Judge says eBay can still use "Buy It Now” feature

A US District Court judge will allow eBay to continue using its “Buy It Now” feature as the company continues its patent fight against MercExchange. Judge Jerome Friedman of the Eastern District Court of Virginia denied MercExchange’s injunction because it appeared that the company was making enough money from its patents.

MercExchange initially sued eBay back in 2003 for infringing on its instant purchase patent. MercExchange won a $25 million judgement and requested a permanent injunction, something that probably would have hurt eBay tremendously.

The injunction request was denied by Friedman, but MercExchange appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and won the injunction. eBay then appealed that decision to the Supreme Court in May 2006. The Supreme Court overturned the injunction and kicked it back down to Friedman’s District Court. Whew… simply put the injunction was denied, approved, denied and now denied. Legal ping-pong at its finest.

Judge Friedman says MercExchange appears to be making adequate money from the patent and sees no need for an injunction. He also based his ruling on a recent decision by the United States Trademark and Patent Office that finds MercExchange’s patent to be preliminarily invalid.

But perhaps the most interesting part of Friedman’s ruling is that he distinguishes eBay as a large company doing billions of dollars worth of business versus MercExchange as a company “with two employees that work out of their homes and appear to specialize in litigation and obtaining royalties based on the threat of litigation.” Ouch that’s going to leave a mark.

While the injunction has been denied, the main part of MercExchange’s case is still on going and the company could still potentially collect hundreds of millions of dollars from eBay.

iTunes reaches three billion song downloads

Apple announced today that it has reached its three billionth song download over the digital music store iTunes, averaging over 50 downloads per second since January.

The latest milestone comes just a little over six months since the two billion sales mark in January 2007. That's a billion songs in the past 203 days, or roughly 57 downloads every second for over half a year. This expansion is almost twice as fast as iTunes' previous billion songs. To go from its one billionth download to its two billionth took 11 months.

The online music store passed Amazon.com several months ago to become the #3 music retailer in the country, behind Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Apple has previously stated it holds more than 80% of the digital music market share, but Nielsen SoundScan figures show that physical CD sales still account for nearly 85% of all music purchases.

Super Mario Galaxy shows promise

Opinion - Nintendo let me take a spin through another round of Super Mario Galaxy today and I'm now beginning to really appreciate what this holiday title can bring to the Wii.

During E3 earlier this month I went through a quick test run of Super Mario Galaxy and felt it didn't quite live up to its hype. A cumbersome environment and a seeming lack of focus in the course design left me feeling a bit confused.

After spending some real quality time with the game yesterday, I feel much better about the way it's shaping up for its November 12 debut. In a new level I tried out, the feel was just like classic Mario - find your way from point A to point B while attacking enemies along the way. The environment was lush and colorful, just like something that would have been seen in Super Mario 64, almost universally regarded as the iconic 3D Mario game.

The most interesting part of the demo was getting to play around with Mario's latest power-up, the bee suit. This lets him fly for short distances and climb flowers. To me, this was the best part of the game I had seen so far. It's power-ups like this that made Mario a success and it's great to see Nintendo going back to its roots.

The general controls are a bit confusing, especially since it uses buttons that most Wii games have not even touched yet. The nunchuck attachment is required, and the joystick on the attachment is used for moving Mario. The "A" button lets him jump, while the hidden "Z" button on the nunchuck has him duck. Spinning the Wii Remote causes Mario to perform a spin attack, which is his main offensive move. The motion sensing part of the controller is used to shoot objects that came up on the screen.

In past demos I tried, the levels seemed unorganized and had no overall structure to them. It was just Mario hopping from planet to planet and occasionally I'd see a bad guy and need to perform a spin attack. However, the new level I tried out yesterday was very fluid and for the first time since I played the game last May, it felt like a platformer worthy of the Mario title.

I was skeptical for a while, but Galaxy has really begun to grow on me. There is a bit of a high learning curve, at least for the world of Mario games, and the whole infrastructure of the game takes a bit of getting used to, but now that I've had quite a fair look at what this game packs in, I have more reason to be excited about it than ever.