Great article on Forbes.com on patent law and how the proliferation of patents granted by the USPTO is bad for society: “… too many patents are just as bad for society as too few. The undisciplined proliferation of patent grants puts vast sectors of the economy off-limits to competition, without any corresponding benefit to the public.” [source: slashdot.org]

The Slashdot piece was focused on a lawsuit brought by F5 Networks whose aim was to defend a patent on technology that “… improves the interaction of servers and desktop computers with Web browsers. Information such as shopping cart contents is often stored in files called “cookies” on desktop computers; F5 was awarded a patent that lets a Web traffic management device reunite a desktop computer with a particular server if the desktop computer user returns to the Web site.” They’re effectively saying that they own the technology that provides “sticky sessions”. I guess in an industry (software) where the barrier to entry is so low, patent law helps to brings the barriers up a notch or two. But seriously F5, how trivial is this technology? Your hardware device examines the HTTP stream, picks out the cookie and sends the user to the appropriate server. How long did it take to figure that out? 30 seconds? Innovation? No. I hope you all go to bed at night feeling like you made a contribution to the world.