All the elements of a good story.

[The court] ruled last May that TorrentSpy must begin saving the internet addresses and download activity of its U.S.-based users, and turning over the information to the MPAA in pretrial discovery. In response, TorrentSpy began blocking U.S. users, and made changes on its site to protect user privacy — drawing a fresh burst of outrage in legal filings by MPAA lawyers earlier this month.

I’m particularly curious how the guy was able to intercept emails before they reached user inboxes on the server.

I found this CNET article about the US patent system in a HardOCP news item on my Google homepage. It talks about various flaws with the current patent system, presents examples of those flaws, and briefly discusses current legislation aimed at fixing some of those flaws. I generally don’t read things on CNET, but this author is a partner at a law firm in New York and has a JD from Columbia (and BS from MIT), so it might be worth reading if you’re interested in that kind of stuff.