The Supreme Court will hear eBay's argument about patent injunctions stemming from the MercExchange lawsuit. eBay and MercExchange will present oral arguments on March 29, 2006.

In May 2003, a jury found that eBay had willfully infringed MercExchange's consignment fixed-price patents. The District Court judge had denied MercExchange's request for an injunction against eBay's use of BIN listings in August 2003, and in March 2005, an Appeals court ruled that the lower court was wrong to deny the injunction and sent the case back to the District Court.

eBay argued the Appeals court was wrong in overturning the District Court's ruling to deny an injunction and took its argument to the Supreme Court.

Patent attorney Dennis Crouch has been writing about the case on his blog and posted on Saturday that it could "easily be the most important patent case in the past five years,... Injunctions form the bedrock of traditional patent law, and changes in this area will send waves through virtually every technology-centered business." (http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2006/01/ebayquestions.html)

Crouch included a PDF file containing eBay's brief on the merits in the blog post.

The Supreme Court records show amicus briefs have been filed by the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Federal Circuit Bar Association, the Business Software Alliance, et al. and the Bar Association of the District of Columbia - Patent,Trademark & Copyright Section.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/05-130.htm