This could kill Blockbuster

I started disliking Blockbuster when they did the 'no late fees' thing. They didn't advertise that you had to sign up for that program and pay an extra monthly fee. And then if you kept it too long and returned it, they charged you like a $75 re-stocking fee. Ridiculous. I love me some Netflix.

Netflix sues Blockbuster to shut online service
By Gina Keating

PASADENA, California (Reuters) - Online DVD rental company Netflix Inc. (NFLX) on Tuesday sued rival Blockbuster Inc. (BBI) for patent infringement, asking a federal judge in Northern California to shut down Blockbuster's 18-month-old online rental service and award Netflix damages, according to a copy of the filing.

Blockbuster declined to comment, saying it had not received a copy of the lawsuit.

Netflix, which was founded in 1999, holds two U.S. patents for its business methodology, which calls for subscribers to pay a monthly fee to select and rent DVDs from the company's Web site and to maintain a list of titles telling Netflix in which order to ship the films, according to the patents, which were included as exhibits in the lawsuit.

The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the method by which Netflix customers select and receive a certain number of movies at a time, and return them for more titles.

The second patent, issued on Tuesday, "covers a method for subscription-based online rental that allows subscribers to keep the DVDs they rent for as long as they wish without incurring any late fees, to obtain new DVDswithout incurring additional charges and to prioritize and reprioritize their own personal dynamic queue -- of DVDs to be rented," the lawsuit said.