Newegg scored a major victory against “online shopping cart” patent troll

Online retailer Newegg successfully defeats a well-known patent troll who was trying to collect licensing fees from one of the well-known online shopping stores.

The ruling was passed in a Texas district court last week where the case was filed by Soverain software against Newegg for over $2.5 Million.

Soverain Software owned many patents that covered the important parts of any E-commerce websites such as Shopping cart and Checking out. Soverain Software got these patents when they acquired Divine, Inc. 10 years ago.

But in 2005, Soverain Software did win a case filed against Amazon, which resulted in making the online retailer to cough up $40 Million. It was then in 2010, Soverain Software filed against Newegg and seven other retailers. Everyone agreed to a licensing deal except Newegg. The company back then filed against Newegg for $34 Million.

The case was won because Newegg’s lawyers pointed out that Soverain Software cited CompuServe Mall. Compared to what was used in today’s e-commerce website, its not the same. The court agreed which gave victory to Newegg and other e-commerce sites such as Home Depot, Best Buy, RadioShack, etc.

Lee Cheng, Newegg’s chief legal officer gave credit to Fred Chang who did not give up when battling with Soverain. According to Chang said in Ars Technica that lot of the system that they used are homegrown and it was coded completely from scratch without knowing about these patents.

Via: PCMAG