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McAfee Granted Far-Reaching Spam-Control Patent
Titusdot Groan writes "Infoworld is reporting that Network Associates, makers of McAfee, have been granted a broad anti-spam patent. The patent covers "compound filters, paragraph hashing, and Bayes rules" and was filed in December of 2002. The patent appears to affect Spam Assassin, Spam Bayes and many other anti-spam products and services. As an aside Paul Graham's "A Plan for Spam" was published August 2002."
Lots of prior art on this one. The USPTO never does their homework anyways.
All you holier than thou EU people should show this to your reps as a great example of the kind of crap that shouldn't be patentable.
IANAL, but isn't that a proof of "prior usage" and makes the patent invalid?
Another question: Can somebody explain me why the "logo" for this article on Slashdot is "fork, knife and spoon" (in German we call it "Besteck" but I know that the english language has no equivalent for it)? Just curious about that... :-)
All this patent will accomplish is it will give McAfee legal right to knock everyone else's products in the dirt, while they try to push their own. If their antispam product is anything like their antivirus, their product will suck. Net result - everyone will lose, except the spammers who will keep doing their thing while McAfee screws everone else out of making effective solutions.
The US patent office is becoming as bad as the US legal system that allows you to sue anyone at any time for any reason. *shakes head in disgust*
A love beyond compare...
They got the patent which means lots of lawyers fees to straighten it out. So, the question is...who is going to stop them?
It probubally won't be an open source system. Needs to be someone with lots-o-money.
Evolution or ID?
It seems that there is prior art to this patent, but it might not matter. This patent could be used by NAI to lock out others filtering spam.
Let's hope they do.
It would signal the end of e-mail. That would be sad, seeing how it has served us well for so long. But in the end, a new system for e-mail is all but unavoidable anyway. Currently, instant messengers, online "contact us" forms and forums are replacing e-mail's functionality for more and more users every day that goes by.
To a certain extent that isn't such a bad thing, really.
Yes, most IM systems lock you into some vendor, they're not open, forum contributions and the like aren't as easily forwarded and sorted as e-mail, etc. But in the end, all those systems will catch up. Let's not forget that some of the most useful new uses for e-mail are webbased; that the underlying technology is SMTP doesn't really matter to most people.
More and more people chose to use whitelists on their e-mail inboxes, akin to the whitelist approach of IM. It would be a better world if you didn't have to, but it's happening.
The end of e-mail (as we know it) appears to be nigh for many reasons. If it dies an ungracious death, it might as well be SPAM and software patents that kill off the killer application, as a warning to future generations. Or at least, to politicians.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
if there is only one vendor to get antispam products from then it becomes easier to get around its rules - because every spammer and cr4x0r in the world knows exactly which anti-spam product it is they need to focus on instead of trying to get around all of them.
spam sucks, so do software patents,
tinfoil sandals rule, imagine a beowulf cluster of these, all your antispam are belong to mcaffee
The US patent office is becoming as bad as the US legal system that allows you to sue anyone at any time for any reason. *shakes head in disgust*
Well, it's lawyers who file and handle the patents and lawyers that fight the patents. Maybe they are just setting themselves up for more business.
Evolution or ID?
McAfee is also one of the leading virus creation operations in the entire world. The Backdraft law applies to situations like this. If you've got a crazy arsonist burning down buildings, he's probably a fireman. If you've got tons of viruses being introduced into the wild, it's probably coming from an anti-virus company whose entire life depends on them existing and being a threat.
They should've patented the virus warning message instead. You know, when a virus/worm sends the server a copy of itself, and antivirus on the server returns a bounce saying the original message contains virus and has been removed/quarantined/whatever by Acme(TM) VirusNoMore 1.23.
I'm so pissed off by these messages. The antivirus maker _knows_ the Sender is faked. But they send it anyway. They're basically spammers!
If this is patented, then no other companies can use the same process, which is fine by me.
Whilst the InfoWorld article quotes '"To me this looks like a pretty broad patent," said Rob Tosti' it doesn't look as broad as the headlines suggest.
...
The key feature is in claim 1
"paragraph hashing by hashing a plurality of paragraphs and utilizing a database of hashes of paragraphs, wherein the paragraph hashing excludes at least one of a first paragraph and a last paragraph of content of the electronic mail messages wherein a plurality of hashes each has a level associated therewith, and the hashes having a higher level associated therewith are applied to the electronic mail messages prior to the hashes having a lower level associated therewith"
That's quite a tight restriction. If you're hashing the first and last paragraphs, for example, then you're in the clear! Of course this wouldn't stop them chasing you with a law-suit it would just mean you could be acquitted if you could afford to go the distance - [sarcasm] capitalism, I'm loving it!! [/sarcasm]
Also, I note that in the http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html article hashing is only used in terms of words [yeah tokens really, but who's being pedantic?]. Here the restriciton of the claims is to hashing paragraphs. If you're hashing words you're OK (previous disclaimer applies!).
That's not to say that I think they deserve a patent. Just that the knee-jerk - "this is hugely broad" - isn't really justified IMHO.
pbhj
- A pitifully lame patent office.
- 200 year copyright terms.
- The US's last election was rigged (at least the Florida portion of it was) and no one cared.
- The lying-est politicians ever known.
- A constitution that has no meaning, because not a single line of it hasn't been overruled.
- An obesity epidemic that is among the world's most severe.
There's a lot more, but I think that's enough for now.I'd bitch about the US more, but my own country (Canada) is trying to become the US as fast as it can. Who's the bigger loser -- the loser, or the loser who looks up to him? Oy, what a world.
Anyway, patents suck ass. Any potential they had for encouraging innovation has long since been swept away in a tide of greed and corruption. It's time for patents to go.
Flag me as a troll if you wish, but I would not say that, because they were awarded this patent after submitting it, they are necessarily a bad company. Let me explain:
We have no idea what they are going to do with this patent. If they don't enforce it, maybe they submitted it to protect themselves against a competitor doing the same thing and then trying to enforce it?
We will be able to say that McAfee is "bad" when, and only when, they try to enforce their newly awarded patent against anyone, because only then will we know that their intent was not legitimate protection of their business but rather destruction of other ones, be they for-profit or not.
I just noticed that in the 0.3 (initial) release of SpamAssassin, Justin Mason freely admits he based the idea on someone else's work. That's fine if you're in the free world, but since SA is apparently the basis for NAI's patent, wouldn't this be a problem? You know, other than all the other obvious prior art, and the ridiculousness of patenting an obvious idea.
Quoting:
SpamAssassin owes a lot of inspiration to Mark Jeftovic's filter.plx, http://AntiSpam.shmOOze.net/filter/ , which I contributed some code to. However, SpamAssassin is a ground-up rewrite with an entirely different ruleset, and a different code model and installation system.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
You do realize that it's illegal to do this, and if a single employee defecting(and lets face it, if they are malware creators, they will probably defect eventually) could result in arrests/massive fines.
They don't need to create viruses, there are enough people out there to do that allready.
Just goes to show you the US patent system is made for large corporates...
The description of using Bayes rules alone is hilarious. Firstly, there is no "Bayes rule" applicable to spam filtering. "Bayes rule" is a mathematical identity relating probabilities. What Bayesian filters do is set up a probabilistic model and calculate quantities using this rule.
An analogy would be to pick a few numbers and add them using the "plus rule". The value is entirely in what numbers you pick, and similarly with Bayesian filters, the value is entirely in what probabilistic models you pick.
But if you read (ok, I skimmed ;) the patent, it never explains any models at all, except to say that words have probabilities. Probabilities of what? How? Why? Again, it's like saying "we store numbers compatible with the plus rule".
This is so broad it's laughable. They might as well have patented statistics.
As an aside, this should definitely be brought to the attention of the European anti-patent people. Spam is a high profile case in the public mind, and it would be a great example of how patents stiffle the fight against spam. It shouldn't be difficult to set up demo systems with McAffee's spam filter versus the best open source spam filters on the same sample mail stream, showing the superiority of the latter. Then reminding people that with this broad patent, McAffee could shut down the superior open source solutions.
These are 2 completely different concepts:
...
[AKnightCowboy]> If you've got tons of viruses being introduced into the wild, it's probably coming from an anti-virus company whose entire life depends on them existing and being a threat.
[AC]>Symantec survives only as long as malware.
Frankly, the latter makes more sense. Symantec will instantly be doomed once everyone becomes nice. So the future looks rosy for them.
In similar news, cops were told that, as soon as crime goes away, they're all out of a job. I don't think most people think crimes are caused by cops for job security.
Unfortunately, anti-virus and anti-spam companies are going to have long, rosy futures until people learn to universally behave decently towards one another.
A.
Then sue the spammers for infringment of your patent.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
To avoid infringement, the circumventing product must eliminate one of the elements of the claims. In other words, for each of the claims, you have to find one element in the claims that isn't in the product. For claimed methods, one of the recited steps must not be performed.
Adding a feature or an improvement will not circumvent.
As to the "prior art" in August 2002, that by itself isn't enough. If the date were more than one year before the filing date of the patent, perhaps it would be effective as prior art. The problem is, the inventor may have come up with the idea/invention on his own before Aug. 2002, which means he's got a year from that date to file before the reference becomes effective as prior art against a U.S. patent/application.
I see your point, and I don't dispute it. I'm just saying that software patenting has become an arm race where the system auto-feeds itself, and the more money you have, the more patents you try to submit in order to construct an IP portfolio that could save you should you start to infringe a patent and get sued for that.
In this race, the notion of good/bad is no longer appropriate. Patents are viewed as an investment.
--
(different AC)
Would you disclose the ingredients of the secret sauce without getting something back? A patent is supposed to be about a trade between the patentee and the public. The patentee discloses the invention to the public, and in return he gets to exclude others from practicing the invention.
If a patent application were immediately published as you suggest, companies would be reluctant to file because their inventions would be picked up immediately by the competition. The company may not be successful in getting the patent they want, which means they will have given the invention to the competition for free.
On the other hand, in the U.S. an applicant can choose to have the application published after 18 months, which may give the applicant the right to collect royalties while the application is pending if the patent issues. An applicant can also choose not to publish an application, potentially surprising the industry.
Other countries (such as Germany, I think) have a kind of comment period. If the local patent office intends to award a patent, it is published for comment. After a period of time (months), the patent goes through if nobody produces prior art. In that case, examination is performed in two steps, first by the patent office and then by the public. In practice, this really doesn't provide an improvement because (1) the public really doesn't watch what patents are about to issue and (2) the public doesn't have the first clue how to fashion legal arguments directed to patentability.
Read the link in the article. Bayesian spam filters were published in the academic literature in 1998.
You know, I'm really getting tired of this rationale.
You want me to trust some massive company, with a patent, to "use it nicely". If a patent is invalid, then I don't want a company to have it, regardless of wether they are going to use it "defensively" or not. I really don't give a shit - the idea that the government is telling them that they have a monopoly on a an obvious idea makes me uncomfortable.
Do you know ANYBODY who would agree to such a contract between private parties? "Yeah, sure Bob, just give me the right to reposess your house at my whim.. I promise I'll only use it 'defensively'." Would you TRUST somebody who said that? Why are we asked to trust companies that ask for obvious patents?
-Laxitive
Mr Bayes published some of his early work in the 1764 edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
It doesn't matter if Jesus Christ himself wrote that article..
The primary purpose of the US patent system is to generate revenue for the economie and you can patent almost anything already existing, as long as it has a different colour and those who have prior art can't affort a lawsuit to nullify your patent.
For example, McAfee would surely like to patent farting *in public* if they thought it would be enforceable.. And good luck on finding a prior art on that one ..
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
patent "the process of acquiring a patent in lieu of creating an original process, and as a means by which to provide a false sense of value in a venture and as a weapon to employ litigous intimidation to stifle competition"?
I'm sure it could be worded appropriately so the USPTO has no clue (not that they ever had one), and then we can let the fun begin.
Has anyone thought the only way to combat this maybe to have the FSF start patenting things?
What the FSF (or some similar organization) should do is start a defensive patent pool. (A patent pool is a collection of patents that may be licensed as a single unit, often held by different entities.) The rules would be:
Such a scheme would benefit FOSS developers, small ISVs and any company that uses software patents only defensively. The bigger the pool gets, the more economic sense it makes for a company to join as the potential revenues of their patent portfolios get dwarfed by the money they could save by not having to license pool patents.
The only people it doesn't help against are the true leeches, those folks that obtain patents solely to extort money from actual R&D firms. They don't need to license patents because they don't have an actual product. Of course, they also don't contribute to the arts and it's not inconceivable that the laws may be changed at some point to exclude their business models.
After all, the real makers usually have a lot more money.