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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...
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
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?
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
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.
who is going to stop them?
This is a very interesting question. Until now the mainstream hasn't gotten riled up about software patents. This might be the straw that broke the camel's back. What happens when all the spam filters out there dry up? What happens when all the ISPs filtering spam are sent threating legal letters telling them to stop filtering?
There is one issue out there right now that everyone who uses the internet knows, and that is that spam is absolutely crippling email. I think your general user will not give a damn whether spam filters are patented by one company. They won't see that as a vaild excuse for allowing the destruction and uslessness of their inboxes.
The government has already realized that people are very upset about spam and tried (albeit worthlessly) to deal with the problem. If patents start getting in the way of people clearing spam from their inboxes, I think the government will step in again. And if this patent does miraculously stand up to prior art, I think the government might be compelled to think seriously about invalidating this patent.
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
Google for "Jersey City corruption" or "Albany, NY democratic machine". Patronage, graft and corruption have been a feature of US politics for 200 years.
Stepping on the Constitution is a regular practice in the US as well. The Federal government, by way of its regulation of electionic media and control of all sorts of information, has essentially turned the press into the public relations arm of the political class. Read about what happens when independent companies without Congressional sponsorship apply for FCC broadcast licenses to use the public airwaves.
Move on to the Second Amendment. Right now, the Feds are looking at prosecuting members of well-maintained & regulated citizen militias that are defending their ranches on the Mexican border from foreign incursions.
Move on the the Fourth Amendment. You are routinely searched and may be detained and strip-searched by a TSA employee for the "crime" of attempting to travel via plane. A police officer can and will rip apart and search your car if he feels that you are acting "suspicious" and are trying to "conceal" something.
Move on the the Fifth Amendment. Today, when a state government loses a politically sensitive criminal case, the Federal government will prosecute you for nebulous "civil rights" violations.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The right to free speech, if applied only to benign conversation is useless. Try to exercise it by telling everybody that the feds requested private information under the Patriot Act's provision. Your ass will land in jail, lightning fast. Also try to publish a way to decrypt some lame ass DVD and prepare to pay fines out of your wazoo (you're breaking the DMCA). Just two examples, there are countless others. Slashdot drivel is not important for the powers that be, I could sau "Fuck Bush" or "Rumsfeld is an idiot" on every forum on the internet, and they wouldn't care, because it's NOT IMPORTANT, since the mindless masses won't see it, notice it or even care. Try to say something that IS important, something that has the potential to affect their interests, or the interests of their corporate friends and see how far you get
Free speech aside, why are American Citizens arrested in the US and jailed without access to a lawyer and due process? Just because somebody labeled them terrorists? Are you sure that in 10 years from now you won't be labeled terrorist if you don't vote Republican?
I'm not a US born citizen. I came here from an Eastern European country that, until 89, was a communist dictatorship (one of the worst). I'm old enough to remember those days. What I see happening here is a slow erosion of civil liberties that brings back painfull memories.
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?