XPRT Ventures, a company that has filed for US patents on an e-commerce technology platform, has filed a $3.8 billion suit against eBay, the online auction Web site. XPRT claims that Paypal, eBay's transaction system subsidiary, knowingly incorporated XPRT's technology into its system.

The suit, which was filed in a federal district court in Delaware, says that solutions built into Paypal's patent is contained in six XPRT patents. Ebay allegedly incorporated the details into a patent called "Method and System to Automate Payment for a Commerce Transaction." That was filed in April of 2003.

"The inventors listed on XPRT's patents shared their patent applications and ideas on how to implement such concepts taught therein, with eBay in confidence. eBay incorporated such inventive concepts and ideas into its auction payment process during current California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's tenure as eBay's CEO. eBay's unauthorized incorporation was a misuse of inventors' confidential and proprietary material," said a statement from Kelley, Drye and Warren, the law firm that represents the plaintiffs.

Other eBay subsidiaries such as Stubhub, BillMeLater and Shopping.com were also named as defendants in the lawsuit.