I have long hated the USPTO and US Patent law. Many (software) patents granted in the US are not only ridiculous but can't even be applied for in many other countries. I read this article today, while I don't really want Facebook to die a horrible death it might actually do a lot of good. Politicians cannot be relied upon to take the right action, the consumers must stand up and say stop. This was never the reason patents were invented in the first place. They were implemented so that companies would be able to earn back research money before a product was copied and also, in some measure, to reward creativeness. Yahoo's patent suit against Facebook is neither.

Patenting Obvious (yes, UPSTO lawyers, they are obvious to computer litterate people) methods of getting things done on a computer should not be allowed. At all.