If I'm reading this right, Apple had to pay damages because it had secure p2p video connections </ full stop>.

VirnetX had alleged that two of its patents - registered in 2002 and 2009 - had been infringed by Apple's iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads.

These referred to ways to establishing a secure communication link between different types of computers using a protocol referred to as TARP (Tunneled Agile Routing Protocol). ... "Apple says they don't infringe, but Apple developers testified that they didn't pay any attention to anyone's patents when developing their system," a lawyer for VirnetX was quoted as saying by the Bloomberg news agency.

from here:

The VirnetX patents cover the use of a domain-name service to set up virtual private networks, through which a website owner can interact with customers in a secure way or an employee can work at home and get access to a company's electronic files.

Look, if you can invent the same thing without having any idea the other existed, I'd say you haven't [in any society run by common sense] run afoul of a patent. And unless this predated Gnutella (it doesn't, I don't believe), you've got prior art, right?

Apparently some of the decision was "vacated", but I think we can agree the patent system isn't optimal. I hate that I can't even understand the argument after reading two articles. When the crux of the issue is this obfuscated, you're just playing what Gygax called (iirc) "semantic gymnastics" at this point.

Patents in software drive me crazy. Too much is painfully obvious. I understanding protecting something limited and genuinely new, but this is insane.

(sourced from reddit)

PS -- Manatees? Sauce:

Cartman is introduced to the Family Guy writing staff, who turn out to be a group of manatees. The staff, who live in a large tank, pick up "idea balls" from a large pile of them, each of which has a different noun, a verb or a pop culture reference written on it, and deliver them, five at a time, to a machine that then forms a Family Guy cutaway gag based on those ideas.

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