As someone who built their day career on database application development, I can't help but call attention to this situation: Some company called "Channel Intelligence" managed to patent the concept of creating lists of items in a database. In 2005. Huh?
Now, this "Channel Intelligence" is suing a number of small web 2.0 companies.
Check out the patent at Google Patent Search. I don't see Chris Date or Edgar F. Codd on the list of "inventors" on that patent.
How the hell does something like this happen? I think someone at the Patent and Trademark Office left their brain at home on July 12, 2005...
