Apple and Google Settle!
Big news in one of the patent wars; Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility (to be sold to Lenovo) have agreed to drop all their patent lawsuits between them. Unfortunately, this doesn't affect lawsuits between Apple and Samsung; that war will continue for years to come. This provides Google some relief in courts as they also have the European "Right to be Forgotten" ruling and the Java API lawsuit from Oracle, which will probably head to the Supreme Court, to deal with.
But the US patent system continues to be criticized for what has been approved. Colbert captures all the ridiculousness well in this clip:
The Colbert Report
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Here is the Google link to the Amazon patent in the discussion. As you can see, this patent was filed in 2011 and awarded in March of this year. This is just one of the latest ridiculous patents to have been approved by the US Patent Office. Want to get a patent yourself? Just draw some simplistic drawings with a simple CAD program and write a description that is specific but yet vague; it would be to have a patent lawyer too. Remember, you don't have implement or prove that your patent works. There is no doubt that the US Patent System has to change especially with software patents.