“While all of those do highlight just how silly some of our patent system is, I have no idea what it has to do with the law.”

It is really neither.

The patent system isn’t silly at all, rather it shows that patents are things of value, worthy of purchase and resale. It shows a functional system that allows the original patent creator to either use their patent, licence it, or sell it on to others to make the same choice. It’s pretty functional.

What Yahoo is trying to do is pretty much exactly what you do here – throw up a lot of sand in the air, and try to obscure the view.

Legally, it seems to be a fail as well. Yahoo seems to be suggesting that these patents were bought only for purposes of filing suit. Yet, it doesn’t deal with the basic fact that the previous owners had the same choices in front of them. That Facebook now owns the patents doesn’t change Yahoo’s potential liability, it didn’t suddenly change the patents.

It’s nice Mike to see you look at your own standard approach, and realize that it’s just a bunch of dust in the wind.

So, to recap:

Yahoo! initiated the hostilities, and now they are complaining that they are being hit with everything Facebook can pull off. In the meantime, the rest of us in the “real world”, wonder how any of this patent nonsense is promoting progress.

“Yahoo! also claims that the parts of its business that Facebook thinks infringes are areas where the details are secret, so the only way that Facebook would know that Yahoo! infringed is if it “unlawfully acquired Yahoo! confidential business information.””

So Yahoo! is effectively admitting it’s guilt in it’s counter claim? Otherwise how could Yahoo! have a case on this charge.

When the Vatican patents something?

“Live by the sword” type moment?

Does it matter how/why FB got said patents so long as they were acquired in a legal fashion?

Maybe Yahoo should invest into lobbying instead of trolling.

Part of the reason normal people can’t manufacture items anymore is due to the huge legal overhead from patents and other legal costs. This is why internet succeeds and the primary location of new economic growth till now. On the internet the overhead for manufacturing is low, therefore it allows entry of new players and ideas at a minimal cost. The patent system is just a means to control entry of new competitors in established large market businesses. This controlling environment is trying to establish itself into the online world as well. Even something as large and influential as Facebook is having problems these days. What would that mean for smaller players? It is sad that we can’t have true capitalism and competitive marketplaces based on the best refined products and those best able to serve their customers.

Perhaps. But then there’s the opposite: You have a great new idea… say the ultimate mouse trap and roach hotel. The problem? Another company with a (vaguely) similar idea patented is suing you for more than you own, let alone could make in a life-time.

You’re idea might be a massive improvement on what is available. It might even be a marked improvement over the suing company’s patented idea. But you still get sued, and the big company can demand that you stop pursuing your idea, or give it to them to use. And since you’re a poor inventor and they’re a rich corporation, you don’t have the money to hire lawyers and go to court to contest their claims, or to even negotiate a more favorable deal. Regardless of how this turns out, you and any other inventors like you have lost out on an opportunity to profit from your ideas, and are encouraged to not innovate now or in the future.

Progress, as a whole, is chilled. Not only short term, but for the long haul.

This is far beyond a behavior issue. This is a sacrilege of human progress.

Blind faith works great for religion, but for business practice and oversight such as through government legal recourse- I’ll take free market captialism and independant scientific studies on what actually works.

Patent hoarders are welcoming the dark ages of modern society. It will take an information reformation to bring us out of the darkness of small minded content distributors. Note that I say distributors- since information is not indended to be owned singularly. Inforamtion by nature must pass between two parties to hold any value or meaning. Our current system seems to feel that 1st party ownership should hold value without any distribution, which invalidates the very concept of information transmission.

The patent system isn’t silly at all, rather it shows that patents are things of value, worthy of purchase and resale.

“The system isn’t broken because I can attach monetary value to it”

Kind of like how bribes are legal, honest mechanisms of government because there is a favor or political service which someone attaches monetary value to.

I think memes are a good illustration of what you’re talking about: their value isn’t exclusive and intrinsic, but built on their social impact and influence. Obviously the more a meme is shared the greater its value becomes because this is the social network claiming, through sharing, that “this is of value to us.” Likewise if a person holds some IP over a particular meme, regardless if it’s its image used in the macro, its catchphrase, or its creation, I see no benefit to them in attempting to leverage their copyrights and controlling its use. Recently the mother of the young lady with Downs, whose image is used in the “I can count to potato” meme, is attempting to curtail its use, especially on FB, but getting nowhere. Clearly she doesn’t understand the Internet and social networks in that if something is of value to the individuals of that network they will use it regardless of the legal, and/or moral, right and wrong of it. My pet theory on this is that social behavior systems, like the social construct of value, predate moral and legal systems, which are built out from each other like nesting dolls, and therefor short-circuit the latter systems similar to the way the reptilian centers of our own brains will short-circuit our higher mental functions. In the end all value is a social construct, but ideas and information are heightened forms of it that’s highly dependent on its agency within the group. Thus in trying to secure a cultural artifact as being solely exclusive to the originator one is effectively destroying its primary value to the culture at large.

This is just like a telemovie. Yahoo is playing the wife who sues for divorce and then gets all offended when the husband shows up in court with pictures of her getting down and dirty with the pool guy.