Is there any info regarding the age of most of these patents? Take for example the Lodsys patent on in-app purchases. I remember reading that the patent in qu

Is there any info regarding the age of most of these patents? Take for example the Lodsys patent on in-app purchases. I remember reading that the patent in question was filed in 2003, as part of a chain of patents starting in the early 1990s. I ask because I suspect most of these patents were approved long before these ideas were obvious. Note: I dont necessarily support software patents.