Will this apply to application restrictions?

While not phrased in terms of packets, Apple's prohibition of Google Voice and T-Mobile's ban of tethering apps are quite clearly designed to restrict traffic by application.

That guy misses the point.

There is an apparent change here, evidenced by the fact that new tests of old drugs are giving poorer relative results while giving similar absolute results.

It may be due to better testing methods. It may be that there was fraud in the earlier tests which has been gradually weeded out. It may be that people in studies are culturally more eager to please and so are (consciously or unconsciously) making larger lifestyle changes when they enter the study. It may be (as stipulated in TFA) an increased confidence in pharmacology leading to a larger impact of those "other less clear and tangible effects" that PalMD nods to. It is not simply representative of the failure of pharma to find worthwhile new drugs - the fact that old drugs wouldn't pass muster puts the lie to that. What is interesting is that standards have implicitly risen, and no one understands why. This is news, this is interesting, and this should be investigated.

IMHO, a better strategy is a short, definite length (say, 14 years - the original maximum term?).

My reasoning is that we can therefore look at something that says "(C) 1994" and know that it's out of copyright, and something that says "(C) 1996" and know it's not (unless the author's placed it in the public domain earlier).

They aren't bound by law to take the job in the first place. If they feel their duty to the shareholders in their position is requiring them to act unethically, they should quit. Their duty to the shareholders cannot require them to act illegally (although they may be replaced if they don't, in a lax regulatory climate).

But if you know of a vaguely related patent, and in your expert opinion deem it to be unrelated, you're placing yourself at the mercy of the court - if they decide differently, you're liable for treble damages.

My understanding is that the "correct" thing to do is to hire a lawyer, before you set about inventing anything. Have them do a thorough search, and never look at any patents yourself until they expire.

Of course, this means that inventing anything costs at least the price of a patent lawyer, shutting out the small players - which is why patents should only apply to industries where the cost of research is so high that it dwarfs the price of the patent lawyer (so, y'know, NOT SOFTWARE) and probably not a few other areas as well.

What would it be if he simply walked onto their property himself and hauled the stuff to the dump? It's conspiracy to do that.

It does not "obviously" amount to theft. It *is* illicit, and it may be immoral (see Free Rider Problem), but it is not theft. If I steal 10 M&Ms from you, you have 10 fewer M&Ms - not the case if I download your song, in which case you have less than you otherwise would have *if and only if* I would otherwise have paid for it. This clearly is not the case for, say, college students with tens of thousands of dollars "worth" of media on their hard drive.

As for legal uses of "file-sharing" technologies, well - how about the entire world-wide web? We're sharing files...

Specifically P2P file-sharing technologies? Linux ISOs and WoW updates, to name two common legal uses.

Finally, I for one have an emotional reaction to assertions that technology should be restricted unless I can make you understand what it is for - and I don't even personally use any P2P software at the moment.