Ars Technica is running a fantastic, facepalm-worthy story of patent trolling gone wild. Webvention is the patent-holder in question, and their entire operations revolve around a single U.S. patent: 5,251,294.
The patent abstract opens with one of the vaguest and most terrifying sentences ever conceived: "An interactive information environment for accessing, controlling, and using information." Why, I think you just described a computer... and HTML... and set-top TV boxes... and, as the case may be, roll-over images on websites. Novartis, a pharmaceutical company, has been sued for its positively interactive website. Look at how that information... interacts... and can be accessed... disgusting.
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