Sure, as long as it didn't have to have 99.99% uptime and scale to tens of thousands of simultaneous users. But there are standard techniques for scaling and h

Sure, as long as it didn't have to have 99.99% uptime and scale to tens of thousands of simultaneous users. But there are standard techniques for scaling and high availability. The patent simply covers the essence of the application itself. And I agree with you, demo-quality prototypes of auction and escrow apps are pretty easy to write.