I am no doubt far from the only person who receives numerous emails purporting to be from various banks, as well as Paypal, eBay etc. etc. which ask me to fill in some critical information so that my account can be revalidated. This is what is known as phishing and it seems to be becoming a plague.

However I think that some financial institutions seem to make it easier than others. For example Chase Online seems to permit anyone to link to its images (see logo to the right from https://chaseonline.chase.com/ ) and javascripts and as a result it is very easy for a phisher who has access to a genuine online account at Chase to set up his own website (e.g. http://member-signon6246.us/ ) with everything that makes the system look good - it even (when you get to step 3) runs Chase's validator to see if the CC# number entered is a real one!

eBay argues that patent holder MercExchange does not make use of its own patents and exists only to sue others. It says MercExchange should therefore not be entitled to an injunction, and a damages award should suffice. MercExchange denies the claims about its own business model; but regardless of the facts, the issue raised by eBay has divided the business community.

Oracle, Microsoft and Intel have supported eBay, filing a joint brief that argues that courts must have discretion to grant or refuse injunctions in patent disputes. The patent may relate to only a tiny part of a company's product or service, they point out; injunctions can be a disproportionate remedy. They say the injunction rule "has transformed patents into a powerful tool for litigation abuse".

As the Register notes this is similar to the complaint RIM had with NTP. I'm not clear what the answer is, but it seems to me that if the patent owner is not using his patent and you are the only person using it, then it is likely that the patent owner is little more than a legally sanctioned blackmail/protection racket.