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Patent Claimed on System-Level Encryption
nattt writes "The Register is reporting that a Californian firm, Maz Technologies has been granted a patent for application independant file encryption, and is now going after other companies with its lawyers to press its claims. It seems that the US patent office doesn't check very well for prior art, and their laxity is causing small firms that get attacked on infringing these bad patents a lot of money to defend themselves."
Wasn't the federal gov trying to make incryption illegal... I may be misinformed
Just a thought ... would it be possible for these small companies to sue the US Patent Office for costs relating to bad patents?
Now we don't have to worry about CBDTPA. Because even if the FCC tells the tech industry to adopt encryption to protect content, we can say "Sorry Disney, er, FCC...but that technology has been patented!"
Why didn't we think of this. Let's get patents on watermarking and other intrusive technologies being rammed down our throats by content providers. Then just sit on them and thumb our noses.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
If they are suing already, doesn't that invalidate the patent by demonstrating prior art before the patent was applied for?
"No good deed goes unpunished"
For a device consisting of a circular device with a whole through the middle. When two of these are mounted on opposite sides of a shaft and suitibly housed, they can become useful for reducing the friction caused by dragging an object down a road.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
We need more bad patents like this. The more of a problem this becomes, the more likely Congress is going to do something about it. And as long as the patents are as ridiculous as this one, and as long as they go after companies with money before they go after open source, everything's fine as far as I'm concerned.
Wouldn't it be funny if some organization in the US government has prior art on this patent? Say the NSA or FBI, perhaps the Army, Air Force or CIA? Somewhere in there somebody developed a computer system which encrypted every single communications which took place at the system level.
The nice folks over at sci.crypt seems to have listed quite a few cases of possible prior art.
Not that that makes it much better on the whole, but...
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Attack the small firms first so they cannot afford to invalidate the patent. Meanwhile when the small firms start paying royalties your patent will become more established. By the way the 25 000 in royalties is nothing compared to what the case may cost. So that company will probably pay the fee if hey cannot get an early win in court.
I see this as proof that the USPTO doesn't bother checking for prior art at all. How the hell could they possibly have missed the many examples if they had? Shit, even ntfs has been doing that for years.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
secret use is not prior art.
But if the above mentioned agency put their computer on sale, or used it publicly then it would be prior art.
Why not directly sue Microsoft, Sun, HP, IBM? Somewhere along the line one of these companies offered system level encryption.
Or maybe this dinky unknown company saw a way to squeeze money out of little companies who they thought couldn't afford to fight back?
They always seem to go after the smaller guys. If they were really serious, why not go after Microsoft, RSA, Symantec, etc...
Oh yeah, thats right, they would be eaten for breakfast because of that pesky prior art thing that they so nicely ignored.
corporate america needs a kick in the pants. America has to realise one thing.... the rest of the world
This would seem to be a good example of how the patent system is being mis-used at present. Apparently this patent is very widely defined and not backed up by much 'implementation'. this would generally not be considered a very 'defendable' patent, yet the owners are trying it on with a bunch of middle level software vendors, trying to strong arm some cash from them.
w here sfs (Secure File System) exists, and this page was LAST updates in september 1996, and covers just about every possible level of eccryption in a general file system, it is also not unique.
The difficulty with this is that the patent gives the owner a degree of 'high-ground', and defending against this from the point of view of the apparent patent violator, can be VERY expensive, so often just coughing up is the cheapest option, which then lends weight to the defendability of the patent.
Certainly, being filed in 1998 makes this particular patent laughable.
for exmaple, have a look at:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/sfs/
On a more serious note, the patent officer really needs to get off its ass. This is absurd. I'm going to patent substitution boxes, bitwise transpositions, and while I'm at it, hash functions and the use of a 'key' to permutate text.
that sounds like fun. I think I'll whip up a batch of 3 dollar bills tonight.
I always wanted one.
I find it quite disturbing that our United States patent office will accept such a broad claim, needless to say. What I find even more disturbing, however, is the precident for accepting such patent claims without, as the article states, any such encryption programs being submitted.
In my mind, it's one thing to stake your claim to an invention or creation of your own doing, something that you have already built. Even what may be viewed as a "fair" patent process, however, I object to on the principle that it tends to create unnecessary monopolization of certain products and only serves to lock down profits for one party. Patents, in my mind, are a competitive, money-making scheme and nothing more. It's another thing entirely, however, to patent an idea, preventing others from using it possibly, without submitting any such art of your own.
Think about this for a moment. If companies are allowed to patent thoughts and ideas they have not created, then this only creates a rush to create patents and not a race for innovation. If "prior art" of your own is not required in a patent submission, then the application for patents becomes nothing more than financial speculation on future technologies.
-Niten
Dot com bomb burst your little bubble? No need to worry! Keep your company in the black with our patented 'Profit by patent' system! We research existing fundamental technologies (the alphabet for example!) and patent them for you! All you have to do is wait for a chance to sue someone using your newly patented technology! No more pesky R&D! No nerdy programmers and engineers!
Learn more now! Call 1-800-GOINGTOHELL!
do you realize how many patents IBM makes a year? about about Intel and AMD?
just between those 3 companies, I bet they each produce At LEAST a million patents each A YEAR.
so when your sorting though why the AMD patent 934,123.22 is not the same as Intel patent
1-1,000,000*(each year intel has ben making chips)
well, you get the picture. they have millions of patents to go through, it's expected some of the dumber ones make it through the cracks.
We need look no further than our good friend the Clipper chip for a good example of government created prior art that is covered by this patent.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Encryption is only for terrorists. Therefore, everyone who encrypts is a terrorist. The RIAA is trying to get A LOT of things encrypted. So the RIAA is made up of A LOT of terrorists.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Prior art is something you have to declare in your patent filing, I believe. You have to say what things, if any, are similar to this (the idea is to put your discovery in perspective for the reviewer)
If they can show you LIED on the prior art section... your patent can be overturned.
Also.. prior art means prior PATENTS that are similar.
He uses 'storage level encryption' in the way he wrote in mirror image.
the patent on patents themselves.
could I not enter in a patent on legal documentation providing the holder of said documents protection against competing entities who wish to develop similar products to the holders.
since they'll never find the prior art in this matter, my patent will be granted, thus rending all other patents and the USPTO totally powerless...!
nah, that's just silly talk.
This is a wake up call. This is the most fucked up thing to come out of a fucked up patent office.
This is not fucked up just because it indicates that the USPTO is incompetent. As someone else has said, this patent indicates that the USPTO is not doing a poor job, it is doing NO job.
That means that shysters like this company can be granted a patent and embark on the typical shyster lawsuit strategy: small fry first, maybe some bigger game later, and of course ignore the big game because the big game will eat them and their entire families.
Let's sum up. This company with this bogus patent is nothing but a racket, a group of hoodlums, a pack of criminals hoping to make a quick score. Either than, or they are criminally stupid. And the USPTO is abetting the criminally stupid by failing to do anything remotely resembling their job.
They're all part of a big family by the name of Mud that keeps on gettin bigger.
I'm going to get a patent on granting bad patents, then sue the PTO. :)
"It sure was strange to see something on Usenet about me that didn't involve Klingon gang rape." -- Wil Wheaton
It's easy to come on /. and complain about how the patent system sucks. If you want to have a real effect in changing how the 'system' works, maybe you'd like a career there?
The US patent system is completely broken
and plain fucking stupid.
Can't they see this.
Why don't I just patent you take a pill
and it reverses aging?
Then when it happens, I can start suing.
Stupid. Stupid . Stupid.
I bet the US patent office would shape up really quick if they were liable for all the court costs companies incur defending themselves from hogwash like this.
It's painfully obvious the patent office is not going to change their ways after seeing patent after patent issued without checking for prior art. Perhaps a way around that would be to push for a law that would require a "quiet period" for filing lawsuits related to the patent following the issuance of a patent. How long did this company wait after receiving the patent before filing the lawsuit, a couple of weeks?
When a company (or person) receives a patent, they have to wait at least 1 year before dragging anyone into court related to that patent. That will give the court of public opinion (slashdot) time to find and point out the mistake to the patent office and hopefully they will make amends.
Believe in things of which no person has ever learned
Seems like the Patent Office is issuing more and more BAD PATENTS, and more and more people / companies / groups are adversely affected.
May I know if there's any possibility to sue the Patent Office for its MISCONDUCT (to say the least) in granting all these STUPID and BAD, BAD patents ?
In other words, the Patent Office needs to be ACCOUNTABLE for the actions (and/or mistakes) they have done.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Does anybody remember KOH (potassium hydroxide) virus? It was a boot sector program that would IDEA encrypt your hard disks and floppies. It was also set up so that if you take an encrypted floppy to a "uninfected" computer, a simple dir a: would then set up encryption (at a y/n prompt). Of if that is just considered a "user level app", how about CFS for linux?
Or StegFS?
Or even NTFS (as an earlier poster well... umm posted)?
What about a container partition (ScramDisk).
Oh well.. I guess there's no prior art.
I am going to file a patent on patenting prior art and taking legal action.
I'm going to be rich!
Of course if that doesn't work I can write a book
HOWTO: File a patent on prior art and take legal action.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
> other companies with it's lawyers to press it's claims.
So it is going after other companies with it is lawyers to press it is claims??
At least patents don't last until 95 years after the inventors death!
We should all be thankful that movies and music are more important than technology or this would be a really big problem.
I challenge, name a recent law that does much other than channel money to lawyers.
Doesn't that suck. When they can't mod you offtopic, they mod you troll. When they can't mod you troll, they mod you overrated. And it goes on...
Someone hurry up and patent "windowing" in software GUIs.
The US Patent & Trademark Office is basically a rubber-stamp operation these days because there is no incentive for an examiner to deny an invalid patent. Conversely, patent examiners have every incentive to grant patents without serious review and simply let the bad patents be litigated by private parties. If memory serves, neither the examiner nor the USPTO can be held liable for granting bogus patents without proof that the examiner or USPTO acted with actual malice towards the plaintiff in granting the patent - practically speaking, an impossible standard to meet.
I'm not anti-patent per se - I believe they serve their constitutional purpose in certain circumstances - but I do think that if left unchecked, the current US patent regime will ultimately lead to the same sort of industrial consolidation and resultant economic stagnation that Japan has been experiencing for over a decade. Patents aren't the only or even the main factor that has led Japan to its current situation, of course, but their patent system coupled with incestuous cross-licensing relationships within and among Japan's keiretsu has all but eliminated start-ups and smaller enterprises, particularly in high-tech industry, while the larger IT firms have become moribund from lack of competition (see NEC, Hitachi).
Just my opinions, of course.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
BFD.
Go read it here
The Register is reporting that a Californian firm, Maz Technologies has been granted
Missing comma before "has".
a patent for application independant file encryption,
"independent"
and is now going after other companies with it's lawyers
"its"
to press it's claims.
"its"
It seems that the US patent office doesn't check very well for prior art, and their laxity is causing small firms that get attacked on infringing these bad patents a lot of money to defend themselves
"Causing them a lot of money"?
Good grief, this guy is illiterate enough to be a Slashdot editor.
Someone should set up an "Anti-Patent" website. A place where people can submit ideas, algorithms etc that they DON'T want to see patented - basically, a formal way of establishing the public domain.
A trust-worthy date stamp on each "anti-patent" would establish what was "prior art" and what was not.
Whereas broad patents are difficult to get accepted, broad "anti-patents" would be accepted easily.
This would make it easier for the patent guys (and defendents) to determine what was "prior art" and what was not.
Fewer patents = fewer patent problems
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
"It's" --> "It is"
"Its" --> Possessive
it's is a contraction of "it is", all other uses are "its".
Sloppy spelling=sloppy code
i fail to see how this comment gets modded up but my good friend cscx is modded down for having a perfectly ontopic, funny post, that many would enjoy to read at even +4. out of around 70 comments this is the best one and that is pathetic.
the moderators are clearly biased onto who they give their points to. they probably have at least 2 karma whore accounts and mod each other up constantly.
the moderation system needs serious work and fast, before the great slashdot blackout happens. this post will be much much better than the posts made during the blackout. well, don't say i didn't warn you rob "cmdrtaco" malda.
The irritating part is the USPO knows it has problems but seemingly refuses to do anything.
I remember seeing an interview with the head of the office a while ago, and he reacted to this exact criticism by insisting it was OUR (yours and mine) fault for not bringing prior art to their attention.
1.) A giant big smoking hole where the office used to be would be a good start.
2.) Realistically, after firing all current employees for sheer incompetence, hire new ones at much higher salaries. Make their performance conditional on *not approving* patents. The more rejections for prior art or being obvious, the more pay the examiner is given. Companies should also be liable for bad patents. A company could forfeit over 10% of its assets for a patent granted that was either obvious or prior art.
This should stop parasites like Rambus in their tracks.
3.) Remove patent protection entirely for "business methods" and software patents, and sharply reduce all patent terms to 5 yr terms, which can be renewed only 4 times maximum. The companies now have to show their R&D cost for developing the patent, and once their is a profit made the patent cannot be renewed again.
The price for increasing the length of the patents
increases, doubling every time it is renewed.
4.) In general, prevent indefinite extension of copyright and patents. This means that anyone will be able to market Mickey Mouse etc.
Since there's most probably prior-art for this patent, I wonder if the companies being pursued could file suit against the PTO to recover defense costs if it is indeed found that the patent is invalid.
Maybe then the PTO would actually start doing its work instead of pretending to....
AC comments get piped to
This type of thing is typical of the Federal government as a whole. And people feel safe now that the feds are screening luggage at airports, approving student visas for DEAD terrosts....
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ahrpa/opa/kids /kidprimer.html
There are no age restrictions on applying for a patent, but only the true inventor is entitled to a patent.
The only way to get Congress' attention is either buy buying some attention (beaucoup bucks, [don't worry about soft money bans. They'll find someother loophole. After all they wrote the damn legislation,]) or stating a patent on something they might actually CARE about. (That leaves YOU out, that's for sure.)
Like the patenting ability to use the words "Yea" and "Nay" to record assent or dissent with a statement or perhaps the the passing of legislation for the purposes of levying taxes to pay for expernses without visibly providing any actual services...
Then you should duck real quick because the military will be shooting and they won't be blanks.
Don't worry about find a lawyer who'll do it. (Like who would be that stupid and self destructive/defeating?) Look under any rock, behind any ambulance or in the bark of dying trees. There's sure to be some form of slug or parasite. I know plenty of lawyers. Some of my most worthless relatives are pond scum, uh, lawyers.
Lawyers are ALL that stupid. When the achieve brain death, they run for office so they can pass more laws "for other people."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This patent is too wide-scoped for mere "private companies". Huge corporations have OS-independant encryption. They have the money to fund this sort of lawsuit. Hell, they have more money than the government, since they are the ones paying off the government for this sort of thing anyway.
Zodiac Survey
The claims of this patent seem to be limited to the situation where there is an application client
Take GNU Emacs for example.
and a backend "Document Management System" (DMS)
Any file system.
in which there is a crypto module
File system encryption module.
intervenes when a file-save command or the like is issued from the client
fopen() in glibc.
which then encrypts the data with an appropriate key
Encrypted block driver.
hands off control to the DMS.
return from the block driver to the filesystem to libc to the app.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Apple has OS level encryption in the 9.2.2 finder if I'm not mistaken.
I work as a draftsman. My name goes on every drawing that I do. The very least that should be done is to subject the examaner who failed on this to public humiliation. If they think the patent is good let us see their name and the name of his/her boss while we are at this.
I would love to put a face to this farce.
Does this mean that the module will encrypt memory allocated application that is saving?
The USPTO problem is the forced "Affirmitive Action" new hires.
They have actively sought to double the number of Black Females on the work roles and especially in the examiners office.
It does not take too much imagination to see the consequences of poor hiring practices that ignore aptitude and experience.
People seem to hate the facts.
Would it be possible for a number of small firms that have lost a lot of money and time wasted over these lawsuits produced by the Patent Office's lack of care in looking for prior art to actually take a class action lawsuit against the Patent Office? Perhaps, they could try and prove loss of wealth and try and prove that the Patent Office is failing?
Just a thought, yes I know its an expense to do..But just wondered.
StarTux
Claim 1 of Patent 6,185,681 seems very similar to:
A Cryptographic File System for Unix by Matt Blaze (1993)
http://www.crypto.com/papers/cfs.pdf
Design and Implementation of a Transparent Cryptographic File System for
Unix (1996)
http://www.tcfs.it/docs/tcfs.ps
Linux Journal Issue 40: TCFS: Transparent Cryptographic File System
(August 1997)
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2174
It's always sad to see companies decide to focus more on their legal prosecutions than on their technology. I think legal actions is fine if you have a valid, specific patent, but enforcing patents on broad concepts like this is ridiculous, and can only harm the industry in the long run.
...you know, that deal where you place some real effort into a task and get money in exchange? But they are not interested in that, oh noooo....lets just get all law suit happy. Some people should have gotten spanked a few times as kids.
Need prior art proof? What about the US Military. Doesn't their encoding and decoding of messages they sent as far back as WWII fall under this patent? It was transferred over an electronic medium. (Even though it was only to convert it to RF.) Too far fetched? What about Mr. Walker from the '80s? What was it he was taking from that boat again?? Oh yea! KEYCODES HE WAS SELLING TO THE USSR! Wait, that's send a document over an electronic medium too...
Idiots.
-TDA-
It's fucking sad, we have a bunch of government agencies that are incapable of doing their jobs, a group of CEO's that are incapable of comprenending morality, moms and dads that get their info from the twisted mass media, sisters and brothers that are too twisted on X, MTV, religion, whatever, to see or even care about the asteroid that almost hit the earth a couple of days ago.... Let alone understand the problems with patent law.
I say it's time for us all to give up. There's no point to talk about this kind of shit. The only people who are capable of making a judgement on this kind of stuff are high court judges. No one else cares. Most are incapable of even understanding.
"C" is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
Read about here
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
I've looked and looked and can't find the constants for Excel's SaveAs function - Specifically FileFormat (it's the 2nd parameter).
SaveAs(filename, fileformat,,,,,,)...
Anyone know where to get them?
Not necessarely. A small company might not fight back because of cost. A large company might not because it can easily pay the royalties, and pass the cost. Sounds like a win win for the patent holder.
I think there should be a 2,6 or even a year long wait on patents...once they're approved by the patent office, put up a web site for each patent. When someone goes to the site who knows of prior art or some other problem with the patent, that person simply types in what's wrong, hits submit. The patent office reads that person's claim, does research for what had been claimed wrong, and can reject the patent upon that.
Then the patent office can afford to get rid of some people....the industry is responsible for keeping care of its own patents...copm sci people scan through the comp sci patents, engineers scan through the engineering patents in their field every now and then...etc. etc.
though, then again, maybe there're just too many patents being filed for this to help much...
References please?
What would happen if every single small company that was threatened simply refused to show up in court if sued? Instead, just send in a form letter stating that the patent is total and complete BS and then list every other company that has been simultaneously sued and subsequently refused to go to court for the same reason. Technically, that's probably contempt of the court or something, but at some point this nonsense has to stop simply because it is hurting small tech companies. Call it the.. uh.. Boston Patent Party or something. (-: IANAL and this is neither legal advice nor personal recommendation.
"Second, the patent goes out of its way to define "electronic document management system." You can't ignore its definition and just say that it's synonymous with "any file system.""
Of course you can. How well you succeed depends on how you define a "managment system" that can as either a main, or a side benifit deal with "electronic documents". This is either a tight or a loose fit depending on the filesystem of course. The MAC with resourse forks for example.
"In general, prevent indefinite extension of copyright and patents. This means that anyone will be able to market Mickey Mouse etc."
Or one could say "Mickey Mouse(tm)" is a trademark and get around that.
I did system level encryption in 1978 on the mainframe VM/CMS system. Under the CMS component, which ran in a virtual machine, all I/O was done through an interface known as SVC 202 . This interface was used for modular execution of both external (a file) and internal functions. I wrote a program in assembly language which first ran in what was known as the "transient area". This program then allocated memory on a permanent basis, and copied part of itself there. That part was written in relocateable assembly code (was not hard to do in S/370 assembler). It then substituted the SVC interrupt vector with its own, and intercepted all SVC instruction traps. The intercept handler was now in control and the program did a graceful exit, but without deallocating the memory. This was similar to the DOS TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) feature. The intercept handler checked for SVC traps being code 202. If not, it passed them on to the original SVC handler in CMS. If it was 202, then it checked for the request name for reading and writing. If that matched, it then checked to see if it was a file to be encrypted (writing) or decrypted (reading). CMS had disk letter/number combinations added to each file, and I allowed the program to be told to use either a letter (specific disk) or number (file mode) to be matched to indicate that the file was encrypted. It them modified the buffer appropriately before (writing) or after (reading) the system function completed. The net effect was the ability to have selected files, or a whole disk, encrypted. All native CMS programs, and some OS/VS/MVS emulated programs, would successfully do I/O through this encryption system. I was able to edit a Fortran program, save it, and compile it with the Fortran G compiler, and subsequently run it. I placed a call to my encryption facility in a script called "PROFILE EXEC A1" which made it run every time I logged in. It prompted me for the key, which was a string that was hashed to construct the encryption vector for the algorithm I used (which is probably terribly insecure today).
I was a student at Ohio University at the time. A group of us were "hackers" (and at times did a little cracking, too). All the disk space was partition-like slices on big (in the physical sense, about the size of a small washing machine) hard drives shared with a lot of other people. The computer center administrators could easily spy on any user's disk space. So this was used as a means to keep nosey people out. About 3 months after I started regularly using this, I was summoned to the office of the Director of Academic Affairs at the computer center. I was told by Dr. Craig Farrar that he was aware that I was encrypting my files, and that this was against computer center and university policy. He gave me a copy of the policy. He was at least an honest man, and also told me it was a brand new policy adopted specifically because I was encrypting my files. He then told me I had 2 days to unencrypt all files before the disk space would be entirely erased. I simply backed up most of them to a private tape, removed it, and unencrypted a few remaining files and deleted the rest. I never used the program again.
When the PC came out with DOS, and I learned of TSR, I thought about that program, and thought I'd like to do the same thing again. I didn't at that time because I didn't make the committment to learn x86 assembly, and didn't have a suitable C compiler at the time. So a DOS version, unfortunately, never actually happened. However, I did see among some shareware on a BBS, around 1989, a description of a program that did exactly that. Unfortunately for that program, at that time I was doing the Amiga thing. Hopefully someone can track down that program.
When I moved to Texas in 1993, I left all my old mainframe tapes (about 120 of them by then) behind. I had gotten hooked on Linux and swore to never use a mainframe again, so I had them discarded. Now I wish I had them back, because I could now run them on Linux using emulators ... after I figured out how to get stuff off those old tapes.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I saw this on sci.crypt today and my interest was piqued in that I am currently trying to shoot down another bogus patent (that's another story). Anyway, I looked up the patent, U.S. 6,185,681 (Zizz) and specifically checked out the Examiner's name and the Asst. Examiner's name to see if either one was the same dull-witted wonk who "examined" the patent I'm otherwise researching.
Now the goddamned USPTO is slashdotted so I can't get those names for you right now, but they were different names for both the Examiner and the Asst. Examiner. So now we have at least 4 clueless fucknuts working at the USPTO. I'm willing to bet they're the tip of the iceberg. *sigh
Also check out this article on patent strategies of japanese companies. I do not claim to be a scholar here and freely concede that mmy posts are not scholarly works. That said, they do derive from the cumulative impact of articles I have read in a variety of sources over the years. I invite you to do some more research yourself to dispute my view - indeed, a quick google search reveals plenty of B-school theses fawning over the Japanese tendency towards cross-licensing to the extent that it permits more than one company to extract monopoly rents from a market, though I would dispute (again, admittedly without my own body of scholarly work) the assumption that this is a good thing from a macroeconomic perspective. If anything, I think this would reinforce my point, but since nobody (that I've found) has directly studied the impact of cross-licensing on companies excluded from the "club," as it were, I cannot provide you with an online reference directly supporting my proposition wrt stifling of innovation.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
It seems to me that everyone wants a knowledgable patent office that can understand (most) technologies that come into it's office.
I think that what will happen is that companies and individuals will get fed up with the system and change it. Eventually, patents will be almost non-existant because the system will require PROOF of non-prior art, other than the current model, which only hints at the notion.
I'll agree that this is getting out of hand and anyone who claims a patent and files a suit against any company, should have to PAY for ALL legal fees of BOTH parties, if they want to pursue the patent.
This would keep folks like the idiot here from filing, getting and then pursuing a lawsuit for the patent he was given.
my 0.02 cents
What about Microsoft's Encrypted File System, built-in to Windows 2000? It's a transparent encryption/decryption process trapped by a EFS driver right above the I/O system, built into NTFS 5. Wouldn't this technology be subject to this patent?
How about this idea. File those patents. "Codeing Methodology for the discovering of Directory Structures for data stored in an Electronic form" (ls dir etc) Then.... give the patent to the FSF. Yep give it to them. This puts the patent in the public domain,sort of. Then it will do two things. One ensure ridiculous patents don't get filled (since you filled first and can sue the pants off of them.) and two, it give the FSF a source of revenue. Just a thought.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
With all the patents that the patent office fails to check, couldn't they be held liable if a non-valid patent goes thru and is used to sue a company out of existence?
I would think it would be possible for the company that lost due to an invalid patent to sue the patent office for wrongful conduct due to their own screwup which can be proven to have screwed up many times before.
Having been patent examiner in the European Patent Office from 1991-1997 I am completely disillusioned by the system; be it in US or EU. It was meant to help the little inventor but has been turned into one of the main weaponry for the multis to fend competition off. What we experience here is a case of many to come: investors started a few years ago to file for ridiculous, general stuff. For the sole purpose to be able one day to present their bills in case the ridiculous is being granted. Try to get a huge portfolio of patents covering a good deal of everyday-life-stuff; pay a lot for it; but finally sue unsuspicious Tom and Harry for royalties! I'd like to see the patent (which US-does it have?), because US law demands the applicant to cite the best prior art available to him. (EPO law does not.) If you can *prove* he didn't, you can file for throwing it it (it is difficult, though). Or just finding a relevant document published in time identifying precisely the same concept (USPTO is usually leniant in granting for microscopic inventiveness. That is, if you cannot attack the novelty, be prepared to spend a fortune. I'm sure, one day they'll come sfter OpenSource as well; especially those who now start to charge. Does anyone know the current case law for infringement if you distribute the patented stuff for free?? In earlier days, that had been really difficult!
That franchise has already been awarded.
--Incompetence has never been in short supply--
Clearly, there are no "Einsteins" in the patent office :)
What I am far more worried about is the European patent office. Unlike the American counterpart, the European one is funded based principly on it's own revenues from patent applications. Certainly they have every reason and incentive to encourage both the filing and granting of patents no matter how poor they are.
Whoa, someone actually tried to validate an opinon. Now if you would just provide some links to this experiment, and we will provide some peer review. Otherwise, I am tempted to dismiss this as just another frost pist.
Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
I (grub.net Industries) have been granted a patent on:
"Voluntarily moderated muscle ring for the controlled
expulsion of solid and semi-solid waste from the posterior
opening of the alimentary canal."
Please note that I claim immediate control of all such devices. grub.net Industries' team of highly paid lawyers will station in all hospital delivery rooms to receive our license fee from the parents before the child first uses our product.
If you have been using said product without paying our license fee please note that you are in direct violation of patent law and may be held liable for damages.
You are ordered to cease use of The Product immediately until said license fee ($100 at birth, 25 cents per use thereafter) to grub.net Industries.
Thank you for your time.
Trolling is a art,
Ibm has had system level encrypion happening for over 8 years that I know of, probably longer, with hardware supporting the encryption so that it was totally transparent to the user. All this demonstrates is that the patent process itself is dead, and unenforceable. Anything they approve/disapprove is just random junk. Welcome to the 21st Century. How do we regulate technology that is diverging in so many directions so rapidly?
Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?
IANAL, and I'm taking the article at face value, but assuming the issue really is this cut and dried, could the companies that are being threatened sue the USPTO for negligence or dereliction of duty? It seems that a patent on encryption technology, submitted in 1998, that mentioned no other encryption system, is obviously flawed. If the USPTO let such a patent claim through, as I see it, the only explanation is that they are failing to perform due dilligence. Is that not their legal duty?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
What about Prior Art ?? - As long as I was with the EPO at least, I'm proud to say, "we" were better / stricter than USPTO. I surely remember some cases, but cannot mention those here.
Sure, EPO is self-funded and needs applications. But "we" always had more than enough. On the other hand, US policy in general is more business-focused and business-friendly. Even more: like DoJ seems to side with M$ to keep it running ("World Domination"), my impression was USPTO grants patents with preference to US companies ("conquer the world market" / "keep foreign products out").
Decide for yourself, which is worse!
Now, if anyone, ever asks the stupid question about why software patents are bad, this is one hell of a example.
Think aout it, a lot of people have been working on THIS since 1998 only to have someone come to them 4 years later and tell them that they can't continue since it's now a patented idea.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
More than 10 years ago I worked for a company that produced an ISA card that DES encrypted the entire disk transparently to any OS that used the BIOS calls. We also had drivers for SCO Unix that allowed any file system to be encrypted. Our system was used by private corporations, the FBI, Delta Force (which according to a guy named Major Harrington doesn't exist, and never to to ship packages Attn: Delta Force, Fort Bragg), and several other governmental agencies.
Barring the fact that DES is no longer considered unbreakable, the card rendered the HD in a system unrecoverable without the card installed. *Every* sector was encrypted, including the boot sector. To gain access, you had to enter a user name and password (similiar to a BIOS password) when the machine started. After 3 failed attempts, the machine had to be power cycled to try again (to prevent keyboard spoofing attacks).
At one time, if I recall correctly, we had a contest for a high stakes prize if anyone defeated the system. Several universities attempted it, and all failed.
This system was considered the ultimate in security until the 386 machines started appearing on the market. Because of the CPU cache, it became possible with some sophisticated trickery to defeat the system.
If anyone feels this information is relevant to this patent, and can *seriously* use additional information (this product is not a current product, so please don't ask where you can buy one), please feel free to contact me at the above email address.
I know little to nothing about patent processes, but I believe this definitely constitutes prior art.
In the Fall 1978 DECUS RSX SIG Tapes, Glenn Everhart published, with docs, binaries, and sources, a complete encrypting virtual disk for RSX11D. This was (and is, over at trailing-edge.com) available to anyone. He published a VMS version in the mid 1980s, though by then there were others on the market. The 1978 driver had numerous additional access control features (RSX made it pretty easy to tell who was making requests, even at driver level) but could encrypt either with something that was just an xor with a key (for speed) or a kinda-sorta-like-DES algorithm that was way slower. It was not full DES because at that time the FIPS publication was just published and the author had not had ready access to a copy of the standard when coding. The encrypting disk built on an earlier virtual disk written to allow one to emulate RT11 physical disks under RSX, but was intended and documented as a way to achieve encrypted storage for code that had not been designed to do so. The driver made its virtual disk look like any other disk on the system, so that by assigning it as the device for a program to use (RSX allowed external controls of this) encrypted storage could be achieved.
Commercial products often are not called "prior art" because they are not fully published. This was a PUBLICATION, in full and complete with implementation, in 1978, available to anyone who asked for it. The product and so on were given away free (as were the later VMS ones) as public domain products.
Obviously the patent office didn't bother looking at DECUS library publications or their mirrors on the net (which appeared much later). The sigtapes were distributed by a tree of volunteers to all who asked for them, and later made available here and there as archives of old stuff. Users of RSX11D would have had little trouble back in 1978 or thereabouts getting hold of this code. Bit rot on the old 9 tracks has reduced the number of copies still extant, so trailing-edge had some difficulty getting a complete set of the RSX sigtapes which were published from fall 1977 through about 1992. They did manage though, and have them online.
I hate to say this, but M$ may be on our side on this one. They are damaged by the patent (I vaguely recall having encrypted filesystem as an option when I tried to put win2k on a VMWare system), and they certainly have the money to squish this Maz Technologies like a bug.
You would think... but with the utter nonsense Fritz Hollings and company would like to see law - to the tune of regulating all hardware and software - including open source, I think you better start looking for heros elsewhere
What is comes down to is the US Congress is nothing but a bunch of lawyers who represent the interest of - lawyers. The government is *encouraging* this behavior (they can't help it - it's in their blood) and would never act to stop it.
While secret use cannot be used to negate a patent, it can, in fact, be used to steal a patent. In the US, patent rights go to the first to invent, not the first to patent.
that is some what accurate. examiners can use almost anything with a few restrictions.
most people don't realize thatthe amount of time that the examiner has to dedicate to each case is fairly limited.
it also doesn't help that with respect to patent literature, there isn't nearly as much available in the software realm as there is to hardware.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
actualy im a patent examiner and he is correct.
if you are the inventor of the application, yes your own work can't be held against you, but you can only declare priority for your applicaton for up to one year before it was filed.
it gives you an incentive to file earlier.
an examiner can use nearly anything to reject a patent claim. ive used page pages and even a video game screenshot.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Yesterday I received final approval on my patent for including an encryption/decryption device in a box of cereal.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
What I don't understand is: why doesn't at least one of these smaller companies find a way to sue the Patent and Trademark Office for not doing sufficient background checks, and therefore creating opportunity for these patent suits to begin with?
It seems to me that the PTO is liable for the damages smaller (and bigger!) companies face. After all, if the PTO did its job, the suits wouldn't be happening.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Enigma
PS: of-course German government is not US government but it is a government still...
You can't handle the truth.
Brilliant - I'm in the process of forming a company with a product range partly involving application & OS independent file encryption (albeit on Handhelds so got to read their patent)...
Why can't the bloody dickheads check for prior art and then tell MAZ to go and play with their train set somewhere else...
Rant over.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
is sort of generic patent-lawyer BS, tossed into anything with the hope of grabbing as much long-term IP as possible. The guy probably pasted most of it from a standard crib-sheet
I wrote a Linux loop driver to do what this patent claims, and can proove it was prior to the date this patent was submitted. I based my work on the work of others that had done similar (I had improved upon it), so the date would be even earlier.
I just sent PC Dynamics a note wrt this silly patent. I hope they have the resources to defeat it.
All organisations, whether a large corporation or a federal office, eventually fall behind the times. This appears to have happened (although certainly not suddently) with the US Patent Office. A major re-structing and often a major re-thinking of the organisation's practices and direction is necessary.
The USPO needs to get with the times. They need to hire a panel of experts and outside consultants to act as the "devil's advocates" for all high-tech patent claims. This is necessary, because the USPO as it is today seems competely unable to find prior art, and this is resulting in a great number of ridiculous patent awards such as this one.
Perhaps the USPO would wake up if it washeld financially responsible? If a court throws out a new patent (based on obvious prior art) the first time that the owners of it try to use it to attack other companies (like is happening here), then that company and the USPO would share in the financial responisibity for the court costs of the defendants. That would make the USPO think twice about granting stupid patents.
Perhaps while they are at it, they should re-think the notion that patents encourage technological development. A good debate would make us feel better about whatever the outcome of it is.
Why not directly sue Microsoft, Sun, HP, IBM? Somewhere along the line one of these companies offered system level encryption.
Or maybe this dinky unknown company saw a way to squeeze money out of little companies who they thought couldn't afford to fight back?
You answered your own question.
To get the most mileage out of a patent, law, etc. that can be applied many times:
- First sue/prosecute a little guy with negligable resources and (if applicable) a bad reputation or history. (For censorship laws, for instance, start with a kiddie pornographer before going after Playboy.)
- With your precedent established, work your way up to deeper pockets and more reputable defendants.
That way you get the most convictions and (if applicable) the most money before somebody manges to spike you - if anybody manages to spike you at all.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Couldn't these companies turn around and sue the patent office? After all, if the patent office had no liability whatsoever, why would they bother checking against any patents or prior art at all?
-... ---
Why don't some of these companies getting nailed for infringement start a class action lawsuit against the patent office for failing to do their job. Seems to me the patent office by not doing proper prior art searches is causing damage to these companies that are being sued as a result of a bad patent being issued. It's time to attack the source of the problem.
But i find it unlikely that whatever secret government agency discovered it will: - want a patent - go forth and disclose sensitive info in court to get that patent.
Good job and good luck.
it doesn't take a business process analyst to figure out that not only is that process stupid and costs more in terms of quality and productivity... but more importantly that it is a symptom and indicator of the bigger problem, which is stupid (as in willfull stupidity and complacency) decision makers. Their technological tools are horrid as well, and attempts to make them better where faced with three issues. First was the stupid classification and decision process that would need to be coded in. Next was stupid people who demanded that it be hard coded in and specified certain technologies in order to do it (yeah, we MUST have Oracle... duh! why don't you let ME see if Oracle is the right solution dumbass, that IS what you are paying me for right?) then finally they had to put up with stupidity in general by the decision makers. Example: let us take 3 months to deliberate over your latest submittal for the requirements as you understand it. Our response will be a jumbled over fluffed 18 syllable minimum a word piece of unintelligable garbage that says NOTHING and does not address the problem and request... yet this 30 - 100 page document's release MUST be commented on by Monday morning... oh yeah, we will not release it till Lunch on Friday.
Basically the problem is all around stupidity there. However a good technological solution would at least be a step in the right direction, but you can never get to that point with idiots in place.
So, bugs permitting, the prior art may well be widespread - see: http://www.avp.ch/avpve/boot/koh.stm
The encryption algorithm used is IDEA, I believe.
Steff
This is an example of why I believe that the current patent system is so broken that we'd be better off without any patent system.
It sure isn't my top priority, but I would find myself hard pressed to vote for any politician that said a good word in favor of patents. This despite the fact that there do exist quite reasonable patents, and a decent patent system would actually strenghten the country (though it would always be quite dangerous: always remember that a patent is a kind of government approved monopoly. It can't be made safe. That's a part of the reason that it was made temporary.)
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
"We can't think of something original, so we'll
sue other people for us using THEIR idea."
This is why I'm pro open-source. They don't care
about this crap.
Re Step 425, "Crypto Server Traps Event", Grail said, There is a catch here - perhaps you could argue that, in order to be covered by this patent, the crypto package would have to intercept the "File/Save" event before that event actually got to the application. You are correct. They are trapping when the user selects "save" from the application menu, NOT when the file is written to disk.
They probably meant to say that the system intercepted reads/writes to particular files on the filesystem. That's how SafeHouse (the product they're suing) does it. Oh well, too late to change the patent now. <g>
I also liked
Step 420: Command is translated into an event.
Waddaya mean translated? Modern operating systems handle this as an event by default.
Step 430: Should document be encrypted?
Funny that this decision seems to be made without interaction from the user. In other words, the user doesn't decide which documents are or are not encrypted. (at least not at run time).
The description of the technology in the patent is vague enough that I wonder if they had actually implemented this at the time. Oh, another funny thing... Maz Technology doesn't seem to have a product that does what this patent claims to do. Hmm.... You're not allowed to patent someone else's invention. <g>
Maz does have this product called IntelliGuard, which has a great marketing description, but to me the description seems rather... lite. I wonder if they've actually implemented anything even now. (It also claims to provide an infinite number of customer's options. At least they got the infinity problem licked.)
-gh
DISCLAIMER: this post is a statement of opinion and not of fact. (Just in case any laywers are reading...)
For the full text of the patent, visit USPTO Search Page and enter the patent number 6185681.
See also a sci.crypt discussion on google groups
As the guy that is the accused infringer in all of this...I can tell you the biggest problem of all is the cost to mount a defense - even when you are totally convinced (as are your peers) that you are in the right. I can understand that software patents are hard to review...so maybe we should back down on granting them. It really has gotten to the point where a lot of patents are granted not because of outright genuity on the part of the inventor - but on who wrote up an application first, no matter how common the concept is. I use the word "common" instead of "simple" because even complex issues may well have common or obvious solutions simply because an experienced developer will always find a way to code something up to achieve the required result. I went through this exact same thing in 1994 with a patent granted to somebody for putting a logo in software. Strange but true. So it was then claimed my Energizer Bunny screen saver infringed. I had a license to use the bunny, but the patent owner claimed that by having it dash across the screen, I was infringing. After getting a bunch of articles published about the problem, Bruce Lehman issued an executive order to reexam/invalidate the patent. Still, it cost me a pile of dollars and nearly put me out of business. The owner had sent letters to my software distributors accusing them of contributory patent infringement -- so they dropped me and my sales went to zero overnight. Fortunately for me, both then and now, the patents I've been accused of infringing have been so broad that they hit close to home for many people, so getting attention has not been too difficult. But what about patents with a more narrow scope? Even if 4 out of 5 programmers and dentists agree that there is prior art or the idea is just totally obvious, the guy playing defense doesn't have a chance. The initial legal retainer alone is typically $25-50K or more. The last time I went through this my lawyer said even a slam dunk victory would cost over 100K+ just to go through the motions. Peter
What's even sadder is that nobody seems to have noticed that your "good friend" cscx totally ripped off The Onion and tried to pass it off as his own. Maybe when he writes something original he'll get modded up.
Why can't they be sued for the damages and any costs of lawyers/lawsuits themselves? If that would be possible, and if it could be stuck to some persons (and not some business that isn't anymore anyway) then people would think twice before risking their own ruin with those patent scams. Also their own lawyers should be the last in the line to collect any outstanding payments, that way they could only hire lawyers who believed that the patent was at least half valid.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks