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Wal-Mart, Disney, Visa, MasterCard Named in E-Commerce Micropayment Patent Lawsuit

Written by Fred J. Aun
April 22nd, 2009
Wal-Mart, Walt Disney, Visa, MasterCard and Google are among 20 companies being sued in federal court by a Texas company accusing them of stealing their Patented processing technique in handling their E-Commerce micropayment transactions.

The patent in question is held by a company called Actus and it's a very specific methodology for handling and sharing the revenue associated with smaller purchases such as, according to an example cited in the lawsuit, Wal-Mart MP3 music downloads.

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Posted in E-Commerce, Payment Systems, Premium Content
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2 Comments | Read Wal-Mart, Disney, Visa, MasterCard Named in E-Commerce Micropayment Patent Lawsuit

  1. NM Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 am

    Please don’t use “stealing” for patent infringement. “Stealing” implies that someone is deprived of something. The patent troll you’re referring to in this story is not deprived of anything they used to enjoy before.

  2. CPW Says:
    April 24th, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    Stealing is the appropriate description for what this is, patent troll or not, when someone takes something that’s not rightfully theirs or doesn’t pay for something that should has value, then it’s stealing. Plain and simple. Music, IP, or otherwise.

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