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McAfee Granted Far-Reaching Spam-Control Patent

Posted by timothy on from the what-the-system-isn't-meant-for dept.

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."

1 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. FSF/EFF should patent "Use of the letter E" by Sweetshark · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This is actually quite a good idea:
    1) Let the EFF of The FSF file a few rediculous general patents.
    2) When a lawsuit comes down on a OSS project, countersue the rediculous patent with a rediculous patent.
    3) media coverage, cheap out-of-court agreement
    4) ...
    5) Profit!
    The patent portfolio acts as a insureance for OSS. If a company sues, the only thing they get is bad media. And more people will see how stupid software patents really are ...