Financial Times talks more about eBay v. MercExchange

The Financial Times reported the following on March 29:

Technology companies have supported eBay’s case before the Supreme Court arguing that patent cases are stifling innovation.

Pharmaceuticals companies have been arguing the opposite. In a brief to the court, they say limiting injunctions and weakening patent laws would drive up the cost of innovation.

One wonders whether the Financial Times considers IBM and 3M to be technology companies. One infers not.

Newsone reported:

The [eBay] case is one of several high-profile disputes that are calling attention to the nation‘s patent laws, which some critics — including Amazon.com, Yahoo! and Xerox Corp. — say need updating to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

If judges are required to issue automatic permanent injunctions, eBay and the others said, patent-holding companies could use the threat of the court orders to coerce larger firms into settling lawsuits for huge sums of money.

"Under such circumstances, injunctions do not serve the goal of the patent system to promote innovation but turn that system on its head," lawyers for Time Warner Inc., Amazon.com, Xerox and others wrote in a friend-of-the-court filing.