Priceline.com, the company that runs a reverse auction web site
where sellers bid to meet the pricing demands of buyers, mostly for
the sale of plane tickets, has succeeded in persuading a judge to
dismiss most of a case against it that claims it stole the business
model.
Marketel International, a San Francisco-based company, accused
Priceline.com of stealing its business method and then patenting it
in 1998. Patents for such business methods have been available in
the US since a Supreme Court shortly before that time.
In the early 1990s, Marketel owned a reverse-auction start-up
for travel services using telephones and fax machines as the sales
platform instead of the internet. Marketel argued in court that
Priceline.com learned of the bidding concept through negotiations
between the companies when Marketel was courting Pricline.com’s
founders, seeking investment in Marketel.
US District Judge Charles Legge this week said that, even if
Priceline.com learned of the bidding concept through such
negotiations, any agreements not to disclose the business method
had expired by the time Priceline.com was founded in 1998.
The court has still to rule on Marketel’s claim that
Priceline.com falsely promoted that it invented the reverse-auction
business method.
