TrollTracker has posted a nice and comprehensive item which contains figures that make you cringe at the sight/state of the patent system.

The New York Times Magazine published their 7th Annual Year in Ideas issue on 12/9/07. Their tradition is to feature interesting patents of the last year on the endpage of the magazine. Given that 'tis the season for top ten lists, here are my top ten silly patents of 2007, culled from the list in the NYT mag.

Watch the figures. You won't regret it.

In other news, XM Satellite got sued for an outrageous amount of money before settling with a 'small and shy' inventor you might recognise as Universal Music.

The original lawsuit, filed in New York federal court, had accused XM Satellite of "massive wholesale infringement" and sought $150,000 in damages for every song copied by XM customers using the Inno, which went on sale last year.

Microsoft too has just been sued for copyright violations.

But it's complicated because the wire reports Microsoft Philippines bought licences to print the manual back in 2004.

This seems like a case of trolling, but make of it what you will. ⬆

Related articles:

• Microsoft infringing on one of Apple Patents?



• Handling of Microsoft's copyleft violation



• Appeals Court Rules that Deceptive Conduct in Standard Setting can Violate Antitrust Laws



• Moglen: Microsoft-Novell raises GPL questions