Flickr patents "interestingness"

I read this morning over on bopuc's blog that Flickr is patenting "interestingness". I realize this was probably yahoo's lawyers' idea... but I have to say it sucks. -1 Yahoo.

Why does it suck? Well, in general I don't believe in patents - I don't think they serve the intended purpose of "protecting" the idea and have several negative side effects. However, this particular patent hits a bit closer to home for me. I have been closely involved in the Terminus 1525 project since its inception. In it's latest revision, Terminus 1525 introduced "terminosity" as a method for better finding good artwork on the site that we felt was otherwise getting lost in the noise. It was one of the main features of the new explore tool.

Now, it's perhaps premature... it's not like Yahoo! has served terminus1525 with cease and desist orders or anything and, realistically, they're not likely to. But in a web2.0 world where we need to get better at filtering through all the "stuff" (call it media) that we've gotten good at getting out there, I don't see a whole lot of good coming from this one.