You think someone who's reading an article in passing and cleans it up is going to spend the time to a) discuss it and then b) wait a week before coming back and changing it? No thanks. This time investment for what should be a trivial thing is... well absurd.

"Now admitted this definition can also refer to everything..." This is precisely why using dictionaries for defining the context of discussion is pretty much useless.

Not just countries but also industries have benefited from lack of protection against designs: http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html

No one actually cares about lacrosse, even though I hear this all the time.

Eh.. I dunno. They're not promoting it directly in so far as they're just using it as a tool to reach their audience (and effectively at that). How does the law extend to purchased extended utilities/services? What if they were having an event for their audience somewhere, would they not be allowed to name sponsors either?

You read it here ladies and gents, financial return is the only measure of success.

I wouldn't call it nuttery, and I vehemently disagree with many of those analogies. Whereas religion yields no tangible product, scientific investigation and thought leads to inspired, clever, and useful technologies. Do you think DaVinci's ideas on flight were an endeavor in nuttery as well? If you argue in the affirmative then I would be quite surprised at such lack of foresight. That we are capable of speculating (in quite an educated manner) so far into the future is a testament to human ingenuity.

I think he was addressing this comment:

And I agree that we don't have enough information in the original image to really make much use of this outside of artistic endeavors, games being one of those.

Depends on the industry, I think. Embedded stuff puts more emphasis on performance, so you can't just get away with "it works". If you're lucky, that'll be the minimum requirement. Often times not.

That's Little Bobby Tables to you.