At my previous company, we spent over 100K defending a patent lawsuit, along with half a dozen other defendants. The patent covered “Methods, systems, and processes for the design and creation of rich-media applications via the Internet.” In a nutshell, if you used Flash on your website (and had some money) you were sued for infringing this particular patent. The whole thing was bullshit.

I love the imagery that Yahoo is a zombie that threatens the brains of the living.

I think the fact I was playing Plants Vs Zombies on the airplane back from SXSW seeped into my subconscious

The Yahoo patent lawsuits suck, but not nearly as much as the countless acts of intimidation and extortion against small companies. At least Facebook can afford to defend itself. I like Mark Cuban's take: http://blogmaverick.com/2012/03/13/i-hope-yahoo-crushes-facebook-in-its-patent-suit/