According to the NY Times the Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in a case that pits eBay against MercExchange, a small patent holding company. At issue is not whether eBay violated MercExchange's ridiculous patent on "a feature to sell fixed-price goods online, and it included an automatic payment system...", but whether the proper remedy for ongoing patent litigation is an injunction against the allegedly infringing company. Right now courts are bound by a 1908 precedent that all but requires an injunction.

Supporting briefs from third parties, including some unlikely ones, have piled up for each side. A pharmaceutical industry trade group filed a brief in support of MercExchange, as did General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, the University of California, a group of venture capitalists and the United States government. All argued in favor of injunctions against those who infringe patents.


A brief filed jointly by Oracle, Microsoft and Intel in support of eBay argued that the injunction rule "has transformed patents into a powerful tool for litigation abuse" and "stifles innovation."

In no time the sides could be reversed, like when Microsoft starts enforcing their patents against Linux.

Not only can a company like MercExchange patent something as obvious and old as the 'goods and services for payment' business method, they have 100 years of precedent saying that any company that tries to accept payment for goods or services should be shut down until a costly court battle can be resolved. Guaranteed injunctions mean that it's almost always better to settle out of court than fight, since the risk of losing would be crippling even to big companies. For smaller companies it’s game over.