A NEWSLETTER prepared by Graham & James LLP
May, 2000
LITIGATION OVER A PATENT FOR A METHOD OF DOING BUSINESS.
The first Italian case on a patent on a method for doing business on the Internet has been recently litigated before the Court of Padova. The web-site "Netfraternity" compensates netsurfers for the time they spend surfing the Internet in exchange for the display of advertisement banners on their screen. The company running the web-site "Netfraternity" patented the method whereby data are received from a server while users surf the Internet. "Payland" is a web-site which offers a similar service and Netfraternity claimed that Payland infringes its patent. The Court issued an ex-parte judgement ordering seizure of the hard disk of the web-site Payland, thus forcing Payland to stop providing services to its 35,000 customers.
