Patent 7,620,565 is a good example of everything that's wrong with the patent system; it's vague and generic, nothing novel, and seemingly far reaching.
They are using claim 15 to sue over interactive chat:
"A method, comprising: monitoring a product for an occurrence in the product of a trigger event of a predefined plurality of trigger events; incrementing a counter corresponding to the trigger event upon detection of the occurrence of the trigger event in the product; displaying a user interface, configured to probe for information regarding a use of the product, if the counter exceeds a threshold; storing an input received from the user interface on a device; and transmitting the input to a server. "
"[...] incrementing a counter corresponding to the trigger event upon detection of the occurrence of the trigger event in the product [...]"? Sounds like a website hit counter from the '90s.
In former times (when patents mostly covered only machinery) you had to present a working prototype or product that demonstrated your invention.
My suggested solution to the current software patent disaster:
Inventors have to demonstrate a solution (in source code and running) that covers "ALL" the claims. Earlier inventions, e.g. those from the last 17 years, that have not provided this by means of ending up in a product during this period are automatically revoked / declared invalid. Inventors can appeal against this (at cost increasing the older the patent is). Demonstrations within appeals are only possible with technology available at the date of filing.
This will automatically revoke all the fantasy patents (I call them Jules Verne Patents), bring sense back into patent filing - particularly when "pure front-end" patents are disqualified, and will help to protect us from the 1999/2000 patent litigation tsunami some are already expecting.
(Reg: 1999/2000 patent litigation tsunami - this could be caused by all those start-up companies that filed patents within the 1999/2000 bubble and then went belly-up - many of those patents might soon end up in patent troll litigation portfolios.)
Update: And patents should only be enforceable by practising entities vs. PAEs along the lines / to mitigate the issues that Google, Blackberry, Red Hat and Earthlink have outlined in their letter to the DOJ last Friday ( https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwxyRPFduTN2VTE4TXlNcW9MR2s/... )
Yes. However, invalidating patents via prior art takes long, and is quite expensive. Which is precisely why Lodsys is targeting the people they are -- if they tried to go after any of the big guys, they'd lose their patents. The small guys can't fight back.
It's not that they always chicken out, sometimes it's just cheaper to not fight. Which often is the strategy in these types of lawsuits, make an offer to settle that's less than the cost of litigation. This has gotten so bad lately that many letters are simply bold, in-your-face threats of extortion that for some unknown reason the courts have done little to address.
Plus, for some of the bigger companies you say chicken out, this is a potential winning strategy for them to stifle competition. The big companies have the funds to just settle and move on while the small companies that might pose a threat in the future may have a harder time dealing with even just a simple settlement.
They are using claim 15 to sue over interactive chat: "A method, comprising: monitoring a product for an occurrence in the product of a trigger event of a predefined plurality of trigger events; incrementing a counter corresponding to the trigger event upon detection of the occurrence of the trigger event in the product; displaying a user interface, configured to probe for information regarding a use of the product, if the counter exceeds a threshold; storing an input received from the user interface on a device; and transmitting the input to a server. "