help with patents(not acacia)
 

i asked my programming teacher this question the other day in class and he couldn't give me a specific answer, so i figure i might as well come to my next best source of knowledge.

is it possible for a company to patent a process online?

Example:
why hasn't ebay tried to patent the process of the "online auction"? i mean had they have not have been the #1 auction site could they have went to the patent office and said "we want the patent for online auctions/biddings", could they have done it?

they tried to patent thumbnails and FAILED, just like acacia will fail

Wouldn't be the same as trying to patent a auction ? Same thing but only online.

Someone else patented online auctions before ebay.

At the heart of the eBay-MercExchange fight is a series of patents that MercExchange founder Tom Woolston began applying for in the spring of 1995, some five months before eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched the Web site. Woolston's three patents cover methods of creating and searching online marketplaces and auctions.

MercExchange, a Great Falls, Va.-based company that holds and licenses a portfolio of e-commerce-related patents, sued eBay last year. The company charged that the online auction giant and two of its subsidiaries had infringed three of its patents covering methods for holding and searching online auctions. eBay has acknowledged in regulatory filings that if MercExchange prevails in the case, eBay could suffer "material harm" and be forced to significantly change its business practices.

http://news.com.com/2100-1017-963434.html

There is a patent for online auction and shopping carts!

jDoG

Retard!!!