Paid Inc. has received verbal notification from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that its pending patent application covering its online-auction shipping calculator technology has been allowed by the USPTO. The company said it expects to receive a formal written Notice of Allowance from the USPTO shortly.

In July 2003, Paid had hired Hunton & Williams to protect its interests regarding the patent application (http://www.paid.com/pr07092003.shtml). At the time, Paid CEO Greg Rotman said, "We believe that Hunton & Williams' experience in the online auction area will be invaluable to Sales OnLine Direct in terms of protecting our intellectual property. The whole realm of process patents is fairly new. The fact that Hunton & Williams recently won a landmark decision against eBay relating to a process patent illustrates their expertise in the area of process patents and their ability to help protect us against infringement of our intellectual property from any number of parties."

When asked on Thursday whether Paid's patent would affect eBay's shipping calculator, a spokesperson for Paid's public relations firm said, "It is premature to say anything about who it might affect. Paid intends to pursue licensing agreements with numerous companies. We'll be disclosing further details once the patent is finalized."

Paid's calculator calculates shipping immediately when an item is placed in a shopping cart, and it automatically updates as items are added or removed from the online shopping cart, rather than waiting for the checkout process.

Hours after Paid made its announcement, eBay made an announcement about its shipping calculator. eBay said when users are signed in to its website, it will automatically do all shipping calculations as soon as the users get to the search and listings pages, and later this year, eBay will extend this to the item page. "Once you sign in, all calculated shipping will be done for you whenever you click into a new item page" (http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200605181324042.html).

Paid's shipping calculator technology is in use through the company's aiShip software used by hundreds of companies, as well as within numerous ecommerce sites hosted or managed by Paid Inc. It integrated the shipping calculator with Overstock Auctions in April 2005.

Paid Inc. operates a diversified set of businesses, including its celebrity services and AuctionInc ecommerce technology businesses that help businesses streamline online auctions, ecommerce and web site development and hosting.

Paid was formerly called Sales OnLine Direct until it changed the name in 2003.

http://www.paid.com