All your hard drive are belong to us

Two California innovators cried foul when major hard drive and PC manufacturers started making billions off using their ceramic bonding invention, a critical tool needed to make these types of devices, without compensating them for their hard work. Refusing to be intimidated by the huge companies and their equally huge legal departments, the embattled inventors have asked the International Trade Commission to ban imports of the infringing disk drives, in the hopes that...

Sorry, I can't continue with a straight face.

Four patents that pretty much cover the same thing were filed starting on February 2000 (6354479, 6651864, 6935548, and 7124927), and were somehow approved by our stunningly competent patent office. These patents are marvelous examples of broad "inventions" that try to cover as wide a range of devices as humanly possible. Take this section in the claims for the second patent for example:

39. The method of claim 8, wherein the fine particles are mixed with dispersants.

40. The method of claim 8, wherein the fine particles are mixed with binders.

41. The method of claim 8, wherein the fine particles are mixed with sintering aids.

42. The method of claim 8, wherein the fine particles are mixed with solvents.

43. The method of claim 8, wherein the fine particles are mixed with a binder including magnesia.

44. The method of claim 8, wherein the fine particles are mixed with a binder including yttria.

It goes on and on like that for some time. Will the ITC pull another Qualcomm and ban hard drives coming into the US based on these claims? And why stop at hard drives, why not ban CD-ROMS, DVD players, motherboards, TVs, toasters, and boy bands? Magic 8-Ball says: "You are on the way to destruction".