Did you Patent your Software Application?

I was searching last night the US Patent and Trademark Organization website and left somewhat confused.

First, I was amazed at the amount of methods and devices that have been issued a patent for,based on Macromedia Flash.

Then, when doing a little further reading, I was caught by the amount of application concepts that are commonly used. For example, there is a patent for a system and method for an interactive, Internet-based videoconferencing multicast operation which utilizes a video production studio with a live instructor giving lectures in real-time to multiple participating students. It would seems to me that any application built with FlashComm to offer real-time video-conferencing, would infringe on this patent.

On the other hand, I am just a developer and what do I know? So, should we be concerned about developing an application and later to find out we need to pay royalty fees to someone else, because they thought of it first?

In any case, check out the US Patent and Trademark Organization and search some more and let me know if you find any other interesting facts.

Patent info here