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McAfee Granted Firewall Patent
BadUspto writes "BetaNews reports that 'The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted software maker McAfee a patent for tracking network events on a computer using a firewall. The patent filing involves tracing the location of an incoming connection and displaying a map showing where the remote system geographically resides.' Doomsday for VisualRoute and others?"
See James Bond, Goldeneye
See, this is what patents do. They give the holder of the patent the exclusive rights to licensing of that technology.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm not going to go as far as to say that the whole system ought to be scrapped, either. There are good things and bad things about the current system, but unless we can come up with a better system that will help promote the advancement of arts and sciences without trampling on the rights of inventors and creators, this is the only system we've got.
The best thing to do would be to take a hard look at the patent system and figure out how it can be rid of the badly-working parts and how to improve the parts that work well. Then perhaps we can have a fair and equitable system of patents.
Can we just have a 10 year haiatus on software patents of any kind, please? So far most of them have been single descriptor patents...
[blatently unpatentable thing] + "on the internets"
[blatently unpatentable thing] + "automagically"
[blatently unpatentable thing] + "in a browser"
And now we have
[blatently unpatentable thing] + "with a Firewall"
None of this should be patentable. New and truly novel approaches to computing issues should be, but those are exactly the types of things which are too important to patent. Where would computing be today if patents covered the concepts of Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, evolutionary algorithims, or for that matter object-oriented programming and distributed networks?
Patents were supposed to be unlikely to be duplicated. Theoretically, if I wanted to do something and I didn't know how, I would have to turn to somebody with a patent. However, these days it's impossible to blow your nose without first calling a lawyer to figure out if someone patented nose-blowing in such a way. And chances are someone has.
We should just shut software patents down for 10 years, let the technology mature, then re-examine whether they're helping or slowing us down. In 10 years time we may have exhausted enough of the obvious things that only patentable things will remain.
The ______ Agenda
You could probably program the "remotes" on the Aaphid NIDS system to do the job. There are commercial systems that certainly work like this. Judging by the descriptions given in the Internet Audit Project, some time back, the military and intelligence networks also have such systems.
Perhaps the "perfect fit" would be an active firewall/NIDS system (for you counter-intrusion) and some sort of packet analyzer and/or active scanning software to establish the identity of the real attacker.
Again, such software is certainly around and is nothing particularly new or exciting. Many of the fancier NIDS packages use Bayesian filters to look for abnormal behavior, as opposed to looking for specific attack patterns. If you want to be really fancy, you stick a honeypot in parallel with the real firewall, disguising the honeypot as a firewall in its own right. Everything that goes to it is obviously bogus traffic.
The problem with the US patent office is that they don't search for prior art. Well, they get too many patents to do that efficiently, so they trust the person filing, until someone complains. If the patent is overturned, the filer can sometimes get their money back.
Supposedly, during "patent pending", problems can be ironed out. They often aren't, because companies are loath to expose "trade secrets" or other unpublished information, and Joe Bloggs doesn't have the money or (in many cases) any standing to object. (Courts are very fussy about people having standing in a case.)
The "minimum change" solution would be for all court costs and lawyer costs to be loaned by the Government, with the loser in the case having to pay back the loan for both sides, plus interest. That way, frivolous objections would become too expensive, but so would frivolous patent claims.
As for this system - I say ignore the patent and use pre-existing solutions that do the same thing. This is a situation where "civil disobedience" is not only possible, but also low-risk. McAfee is unlikely to be vigorous in the pursuit of their IP, if it was pretty certain they'd lose any case and be humiliated.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Don't forget that software patents are very new- they've only been allowed since about 1996 or so. They don't promote innovation at all - they stifle it. They allow the one thing that's bad for consumers- limited choice and a greater potential for vendor lock-in. They make it difficult for competition, since "licensing fees" could easily result in a net loss for anyone attempting to offer products or services in the same market. Since this provides patent holders with a larger captive market (not by consumer choice, mind you), there is less incentive to invest in things that matter- like providing good customer service and a good quality product.
but unless we can come up with a better system that will help promote the advancement of arts and sciences without trampling on the rights of inventors and creators, this is the only system we've got.
There is no evidence that the current system promotes the advancement of arts and sciences, or engineering for that matter.
In fact, quite to the contrary, in software, we have pretty clear indiciations that patents are not required for advancement in software, and that they may actually be harmful.
The best thing to do would be to take a hard look at the patent system and figure out how it can be rid of the badly-working parts and how to improve the parts that work well. Then perhaps we can have a fair and equitable system of patents.
We don't have unlimited time. Software patents have been around for only about a decade now and they are already causing lots of damage. The burden is on people like you to come up with a system that demonstrably works, or we really should scrap the entire system.
Granting people and companies 20 year monopolies is something extraordinary. The burden of proof that this is something we should do is on people like you who want to keep some form of the system. If you can't come up with clear and convincing evidence, we should scrap it.
Works for monsanto.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...