HP TO SELL REFURB TOUCHPADS FOR $99 ON 12/11

Starting Sunday, December 11th at 6:00 p.m. Central time, 16GB and 32GB Touchpads will be available on HP’s ebay store. A $79 accessory bundle will also be available, which includes a case, charging dock and wireless keyboard. Look for them in the laptop section. As you would expect, there are some caveats with this deal with the main disappointment being these are refurbished TouchPads rather than the brand new models sold during the first firesale.

The refurbished 16GB and 32GB models will be available in an unannounced quantity. Sales will be limited to just two SKUs per ebay member and PayPal must be used to complete the transaction. All sales are final and the product only comes with a 90-day warranty.

RUMOR: FORMER eBAY CEO MEG WHITMAN TO REPLACE HP CEO APOTHEKER

HP may replace current CEO Leo Apotheker with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, AllThingsD reported on Wednesday. Reportedly, HP board members are not pleased with “a series of management mishaps,” inside HP. It is unclear if those mishaps are related to HP’s recent decision to kill off its webOS devices and spin off its PC business, which resulted in recent job cuts from the former Palm team.

The board may be more upset HP’s stock has tanked more than 40% since Apotheker took the reins in September, 2010. In any case, if Apotheker does get relieved of his duties as CEO, one analyst has suggested he will still have made $9.4 million for the year. Whitman, who is also on HP’s board, is reportedly interested in the job but the appointment is far from official, AllThingsD said. Whitman’s experience in the consumer market might help HP if ever does decide to revive the TouchPad and other webOS hardware efforts. Whitman served as eBay’s chief executive for 10 years until 2008 before trying her hand in politics.

GOOGLE SUED BY PAYPAL FOR STEALING TRADE SECRETS

On the same day Google unveiled its new mobile payments system, Google Wallet, eBay and its online payment arm PayPal filed a lawsuit against Google and two of its executives for stealing trade secrets relating to mobile payments.

Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, both of whom were heavily involved in the development of the Google Wallet service, were named in the suit. Beider and Tilenius were formerly PayPal employees who left the company to join Google and help build Google Wallet. Both executives were with PayPal for the better part of a decade, and Bedier was most recently vice president of platform, mobile and new ventures.

The suit accuses Bedier of having “misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google and to major retailers,” and it alleges that Tilenius broke a contractual agreement with eBay by recruiting Bedier once moving to Google.

eBAY SHAKES UP FEES AGAIN

eBay this morning announced that it is making it free to list up to 50 items per month in auctions at any start price, and free to add the “Buy it Now” option to those listings.

Effective April 19, 2011, the new pricing builds on free-listing promotions announced back in January 2010.

In related news, eBay is reducing Final Value Fee rates for Store and Fixed Price sellers (on July 6, 2011), and will apply the Final Value Fee to the total amount of a sale to encourage sellers to give buyers more options for low-cost or even free shipping.

That should be good news for buyers, but not so much for sellers as eBay will take a larger commission from merchants that charge for delivery.

7-YEAR OLD BUYS HARRIER JET

A 7-year-old kid came closer to realize every kid's dream than any of us: He bought a real Harrier fighter jet for $113,000 on eBay. Yes, a Harrier Jump Jet T-Bird Aircraft XW269. The whole shebang, weaponry not included.

Sadly, his dreams were broken the same day, after his dad found out about the purchase and quickly contacted the company selling it—Jet Art Aviation—telling them the story and asking to cancel the sale. Obviously, they understood it and put it back on the auction block.

But here's the good news, kid: It wasn't really worth it. The airplane—which flew for the last time in 1997 after 26 years in the Royal Air Force—was not in working condition for legal reasons. Fixing it would have cost you several million dollars.

FIRST-SALE DOCTRINE THROWN OUT

In a stunning unanimous 3-0 ruling the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the first-sale doctrine.  The first-sale doctrine stated that once you purchase an item, you have the right to resell that item.  Software manufacturers have stated the first-sale doctrine does not apply to them since users are not purchasing the software, but only licensing it.  They state the licensing agreement in legal terms in EULAs and shrink wrap agreements (this is an agreement that says as soon as you open the shrink wrap you have agreed to the agreement, which the terms are often found inside the packaging).

"The terms of the software license in the case are not very different from the terms of most software licensing. So I think it's safe to say that most people don't own their software," said Greg Beck, the defense attorney in the case who represented an eBay seller sued by Autodesk. "The other ramification, there is no reason a similar license could not be put into the cover of a book. It wouldn't be difficult for everybody to implement this."  Beck will ask the full 11 members of the Appeals Court to rehear the case.

The appeals court reversed a lower court judge that said the first-sale doctrine applied whenever the consumer is entitled to keep the copy of the work, entitling consumers to resell their purchased software at will.
The case concerns Autodesk's AutoCAD Release 14, which was for sale on eBay. Autodesk, invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, demanded eBay remove the item from the site, and it promptly did in 2007.

Timothy Vernor, the seller, who purchased at least four copies of the software from a company that was required to dispose of the software under a licensing agreement, re-posted the sale and his eBay account was terminated after Autodesk complained. Litigation ensued.

Autodesk, of San Rafael, California, imposed a significant number of transfer restrictions: it stated that the software could not be transferred or leased without Autodesk's written consent, and the software could not be transferred outside the Western Hemisphere. [Gizmodo]