I still think that someone over-reacted - everyone is free to send stupid letters demanding things, but it doesn't mean that anyone need to comply.

BTW, AFAIK the whole patent issue turned out moot, and parties (like Debian) ignoring it were proven right.

Anyway, one can use chromium via EasyDebian - not the newest one, but still far better than outdated thing from repos. Unless someone update it, I would suggest avoiding repo one - not due to "All American(tm)" software patent nonsense, but due to common sense feasibility.

/Estel