I'd love to be downgraded to the old style google search where verbatim meant verbatim instead of "there's a synonym nearby". They've made google scholar almost pointless because matching exact phrases is extremely important when you're searching for something specific.

I guess the solution is some sort of federated search dongle that submits the search query to google, gathers the results, and throws out everything that isn't actually verbatim or otherwise matching the search query.

I've been in the vine program for over five years and have written a lot of negative reviews. I haven't been kicked out or anything like that and still get the occasional cool item. It is true that you get a lot more "helpful" votes for five star reviews though. It isn't that big a deal for me because I do most of my buying from amazon and have lots of opportunity to give positive reviews of things I actually like.

I once got into a pissing contest with a marketing flak over one of my reviews and they flagged that review, every one of my responsive comments, and a bunch of other reviews es as unhelpful. It's like they though they were punishing me. It made me feel pretty righteous.

Nah, someone got a girl friend and is stomping around flinging poo like an alpha-simian. The outrage is real.

I object to your use of the racially inflammatory word "cracker."

People keep saying " look at the Monsanto Protection legislation," but pretty much no one actually looks at it.

If it was work for hire then the client owned the rights and original poster, samzenpus, had no right to put his own copyright into the header. The new developer/maintainer wouldn't have that right either.

If it wasn't a work for hire and samzenpus was the original author, then he has a case for copyright infringement. A cease and desist letter might get the headers restored.

What ages are most of the people in the class?

Someone in their late 20's should notice lots of qualitative differences between themselves and most relatively fresh high school graduates. That is especially true for someone who has been working for a living.

The smart move, if you're having such an easy time with the course work and acing the class, is to pick up on those youngsters. This is probably the height of their physical attractiveness (and the waning of yours). You'll never be so well positioned again either.

It could be N different licensing companies with the patent holder paying commissions. It could be scammers having no relationship with the patent holder at all. It could be a mix.

In a court action, the plaintiff must assert that they are either the patent holder or are holding some actionable interest in the patent (such as a license that includes the right to enforce the patent). The defendant can contest that assertion and thereby require the plaintiff to provide proof. Normally, no subpoena is needed (subpoenas generally go to third parties, not the plaintiffs/defendants). At worst, just a normal discovery request is needed. If the plaintiff outright lied about this then the judge is likely to get medieval. Only a very foolish law firm would fail to check the patent's chain of title and their client's right to sue.

Similarly, the plaintiff must clearly specify the defendant's infringing action. Failure to do so can result in near immediate dismissal of the case plus sanctions. This is particularly true with patent enforcement. That is one reason the Project Paperless letter is so laughable. It tells the defendant to do the investigation and then send money. If they sue because, as the letter says, "your company fits the profile" then the law firm filing the action could well get sanctioned without the defendant ever formally answering the complaint.

That looks like Project Paperless, LLC v. BlueWave Computing, LLC et al, Georgia Northern District Court, Docket Number: 1:12-cv-00995

My client received the letter from a different "licensing" company. That's one of the reasons I thought this might be some new type of scam.

One of my clients received one of these letters. It's a pretty laughable attempt at extortion. Because:

1. You can't tell if the extortionist is related in any way to the patent holder.
2. They tell you to do your own investigation, provide some pointers, and provide bank routing money for your EFT.
3. They haven't done their jurisdiction homework (RightHaven got hammered for this).

and these are just some of the procedural problems. The prior art issues don't even come into play. I don't think their letter even supports suing for a declaratory judgment against anyone. If they sent me one of these then I'd just throw it away without giving it further consideration. On the other hand, as a patent lawyer and litigator I can afford a far riskier strategy than most.

I think the extortionists waited until the patent reexamination/review process got significantly more extensive before they started their campaign. The America Invents Act raised the fee for ex-parte reexamination to $17,750 and for inter-partes review to $27,200.