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I had never heard of this before, but apparently it has been going on for a few years. Apparently a company claims to have a patent on recording yourself talking and then putting it online. They go around suing podcasts to try and get money out of them. The actual patent says "A system for disseminating media content representing episodes in a serialized sequence", yet the company, Personal Audio, has never produced any product, the only thing they have done is sue podcasts, or tv and film companies.

I think I may patent reproducing images of inhaling and exhaling, either moving or still, and sue every film every made. If they didn't want to pay the royalties why did they let the actors breathe?

Aye, patent law makes me scratch my head sometimes, especially when folks come along and patent something that has been in the public domain for a while, and suddenly everyone owes them money for it.

The 'Keep Calm and Carry on' shenanigans is a prime example.

And what obligation does the owner of a patent have to produce something again?

Yeah it's been going on for a while. In fact, you will find companies that list themselves as 'patent holding companies' (or something like that) who do literally nothing but buy patents and sue people who don't then cough up the royalties.

IMHO, it's one of the biggest things holding back the advancement of commercial technology. The apple vs samsung patent wars have left everyone unable to innovate because the 'next best thing' has been patented by someone, so now no-one has the nads to actually produce the next best thing in case they find themselves on the receiving end of a billion-dollar lawsuit.

Put it this way, Apple owns a patent for 'a mobile telecommunications device whose primary input mode is a touchscreen'. The tech industry isn't about developing new innovative stuff anymore, it's about making sure no-one else can develop something better than yours...

NPR did some good stuff on this a while back:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/when-patents-attack-part-two

It's more than this particular piece of tech too. Your basic formula is this:

-Get a vague patent, however legit or bogus.
-Find somebody who is doing something that might fall under that patent.
-Take action against them for as much money as you can without making the legal battle against you cost effective.

We definitely need an adjustment on this, but I am equally worried about what happens if we underprotect things.

Yeah, I believe Adam Carolla's podcast, HowStuffWorks and some other podcasts are being sued by some patent troll who's claiming that it owns a part of podcasting, or something like that.

Good times, good times.

it's a bit old, but still accurate:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/01/02