I can't tell you technically that the patent is weaker as amended as I don't know enough about the meaning of the claim 29, to know one way or the other. HOWEVER, logically it seems most certain to have been, as bear in mind that the revision to Claim 29 was an option that was discussed with the Examiner PRIOR to submitting the additional claims, and that TPL resisted altering that language. Instead, they brought in all of the additional explanatory claims. So logically, if amending Claim 29 was something that TPL did NOT want to do, and only did after all other measures failed, it stands to reason that it 'weakened" the patent in some fashion.

Perhaps it made the pool of infringers narrower, perhaps it eliminated certain products from each manufacturer, perhaps it gives manufacturers and easy work around for future products, perhaps it did something else, hard to know. The flip (positive) side to that is that now that it has been "through the ringer", so to speak, of USPTO re-exam process, a Markman ruling (even if with the old language), and it will be re-certified, it should be much stronger and much less challengeble to the products to which it applies. So while it may have potentially been weakened in range of applications, it should have been stregthened in the application of the actual products that TPL contests infringe upon it, in my opinion.