Yahoo! (YHOO), Google (GOOG) in more ridiculous patent litigation

Texas must hate successful internet giants. At least, that is what one must think after two sets of goofy, litigious lawsuits were brought against Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Yahoo!, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) in the last two months. On top of the Polaris lawsuit from a few months ago that accused the internet giants of violating its email filtering patent, Performance Pricing, Inc. (from Austin, Texas) now says that the three internet giants, along with AOL, LLC (part of Time Warner, Inc. (NYSE: TWX)) have violated patents related to -- get this -- a "transaction system."

Apparently some smaller firms have made it a point to make money not with innovation and marketing, but from trying to patent basic business practices and processes. This time around, these four companies have been charged with using Performance Pricing's technology "in methods and systems that they make, use, sell and offer to sell."

Is having a website that transacts business with customers a process that is patentable? I'm waiting for Performance Pricing to sue the other hundred million website operators who transact business with customers. Excuse me while I twiddle my thumbs here.

Is this "technology" even patentable? My guess is that the U.S. patent in question, 6,978,253, described as "Systems and Methods for Transacting Business Over a Global Communications Network such as the Internet" will be laughed out of court once it reaches that stage. Performance Pricing has requested a jury trial.