IT Association lines up E-mmediate patent

By PETER GRIFFIN IT writer

The Information Technology Association has again waded into the contentious IT patent debate, this time setting its sights on Auckland software developer E-mmediate, part-owned by ihug founder Nick Wood.

ITANZ rushed this week to successfully get in a last-minute application to extend the obligatory three-month period in which the granting of a patent can be opposed.

The move buys a further month for IT companies or ITANZ itself to officially oppose the approval of a patent to E-mmediate Delivery Company, which in July was granted a patent covering "a network based ordering system and method".

Companies working with similar technology to E-mmediate are understood to be considering presenting cases, claiming their systems were developed before E-mmediate lodged its patent application.

Critics see the patent as being too broad - a claim levelled at two other high-profile patents opposed here after being lodged locally by overseas companies.

E-mmediate's patent covers an e-commerce system linking consumers ordering online or over the telephone with retailers and delivery drivers using an electronic ordering, dispatching and payment network.

The technology is already in use through E-mmediate's Foodrunner business, which operates in parts of Auckland as a delivery firm, taking orders over the internet for the goods of member merchants and delivering them to people's homes quickly.

Nick Wood and father John Wood hold a 20 per cent stake in E-mmediate, with Nick Wood listed alongside managing director and co-owner Dave Fermah as the inventor of the patented technology.

Fermah said the response to the patent's approval was an "over-reaction" by a jittery IT industry.

E-mmediate filed the patent here and overseas because a "major global corporate" interested in licensing the technology demanded it.

"They said that if their competitors began mimicking what they were doing in their region, they'd have some [intellectual property] protection," said Fermah.

He admitted the scope of the patent was broad but that came down to the high cost of the patenting process.

"If we don't do a broad patent the other option is to do no patent because we can't afford to lodge 10 or 15 patents."

While everyone from pizza vendors to couriers now use mobile e-commerce networks, Fermah said E-mmediate's system had unique features relating to the synchronisation of databases over the internet or mobile networks.

"We were one of the first ones there on a global level and we started four years ago."

Last month ITANZ officially objected to the granting of a patent to US based e-tailer Amazon.com, which is seeking to extend a patent of its "one-click" purchasing system to New Zealand. Amazon now has time to answer the objections.

The IT industry was shaken this year when Montreal-based software company DE Technologies moved to begin enforcing a patent it holds locally covering certain e-commerce transactions.

Food Runner

Intellectual Property Office of NZ

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