PS the appeals court ruled that plaintiff is not allowed to change their mind later and say either that the Cisco devices infringe or that using the devices infringes. Plaintiff has claimed that it's only infringing if they are connected in a certain infringing topology and the ruling is that they have to stick to that.

They are emphatically NOT "suing people for using Cisco devices", as evidenced by the fact that some defendants use other brands to do the same thing.

Whether or not their patent is any good I don't know, but it's not Cisco specific and they aren't claiming all Cisco users are infringing.

Their claim is more along the lines of "I'm suing you for building a bomb that blew up my car." They do not claim that using a tool is bad. They claim that doing X (with any tool) is bad.

Let's understand what their claim is before we decide if it's valid or bogus.

Yes, nobody is claiming that all networks infringe. The plaintiff doesn't claim it covers all networks and in fact stipulates that it does not.

The same can be said for any device. Gears and levers were invented before spaceships. Spaceships are a configuration of gears and levers. Therefore no-one can invent a new type of space vehicle?

If you do something NEW with gears and levers, that's a new invention. If you do something new with wheels and suction cups, that's a new invention. If you do something new with silicon and copper, that's a new invention.
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Many patents have been issued for software and other things that do not do anything new. Those patents should not have issued because patents are for new inventions. Many overly broad patents have been issued and shouldn't have because they are overly broad. If you confuse those issues with what material the invention is made of, somebody is tricking you into not thinking things through.

A hammer can be used for murder. Therefore, according to your reasoning manufacturers of hammers are liable for murder?

That's precisely analogous to your assertion that: routers can be used to build an infringing network, therefore router manufacturers are liable for infringement.

Perhaps you will say hammers are designed to build things, and that is somehow different. Okay then:
Hammers can be used to build bombs. Therefore, hammer makers are responsible for bombings.

Sorry, your reasoning just doesn't work.

That's why the Napster emails showing that they intentionally designed features for the purpose of infringement and promoted it for infringement were so important. Cross referencing the Billboard Top 40 shows that it's made specifically for infringing. You don't see Dropbox using banners promoting "find hit music" for that reason.

The law distinguishes between a generic tool that _could_ be used unlawfully versus a business model based on facilitating and promoting unlawful conduct. Whether or not you LIKE that particular unlawful conduct is a matter of opinion, but the logical distinction is quite clear and well-founded.

The multiple levels of judges have agreed Cisco's gear does not infringe. It can be used to infringe, or used in ways that don't infringe.

According to the rulings, suing Cisco would be like suing Xerox for copyright infringement. Just because a copy machine CAN be used by an infringer doesn'tmake Xerox liable.

I do wonder if Cisco products are DESIGNED to be used in the way that plaintiff claims is infringement. Cisco seems to be suggesting that.

FYI, in a study Google did of thousands of drives, they found that while certain models of drive were good and some bad, all manufactures had similar failure rates. Western Digital makes some good models and some bad ones, as do all of the other manufacturers .

That said, I run 40 drives at a time. In my environment, at least, HGST (formerly Hitachi) has had the best track record for me.

I contribute to several open source projects, and I'm the maintainer for some. So I "get" open source. Your idea of "requires no effort" irks me, though, because it leads to very incorrect conclusions.

FOSS works well when many people want the same software. Apache and Linux are examples - everyone needs an operating system and there are millions of web servers. If 0.1% of users contribute,
they can build and maintain good software together.

Where proprietary software works well is when there are a limited number of users. If 1,000 people need a particular type of software, 0.1% participation in development is ONE GUY doing all the work. I've been that one guy, spending thousands of hours developing an application that saves people a ton of money. I do need the other 999 users to finance the cost, or the software wouldn't get written. Making 1,000 copies costs over $100,000. Adding one more doesn't cost that much MORE, but the effort and the cost is very real.

I mentioned that if the other 999 users don't do their part and pay for the software, the software won't be developed. That's exactly what has happened with the software I spent over a decade on. An entire industry will no longer have a working version of the software they rely on because some of them thought it would be okay for them to steal it, leaving others to pay the costs . They won't get an IPv6 version and everybody loses, because I can't spend a few weeks working on something that will just be stolen. There are real costs, and if you take the product without paying your share of the cost, you leave someone else having to pay your share.

I wish I had mod points. You've thought things through and offered solutions, like shorter patent terms.

I wholeheartedly agree, a lot of bad patents, mostly overbroad ones or non-novel ones have been granted. That doesn't mean that a specific patent on a legitimately new invention shouldn't be issued just because the inventor built the invention on an SSD rather than discrete transistors. It means USPTO needs to stop issuing patents on things that aren't new, are obvious, or are too broad - all of which is current law.

You're linking to the 2008 version. GP accurately described the version that was actually passed.

The final version even included examples. It says that on one hand taking an old invention and implementing it in software doesn't make it new, on the other hand a new invention that happens to be built in C++ is a new invention. In other words, whether it's software, hardware, firmware, or dinnerware doesn't effect patentability.
Newness controls.

> smartphones and tablets which has nothing to do with free software.

Yeah, it's not like most smartphones run Linux or something. ;)

Microsoft wasn't late; they've been trying to do smartphones for at least ten years. Their system, Windows, just isn't any good for phones. Windows, as it's name implies, is designed for having many windows open doing different things, on hardware large enough to handle many concurrent applications. On a phone, you need to start with a small kernel with real-time capabilities, then build apps on top of that. You need Linux.

Because "those evil business people are hiding the good stuff" is a left-wing belief. Not necessarily wing I guess, did you notice in the campaign Obama motivated the center-left by saying "corporations" every sixth word.

Right wing nutjobs believe entirely different nonsense.

The two dictionaries I checked, including Merriam-Webster, don't list "performant" as a word.

Trying so hard to use "big words" that you resort to using non-words that sound big = douche. Of course "douche" is actually a word.

But Google CAN'T be encrypting a lot of data and rolling out SSL on all of their services.

Just last night here on Slashdot the crooks informed us that while "3 strikes" laws reduced torrent traffic, all those stolen movies and software must have moved to SSL. The increased SSL traffic can't be because the #1 internet company in the world expanded it's use of SSL. It HAS to because penalties for unlawful actions dont work. That's what fits the storyline they want to tell!