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Symantec Patents Virus Updates

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-thats-a-good-one dept.

An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us that News.com is reporting that Symantec has a patent for updating their virus definitions incrementally. Symantec has recently informed their competitors of this fact. According to the article, Trend Micro fears not, because they have their own "technology."

5 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hold your horses by JoeBuck · · Score: 5

    No, I won't hold my horses, because I've just read Claim 1 of patent 6,052,531. That claim is very general, and there is tons of prior art. Claim 1 tries to conver any system in which there is more than one patch to be applied, at least one "update source", with no qualifications on what that update source is, containing the patches, and finally, a client "disposed to receive transmitted patches from each update source". Guess what: CVS infringes, except that it is prior art. Even the Linux script for seeking out and applying patches infringes.

    You may have patentable technology here, but only if the claims are rewritten so as not to cover anything that already exists.

  2. A Letter to Symantec CEO John W. Thompson by cliffy · · Score: 5
    Here's the text of a letter that I will be mailing to Symantec CEO John W. Thompson today. Please feel free to use the body of the letter yourself. Note that I am mailing this the old-fashioned way. A storm of email is too easy to launch; it takes dead trees to garner the attention of most CEOs and politicians.

    Dear Mr. Thompson:

    I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with your decision to pursue and attempt to enforce a patent on "microdefinition technology" as discussed in your Feb. 7, 2001, press release.

    The patenting of obvious technology in the face of a preponderance of prior art is a grave threat to true innovation, does a great disservice to the consumer, and has made our patent office the laughing-stock of the technical community. To be clear, the ability to download files that allow incremental patching of existing running software has been available for many years on Unix and Linux systems. Your attempts to enforce a patent on this reflect a complete disregard for your customers and potential customers that is not in accord with what I have come to expect from Symantec.

    I deeply regret that Symantec has chosen to join in the software patent land-grab. Unless Symantec takes action to allow this technology to remain freely available I will have no choice but to remove Symantec from the list of suppliers that my clients and I can trust with our business.

    Very Sincerely,

    Curtis Clifton

  3. Re:Patents == bad, but Symantec == good! by RareHeintz · · Score: 5
    They were the first ones to provide what the industry needed for so many years: a centralized repository of information and knowledge about malicious code -- one that hasn't been replicated...

    Um... Not sure if you meant that to be a troll or not. But how about CERT?

    And by the way, Symantec isn't doing these things out of the goodness of their hearts. They're a business, and they do it because (directly or indirectly) it brings in money. Crow about their accomplishments if you like, but don't make them out like they're Mother Teresa's Sisters of Digital Mercy - they're a large business, and therefore (practically by definition) almost certainly amoral.

    Troll point number 2: I don't know why you think it takes more or less skill to detect a virus not in the wild than one in the wild. That's inane. I'd actually think that figuring out the ones in the wild would be harder, since they're the ones original enough to get through emplaced defenses in the first place.

    In the future, remember: Think, then post.

    OK,
    - B
    --

    --
    http://www.bradheintz.com/
    - updated
  4. Excellent. Now I can sue them. by miracle69 · · Score: 5

    I currently own the patents on several viruses that use proprietary technology to spread themselves across the internet. Reverse engineering these viruses is explicitly prohibited under the DMCA and I shall now proceed to sue the socks over anyone who reverse engineers my virii and figures out how to bypass or disable them.

    --
    Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
  5. Hold your horses by Chairboy · · Score: 4

    I used to be involved in the development of LiveUpdate, and the technology that has the patent here is not simply the updating of programs over the internet, it's a patent on the specific method of how the virus definitions are updated. It's not a simple file replacement methodology, it's closer to a structured delta-based updating technology.

    But I don't expect most of the FP'ers to read the article before they scramble to get a post up in the lucrative first 5 minutes of KarmaHeaven....