I found a great example why (software) patents suck on the IGDA homepage, and an oppressive feeling arises when I imagine what lawsuits like this mean for game developers and software engineers in general if the claim is admitted. A short excerpt:

There is an ongoing patent litigation case in the Eastern District of Texas of interest to all developers because of how broadly the Plaintiff appears to want to apply the claims of the patent. In this case, American Video Graphics, L.P. (“Plaintiff”) has sued sixteen game publishers, alleging that these defendants infringe AVG’s [patent], “Method and Apparatus for Spherical Panning.” […] Plaintiff has identified over 1000 accused games, which Plaintiff alleges infringe their [patent].

IGDA is now desperately searching for prior art to invalidate the patent. Read the full story here.