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This points out how ridiculous the situation with software patents has gotten. It's way too easy for someone to have an idea (and many times they weren't even the first to have it, just filed the patent application first), patent it with no particular investment of resources on their part, and then wait for others to independently come up with the same idea, then show up demanding licensing fees for infringing on their patent. Redirects, exit pops ? Those are trivially easy to do, and no way should they be patentable. Of course, Amazon's 1-click ordering shouldn't have been patentable either - making a few scripted calls to a database in response to someone clicking a link - big whoop.
I think the U.S. patent system is due for a major overhaul, and two parts of the revisions should be that (1) the technology must not be trivially easy to implement and (2) the owner of the patent has to show a good faith effort to develop products (or at least useable technology) based on the patent within a certain amount of time, or lose the patent.
OK, rant over.
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