Many in the geek community know about and follow closely the politics of patents. So this site, Big Patents will surely be of interest to many, especially those who really need to know all about a patent and its history.

update:reading these patents can also provide hours of odd and confusing pleasure
From the site:

BigPatents contains a novel patent data set with features found nowhere else. You’re free to browse through the data and use our search to easily find patents.

If you choose to become a premium member, you will have access to the complete, real-time family tree for a patent or application, including all continuations and divisionals. Our Premium Info page has more information about premium accounts.

Premium users can also track changes to any patent family tree. Once you begin tracking a tree, you will be notified of new transactions for any of the applications in the tree, when any new applications are added to the tree, and when the status of any of the members of the tree changes