Indeed, Google is patenting the group balance-and-payment system, not splitting a restaurant check. There is a ton of prior art on this - I'm the CEO of Splitwise, a start-up that would be affected by the patent, but most of the best prior art comes from Billmonk and PayDivvy from 2006-2011 (or see Wie Betaalt Wat in Dutch).

For us, this represents a very weird turn of events. Google is simultaneously trying to lobby me / Splitwise for patent reform at the same time as patenting trolling us about what we already do. I've written a blog post about my most surreal week of business life here: http://blog.splitwise.com/2013/10/10/google-trying-to-patent-bill-splitting-while-lobbying-splitwise-for-patent-reform/

You can see a very detailed list of prior art on AskPatents: http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5182/tracking-and-managing-group-expenditures-google-patent-application-prior-a

It is one good reason for me, among many, to support patent reform :)

Why is everyone acting so shocked? This was only partially about corporate America... the main dynamite in the bill was the expiring wiretapping clause, not the immunity. It would be political suicide to let all the post 9-11 wiretapping powers go away, because even if slashdot doesn't like them, I'm sure a majority of Americans wants at least some of them.

The primary attack Obama faces from the right is that he won't be "tough on terrorism." He needed to vote "tough" to beef up his security credentials.

I'm not apologizing for Obama here, but yes, if he wants to get elected this is political reality. Hilary knew it was going to pass anyway, no doubt, and can afford to vote against it because she isn't campaigning.