Divine Inc. & Ecommerce Patent

Does anyone have any information about Divine Inc. and their claim to the patent for the "idea" shopping carts and digital transactions? This company is trying to charge royalties to everyone who sells anything over the internet!

The U.S. patents they refer to:

5,715,314
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...4&RS=PN/5715314

and

5,909,492 which I have not found

After reading the first patent I was wondering if this even applied to the company I work for because we do not actually verify credit card transactions over the internet, nor do we have a so called "payment computer".

Also after reading this I came up with the idea of getting a patent for breathing oxygen as an herbal remedy.

Claim: Wherin said person inhales air into said lungs in which the air is comprised of oxygen, and said person inhales the air using his/her lungs.

Maybe I could charge royalties for that as well!

In my attempts to find a solution to Divine Inc. wanting the company I work for to sign a License agreement I found this:

U.S. Patent 5,960,411

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...RS=PN/5,960,411

It is the Amazon patent which is even more far reaching than the Divine patent when it comes to transactions over the internet. My guess is, since it was patented after the patent that Divine holds, it was in response to their patent. If anything they way we do business is more like the "Amazon" patent. So ho-ha to them!!!!!!!

torod15

Essentially Divine is a "services" company. Although they call themselves an "extended enterprise company." They specialize in Professional Services, Managed Services and Software Solutions.

Essentially - you pay them to do your job.

They went public in 2000.
They are made up of a conglomoration of smaller companies that they have bought up and out. (Viant Corporation, Delano Technologies, marchFirst, Open Market, Eprise, Data Return, parts of NorthernLight and a few more.) You can learn about them at: URL

As for the patents:

PAT 06-01-99 05909492 Network sales system

INVENTOR(S)- Payne, Andrew C.; Stewart, Lawrence C.; Mackie, David J.

If you'd like the full patent, I can send you a copy. It's a 37 page pdf file.

If Divine owns this patent, then it came to them when they acquired a company, as they are not mentioned in the patent documentation.

I don't know anything about them owning the patent for "shopping carts" but patenting code is nearly impossible (too many variations).

In my opinion - I've not been impressed with anythine Divine has offered as a solution to my company.

Cheers!
-LibGrrl