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
fightthepatent.co.nz
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
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.