eBay is being sued by Paid Inc. for patent infringement of their Shipping Calculator.
Paid Inc. is pursuing legal action against eBay in claims they are infringing on patents filed in 2002, resembling eBay’s shipping calculator. Paid Inc. proposed their patented shipping calculation tools to eBay back in 2001. eBay had passed on Paid’s offer only to implement their own version of a shipping calculation tool in 2003. Also in 2003, eBay’s subsidiary PayPal had applied for patents regarding shipping calculators, only to be rejected by the US Patents Office due to Paid Inc.’s already registered patents.
eBay’s shipping calculator calculates shipping fees and dates of arrival in real time, and helps with positioning relevant listings in their search results. Removal of the calculator could be damaging to eBay’s merchants, as customers will not be able to calculate shipping fees prior to their commitment to buying the product.
Paid applied for their patents in March 2002, and was awarded 4 of them between January 2008 and August 2013. The first patent relates to real-time shipping costs, and uses zip codes to calculate arrival times and pricing. The second patent relates to fast calculation of shipping costs through multiple shipping carriers. The third patent covers shipping and taxation of online purchases. The fourth patent focuses on calculation of shipping and taxes of a certain item offered by multiple sellers on a single website.
“We intend to protect PAID’s intellectual property and enforce its property rights amongst all infringers,” added Paid Inc. CEO Austin Lewis.
Paid is requesting a permanent injunction on 3 of the patents and is requesting compensation on damages resulting from the patent infringement.
