Via Techdirt:
Late last fall, we highlighted some very questionable practices by Intellectual Ventures in suing a bunch of big banks for patent infringement. Our focus was on a particular patent, 6,182,894, which was initially assigned to American Express, and which claimed to cover the concept of CID or CVV codes (those little extra three numbers on the back of your credit card you're supposed to type in as an added security measure). American Express, perhaps realizing how ridiculous it would be to sue over such a patent "donated" it to a non-profit, the Consumer and Merchant Awareness Foundation ("CMAF"...