means they are going into bitcoin but at the worse case scenario it seems an endorsement for crypto currency which can only be good for bitcoin right.

[NorrisK]

Quite a difficult read to be honest, but it looks to me like it describes a way of assigning a public key or wallet address to a user account.

That way, it would allow transfers of currency to a specific user to be made.

[RustyNomad]

Quite a difficult read to be honest, but it looks to me like it describes a way of assigning a public key or wallet address to a user account.

That way, it would allow transfers of currency to a specific user to be made.

Also tried reading it the other day when it was posted in the News section and yes it is a difficult read. The document I read referred to images but there were none so difficult to figure out how everything fitted together.

But as you say, it does seem like it has to do with the linking of a public address/key to a user's account. It however seems like the focus is more for a 'private' coin and or token.

[mixan]

Here is their other patent. Maybe seeing them together could make it more clear to see what they are doing.
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20150302400.PGNR.&OS=DN/20150302400&RS=DN/20150302400?p=cite_Brian_Cohen_or_CoinTelegraph

[batesresearch]

It seems the inventors:   Metral; Max Edward; (Brookline, MA) have quite a few other patents: http://patents.justia.com/inventor/max-edward-metral

Here more info the patent: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US152780023

[gogxmagog]

Looks like eBay is building a private network/token to oversee payments within its network. An alt coin and private blockchain to manage payment between buyers and sellers in their system. I'm not sure how they plan on controlling the value of the eBay coin, I'm guessing it's a crypto solution to replace PayPal i.e. You put funds into your account and eBay uses their crypto to move those funds around their system, do your transactions etc. when done you can cash out to your linked bank account.
It will work well for their platform, we are going to see banks cc companies and all sorts of e-commerce companies adopt these ideas. It's a perfect way for them to monitor, oversee, and manage all the commerce they conduct. Their "coins" will have no volatility either since they are simply tokens that represent your funds inside their system.

These guys have been saying "we are watching btc very closely" for a while now. And when they say "crypto currencies definitely have a place with us" this is what they mean.

Realistically this is the future of crypto. Bitcoin may very well be left by the wayside.

[jyakulis]

Well, it's just an application.

The filing date is post the bitcoin white paper.

Examiners don't often use non-patent literature to reject new patents unfortunately. It just doesn't really happen often.

The problem is bitcoin doesn't have a group to enforce its IP. By this I mean the white paper. A lot of these cryptocurrency patents should be held invalid based on the existence of bitcoins and altcoins already in the marketplace. Ultimately, it depends on how the invention is claimed.

[Sarosliya]

Well, it's just an application.

The filing date is post the bitcoin white paper.

Examiners don't often use non-patent literature to reject new patents unfortunately. It just doesn't really happen often.

The problem is bitcoin doesn't have a group to enforce its IP. By this I mean the white paper. A lot of these cryptocurrency patents should be held invalid based on the existence of bitcoins and altcoins already in the marketplace. Ultimately, it depends on how the invention is claimed.

If these cryptocurrency patents are based on the bitcoin or block chain technology. They can still be valid if there are inventive steps inside their application.

[jyakulis]

Well, it's just an application.

The filing date is post the bitcoin white paper.

Examiners don't often use non-patent literature to reject new patents unfortunately. It just doesn't really happen often.

The problem is bitcoin doesn't have a group to enforce its IP. By this I mean the white paper. A lot of these cryptocurrency patents should be held invalid based on the existence of bitcoins and altcoins already in the marketplace. Ultimately, it depends on how the invention is claimed.

If these cryptocurrency patents are based on the bitcoin or block chain technology. They can still be valid if there are inventive steps inside their application.

Right, but I suspect some of these patents would not be valid if they looked at prior art of bitcoin and other altcoins. I'm thinking of the JPM patent and now this. Typically companies legal departments will challenge patents that do get through but should of been held unpatentable by the examiner. The examiners are not perfect and can miss prior art sometimes. Bitcoin doesn't have that body that is going back and challenging patents that possibly shouldn't have been issued. What I suspect the issue is are examiners are just drawing from existing patent literature and not looking outside that scope of literature.

For instance this one:
"1. A distributed crypto currency system, comprising: a non-transitory memory storing a plurality of previous transaction public keys that are each associated with a respective unauthorized crypto currency transfer as a result of a previous transaction; one or more hardware processors coupled to the memory and operable to read instructions from the memory to perform the steps of: receiving a payer public key that is associated with a current transaction between a payer and a payee; determining whether the payer public key is included in the plurality of previous transaction public keys; and in response to determining that the payer public key is included in the plurality of previous transaction public keys, sending a message to the payee to not proceed with the current transaction. "


Do you see anything in the first claim that is different from what currently exists? Perhaps they are differentiating themselves by the "message sent" when a transaction is invalid.

[Slark]

I thinkg it could mean one thing really, bitcoin is not going to be accepted on eBay. Instead they are seeking to introduce their own altcoin most likely.
Something like digital money based exactly on the price of USD, you will be able to purchase it and use it to buy everything from eBay instantly without waiting for confirmation etc.

[Newcoins2020]

Looking at the date, October 22, 2015  it seems they will not use it against bitcoin, since bitcoin exist much longer.

Most likely their strategy is to create a new kind of currency for their trading platform and at the same time,they want their competion to be forbidden doing someting likewise..

My opinion is that is futile, since bitcoin is open source, so if Ebay can re-use it, so can Amazon.

[Nameless Coin]

I don't believe there is a problem in the patent. The legal division of Ebay just did a smart thing.
It would not hold out in court if they go after the Bitcoin Foundation, thing is they are most probably working on their own crypto and just want everthing backed and safe from a legal stance.

[junglist.massive]

Its very good that such huge companies already see their future in bitcoin space. If they have patents so they will develop some great stuff. Its kind of snowball effect couse their competitors dont sleep. We go mainstream. Slowly but we go

[crazyearner]

Interesting reading and used on an investment side of things maybe trying to regulate, and unauthorized transaction is an interesting one. Maybe trying to restrict for US people as their rules on BTC are so fricking strict its unreal. and looking at it more details showing to stop unauthorized transactions if am not mistaken is a good thing and is what Bitcoin needs. If makes own coin out of it with this type of system integrated to it will be a massive step in security and stopping coins being stolen without using some from of action for un password protected wallets and have to still use some from of a key in order to authorize the payment going though the system. Would be good if a system would be in place that is a holding bay for coins that get sent and checked if key is including in payment if not then coin gets sent back to the wallet

[BitSler]

Its very good that such huge companies already see their future in bitcoin space. If they have patents so they will develop some great stuff. Its kind of snowball effect couse their competitors dont sleep. We go mainstream. Slowly but we go

Agree ! But the road is still long.

[aso118]

Well, it's just an application.

The filing date is post the bitcoin white paper.

Examiners don't often use non-patent literature to reject new patents unfortunately. It just doesn't really happen often.

The problem is bitcoin doesn't have a group to enforce its IP. By this I mean the white paper. A lot of these cryptocurrency patents should be held invalid based on the existence of bitcoins and altcoins already in the marketplace. Ultimately, it depends on how the invention is claimed.

Even if the examiners don't check non-patent literature, patents can still be challenged.
I doubt if they will try to patent something which is already existing.

[lama-hunter]

hmm.. i really dont get this very close enough i think. therefore i ionly hope the suggestions will end in an price rising of the bitcoin price again. that would be great for the effort
Anyways can anybody give a suggestuion in 5 sentecnes what is ment whit this? i really giot problems gettin all this stuff to one part.

would be great to hear about

regards
lama-hunter

[BTCBinary]

Can you lawyers explain this to the community what this means for us?
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20150302401.PGNR.&OS=DN/20150302401&RS=DN/20150302401?p=cite_Brian_Cohen_or_CoinTelegraph

Does it mean they are fighting it?

This means they are still unfriendly towards bitcoin and want to introduce their own crypto and private blockchain. This way we won't seem them integrating bitcoin so soon...

[Andy-Bell]

HHmm how do you tax a transaction made in ebaycoin over a multinational distributed ebay ledger.

It could be as simple as an internal mechanism for transferring large sums of small transactions at zero cost while tagging each transaction with a loyalty number linked to individual users.

ofcourse i'm probably completely wrong and should probably shut up now.