How does this not also cover every web browser in existence? This seems to cover any networked communications system. Analytics and online ads would seem to be especially vulnerable.

All I can see is this guy is really good at writing patents. If you can't beat em, bury them in citations and they'll think you know what you're doing.

It seems like by doing the following, they get priority for any obviousness and prior art arguments back to 1992, but a filing date of 2003.

"This application is a continuation application of and claims priority to U.S. application Ser. No. 09/370,663, filed on Aug. 6, 1999, now abandoned which is a continuation of Ser. No. 08/934,457, filed Sep. 19, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,908, which is a continuation of Ser. No. 08/243,63 8, filed May 16, 1994, now abandoned, which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 07/926,333, filed Aug. 6, 1992, now abandoned, the contents of each of which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. "

This patent describes a system for interactively polling users of a system about their preferences and/or opinions regarding that system's features. The stated intent is to enable users to provide feedback to potentially inform the creator of the system in making decisions on feature enhancements.

As with all of these stupid software patents, once you read the details (i.e. beyond the summary), it becomes more apparent that the patented "invention" has a distinctly specific application.

This Lodsys letter of solicitation for cash is not much different than a 419 email.

On the surface, it sounds more applicable to netflix and amazon, and their recommendation engines.

So they've patented surveys.

Why do people never put god damn paragraphs in these things?

IANA Software Patent Lawyer, but I see no mention of initiating sale of a sub product through a product application. (i.e. In-App Purchases). I only see a vauge description of listing products to purchase. If that's the case, surely every e-commerce site, app, online grocery list, falls under this patent. Surely there are things that predate this patent that could be used as prior art?

Even reasonably specific patents often look overly broad if you don't know how to read them, so that it looks like " surely every e-commerce site, app, online grocery list, falls under this patent." This is one of the things that patent lawyers have over most people.