Actually, and essentially in support of your conclusion although contrary to your opening, the Eastern District of Texas - while the margin is narrowing - is still much friendlier to patent plaintiffs than a strong majority of other districts. Or, specifically, it would be more fair to say the E.D.Tex. is not horrendously biased to favor the defendant, like several other districts. Most of it boils down to the Local Patent Rules. For example, E.D.Tex. allows for very liberal amendments of initial infringement contentions. In layman's terms this means that a patent-holder can sue an alleged infringer with "well-formed" suspicion that the defendant's product is allegedly infringing, go into discovery, and then determine the details as to whether or not the product is actually infringing based on evidence. In districts like the Northern District of California, the local patent rules expressly prohibit this behavior, requiring that the plaintiff have essentially absolute proof that the defendant's product is infringing before being able to move to the discovery phase.

While N.D.Cal's strict rules cut down on troll litigation, it does become a problem for plaintiffs when the details of how a defendant's product works is only available to the defendant: for example, closed-source software or secret formulas or recipes not available to the public. While software patents aren't treated well here on Slashdot, what this would allow someone to do is to copy line for line someone else's code, resell it, and then have total immunity in the Northern District of California from patent infringement (and good luck proving copyright infringement when you don't have access to the source code...). The Eastern District of Texas (specifically Judge Ward of said district) realized the potential problem for abuse and thus created a standing order to modify the Local Patent Rules and allow for more liberal discovery. Good for plaintiffs (troll and honest) who are attempting to prove infringement, bad for defendants (honest and infringing) who now lose shelter and have to deal with costly discovery.

The problem is two-fold. First, the dichotomy between local patent rules across federal districts completely destroys the concept of "one body of federal law." It encourages forum shopping, which is exactly what we're seeing here where a plaintiff chooses where to file suit in a place most favorable to him (thus theoretically unbalancing the concept of a fair and impartial trial). Second, it encourages patent trolls to flock to a district and abuse the system. In a perfect world, discovery would be allowed and initial infringement contentions could be modified, but anyone found to be patent trolling would be liable for attorney's fees and damages if discovery proved senseless litigation or the patent was invalidated (or hell, I'd just make a rule where you have to actually manufacture the patented product to have a claim for damages... none of this treating IP like physical property where you have an arbitrary right to exclude). In reality, it causes people to see the ratking of patent trolls form in E.D.Tex, and everyone blames the system there for supporting patent trolls and praises draconian districts like N.D.Cal for arbitrarily (and contrary to federal mandate) favoring defendants.

As more patent trolls flood in, the win-margin is narrowing, because even the Eastern District of Texas tires of senseless lawsuits. But the rules are still much more favorable to plaintiffs in those districts, and any patent lawyer worth his salt is going to find a way to establish personal jurisdiction in that district.

I commend you for inventing my new favorite unit of measurement. "You'll find the average homework for this law class to measure around 2.3 AS per night." So what's the conversion rate for Atlas Shruggeds to Fountainheads?

Ads. Data caps. Access restriction. Post-upload revisions. Censorship. If you can equate streaming to downloading, you can equate licensing to ownership.

Note that recipes can be patented, however, so long as the recipe does something particularly novel and non-obvious. Like tomato beer, or salsa without spicy chili peppers. Software patents are kind of dumb, though, because it's awfully hard to think of a series of programming lines as non-obvious.

It's a little more than that. You can impede the investigation into something you are innocent of by denying access to evidence that would either prove that you are innocent (or guilty.) In this case, the FCC is saying that Google wouldn't turn over e-mail evidence or the name of the engineer who authorized the data collection process. If Pops thinks Timmy broke the neighbor's window, Timmy is going to get in trouble when he doesn't let Dad into his closet to see if the baseball's still there. Pretty much the same thing here.

Wicked, tricksy, false! It chokeses, burnses us! Gollum! Gollum!

http://funpics.classicfun.ws/var/albums/Funpics/On%20the%20Internet%20nobody%20knows%20you're%20a%20dog.jpg?m=1300661194

The problem with adopting a multi-partisan system over a bipartisan system is that it's inherently undemocratic. A bipartisan system, while it presents an either/or scenario on issues, does have the advantage of the elected official being a representative of the majority of the people. If you had five parties running, the winner might win with 22% of the voting population's support, and then the 22% would be able to impose their political views on the remaining 78% because the 78% couldn't choose to back a single candidate. This is essentially what happened to the democratic party every time a green party candidate would run. A bipartisan system forces compromise for the sake of ensuring that a candidate represents, at least tenuously, the majority of the population.

I am aware that the U.S.'s bipartisan system is a result of the winner-takes-all electorate system, that shifting to a party-proportional representation system would reduce the centric pressures of the winner-takes-all system, thereby preventing a tyranny of the majority that I mentioned above. However, party-proportional representation systems have their own flaws as well, particularly that of legislative gridlock and the problem of a "cacophony of voices," whereby the number of increasingly differing political opinions worsens the signal-to-noise ratio in the legislative system. Inevitably it boils down into an argument about the benefits/disadvantages of the Electoral College, which would derail the topic further; but I will point out that as "unrepresentative" as the indirect Electoral College may seem, true democracy, over a republic, has never lasted more than a few centuries, due to legislative gridlock and the tyranny of the majority.

Which is why I've always kept my password as "ImurderedMrandMrsBlevinsonJune171982inJacksonCounty!" Satisfies those pesky security requirements as well.

If these guys want to make a statement, they should disconnect the user accounts of all politicians who support SOPA. I'm sure it's within their ludicrously one-sided ToSs to exclude members at a whim (and it's legal as long as it's not discrimination). It'd be a nice reminder about what life would be like without these tech services.

Already have done this with my business some time ago. I wouldn't call this new news. It's not like they bust in and snap the photos without the business owner's permission. It's opt-in, and it's a good idea for businesses that would like the marketing boost. Cutting in through the ceiling to avoid motion detectors? You guys have been watching WAY too many heist movies. Ever tried operating a concrete saw at night? Good luck not attracting attention. It's just as easy for a criminal to walk into a place, walk around, get a feel, maybe snap some photos on their cell phone (increasingly commonplace), buy a cheap item to keep from looking suspicious, and walk out.

I was going to comment on any one of the seventeen inaccuracies/deceptions/downright lies about cloud gaming that can be construed from this statement, but, I don't know, it seems to speak for itself. I suppose this all explains why Gamestop has recently decided to pursue a business model only slightly more reputable than a pawn shop. Oh well, as long as parents have more money than parenting skills, I suppose the business model will flourish.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge gamer, and my parents were very good about exposing me to video games. They also played the games with me or at the least watched to make sure my games were appropriate. And they sure as hell didn't give me a credit card to go out and buy whatever. Nor did I give them a list of demanded games. Seriously, if you ever want to despair for the fate of humanity being placed in our youth, go creep around Gamestop for a few tens of minutes.

You are mistaken. It is legal to format shift in cases where you have not either a) broken the licensing terms to which you agreed (EULA), or b) intentionally or unintentionally circumvented DRM. This is why AnyDVD cannot be sold in the United States (downloaded yes, sold no).

Part of what constitutes legal ownership of property is the right to exclude others from use of that property, with some non-discriminatory limitations on certain venues. Owning copyright doesn't just grant you the limitation of who can copy your product, it also allows you the use of limiting you can use your product. So it is perfectly within Disney's right to own the old Uncle Remus cartoons and refuse to publish them, thus refusing your ability to see the product legally entirely. That philosophy tends not to jive with our ideas of freedom of information in the Information Age, but they exist within many legal spectra of the modern world.

Only if we can get Zuckerberg to shift his assets into a more conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio!