Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

sebFlyte writes "In what is described as yet another example of how patents can kill or inhibit standards, a patent has come to light that was granted to Microsoft in the year 2000 that looks surprisingly similar to IPv6 (the next-gen IP standard that is starting, slowly, to be taken up in some parts of the world). And several Microsoft engineers, named on the patent just happenned to be part of the IPv6 group for the IETF..."

Comments

This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

This time they bought the rights to the internet from the creator, Al Gore.

Re:This is different

[Stevyn]

But it's nothing without the key to the lock box that holds the key to the bigger lock box which contains the internet.

Re:This is different

[VidEdit]

"This time they bought the rights to the internet from the creator, Al Gore."

Al Gore never claimed to have created the internet. He said, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet."

I suppose some people might think that he meant that he actually "created" the internet, but those with a working cerebral cortex realize he was talking about supporting the programs and initiatives that made the internet possible.

Even if he had claimed to have "created the internet," it is a lot better than than if he had claimed that a country had WMDs and started a war over it.

Re:This is different

[MattyCobb]

Way to miss the point (hint: humor) and try to drag everyone into a politcal debate on GW bashing. GG

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore won't sell it. Not without a parental warning label from Tipper Gore.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactely...

I'm sure half the republicans don't even know what internet is or think it's very evil, due to all the porn online.. and foreign media that speaks bad of them. If it wasn't in contradiction with government control, they'd vote to censored it and allow only access to online guns&ammo shops.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

He's no Warren G. Harding!

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore was not in Congress when ARPANET started (1969), nor was he in Congress when the initial contracts to BBN (to create ARPANET) were awarded in 1968. (Nor was he in Congress when the original research funding occured in 1962.) He was not in Congress until 1976. Logically, he took no initiative in creating the Internet because it was already created by the time that he was sworn in, and the term "Internet" (vice ARPANET) was popular by that time. Conclusion: the statement "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet" is false.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

I took the initiative in creating the code my employers currently use.
Would you consider that a claim of responsibility for inventing the program I just wrote?

You are attempting to get people to accept wide context on a statement in a political debate. Next, you will likely blame conservatives for not agreeing to that wide interpretation of the context. This is politics.. you don't say things without payback... this is the reason Bush constantly looks like an idiot.

Re:This is different

[sh1ftay]

Defence of democrats... check Generic bash of Bush... check taking a joke too seriously... check Score:5, insightful.. check

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you are using IE. Fucking MS smartquotes and all. Knock it off! It'''''''s (notice no ?-marks there) quite annoying.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Al Gore was the person that pointed to a bust of george washington at thomas jeffersons house and asked who is this person?

google for it... there is video.

Re:This is different

[cHiphead]

yeah we could all be stuck using the AOL Virtual Private Adapter...

Cheers.

Re:This is different

[Ryeng]

Actually I'm using Word, to iron out most of my spelling errors, and then copying and pasting. As a browser I am using Opera. The reasons there where question marks is because it's three at night here and am a bit tired. So if you find them offensive, I apologize.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

To fix spelling errors? Someone who cares about presentation? It's not really fair you know. If I disagree with a post but I can't articulate a valid reason, I could always discredit the author by pointing out his or her trivial spelling errors. You are taking away the Fool's Argument(R). Shame on you.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

He's still bitter about the a$$ stomping of the last election. He probably believes Mikey Moore-on as well.

I find it best to just humor them along.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's opening up an entirely new way to attack him. He uses a Microsoft product, perhaps multiple ones, making him an idiot!

Re:This is different

[war3rd]

Didn't Rambus do a similar thing? God, when will corporate @ssholes stop being such @ssholes. (Never, I know, but a man can dream)

Re:This is different

[Ohreally_factor]

it?s doubtful the internet would be what it is today.

This is preferable to fido-net? I mean, for other than pr0n.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they patent something that will benefit mankind ... maybe spam!

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey MattyCobb: Bush is the worst president of all time. What a loser!

Re:This is different

[jcurran]

Actually, his statement is accurate. The privitization/commericialization of the Internet would not have occured if we couldn't have the NSFNET operate for another year, and his revised HPCC act allowed such. A fairly close summary exists at: http://www.splefty.com/rcalhoun/algore-internet.ht ml /John

Re:This is different

[idlake]

Your logic is flawed because you are resolving the reference "the Internet" incorrectly. Gore was referring to the Internet at the time he was making his statement, the commercially successful, widely used one, the one everyone was excited about. And he is correct when he claims that he was an important part in creating that.

Natural languages have unavoidable ambiguities; you should learn to resolve them correctly.

Re:This is different

[mik]

He did certainly popularize the phrase "information superhighway", while pushing a whole lot of tech legislation. And do not make the mistake of equating internet with arpanet - the whole point of "inter" was the merging of many disparate network into a logical whole... Anyway, much as I dislike it, in non-geek circles "internet" is www.

Re:This is different

[vena]

Unfortunately you're taking a narrow and blind line of reasoning here. Gore's statement in the Blitzer interview was directly referring to Gore's 1990 education bill, which had a huge impact on taking the small government project known as ARPANET into the wider scope we call today's Internet. but then I suppose you're a better authority on the subject than Vint Cerf (who backs Gore's claim and is infinitely more important to the creation of the Internet than you or me).

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

a bill from 1990 could not have had turned arpanet into internet.

simple reasons. date is too late.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

His statement was: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet", not "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in privitizing the internet". There is a significant difference. He was a lawmaker, he knows the difference in words. He was spinning the minor part of writing legislation supporting the Internet to make people believe that he wrote legislation to research and develop the Internet. Huge difference. He never later recanted even though he knew his statement was a lie. Unfortunate, because while he did make useful contributions the the Internet (as a social medium), his statements on creating the Internet made many people dismiss his abilities of being a progressive lawmaker aware of modern issues.

Don't put so much drama into Al Gore's contribution. The Internet wasn't so much "driven" as it was "discovered". His contributions may have slowed down progress (very arguable) but it probably isn't rational to say that he alone could have stopped the Internet.

The article listed is fairly biased. It makes it sound like the Internet was "owned" by the federal government after 1986. It says the Internet was trivially small (compared to present size), but fails to remark that it was large compared to any other engineering project ever developed. It just grew even larger. I get the feeling that the author doesn't think that any companies were invested into the Internet prior to Gore's legislation in 1991 (and of course forgetting to omit the rtm worm case financial damages). I think the article was written more to defend Al Gore than to empasize his contributions.

Re:This is different

[LtOcelot]

"Logically", your error is in supposing that "creating the Internet" was a single event rather than an ongoing process. Al Gore helped create the modern form of the Internet, as did Vint Cerf, as did Tim Berners-Lee, as did countless others.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

do you have trouble reading, or are you just so simple and stupid that the world is black and white, all or nothing to you?

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there was Gore's famous "I've nearly bankrupted the country by going to war in two countries on the opposite side of the globe so far, let's go for three or four more" speech, where once again, he was taking credit for something he could never do.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

He transformed the internet, perhaps. Not created.

Who created Linux? Or Unix?

IBM hasn't claimed that it has created either one while its contributions to both have been significant. That's because it made modifications, pushed development (in certain areas), and provided funding to some developers, but did not actually create either (btw, yes I know the timelines are very different for both Linux and Unix).

Al Gore has claimed to create the Internet while his contributions include: making modifications, pushing development (in certain areas), and provided funding to some developers, but not actually creating it.

The wiktionary defines create as (Al Gore's contributions to creating the Internet in bold):

to make NO

to manufacture NO

to put into existence NO

Conclusion: Al Gore did not create the Internet. He stumbled, made a misquote, and then did not have the balls to say so. He is a smart man who should have known better.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's recalling correctly that the last node of ARPANet was shut down in 1989. Al Gore's Law was in 1990. Unless Al Gore can write legislation that goes backwards in time, its obvious that his law had little to do with turning ARPANet into the Internet. His law helped with NSFNet.

Unless you haven recognized, the Internet is a collective term coined in the 70's. The modern Internet was formed in 1986 when commercial restrictions were dropped and access was granted to anyone who had the ability to connect. Al Gore had nothing to do with this.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Logically, he took no initiative in creating the Internet because it was already created by the time that he was sworn in, and the term "Internet" (vice ARPANET) was popular by that time.

Bullcrap. I worked at BBN from 1979-1984, and the term "Internet" was definitely NOT in common use before the TCP/IP switchover. The term "catenet" was somewhat common before this time (from Cerf & Kahn). The Cerf & Kahn paper was published in 1974, which logically means that there could have been no funding for developing an implementation before that time. In fact, BBN had the development contract during the time I was there (and I considered it to be one of the *least* interesting projects that BBN was working on at the time).

Re:This is different

[HBergeron]

An AC calling Vint Cerf a liar and claiming to know more then him about the creation of the internet.

how slashdot

and

how very sad

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think for yourself or do you just take for gospel what others say?

By that logic, your comment should be ignored/trashed.

Re:This is different

[LumpyRabbit]

Although he was not in Congress while the groundwork for the modern day Internet was being built, he WAS in Congress when legislation was passed to make ARPANET open to the public. Hence, he did have some involvement with the Internet's advancements although the word "invented" is an overstatement

Re:This is different

[badmammajamma]

Al Gore understood the significance of the idea and got the Internet (as we know it today) funded. Which, if you know jack shit about anything, is as important as any of the technology involved. Quite simply, it's very possible it would still not exist today if it were not for his efforts to pour money into it.

He didn't create the internet anymore than Tim Berners-Lee did. One cog in the machine. Money is a very important cog.

In any event, Gore has been falsely maligned over this for years and, amazingly, it still continues today. The power of the soundbite.

Re:This is different

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

How about we realize that your proposal undermines a candidates first amendment rights, limiting their potential to have access to the press.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when I was in university and we studied "Al-Gore-ithums." One of them was "Eeenformation Ssttuperhighwayyyy!!!" Certainly an Al Gore -ithum that we all cherish!

Re:This is different

[yuri benjamin]

much as I dislike it, in non-geek circles "internet" is www

worse than that. Among non-geeks internet is that blue "e" icon that launches explorer.

Re:This is different

[peachpuff]

The really funny part is that Gore will probably end up getting credit for what he did. That joke never seems to die, but it always pops up without any context. I've already seen people who actually think he invented some of the technology because they've only heard the joke.

A hundred years from now, they'll be researching for a textbook on the history of the Internet and they'll wonder "Who was this 'Al Gore' anyway?" Then they'll dig into the government records and write one of those little textbook sidebars:

"Dubbed 'the inventor of the Internet' for his strong early support of publicly accessible shared networking, senator Albert Gore later became Vice President of the United States."

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

to put into existence NO

That would be a YES. Gore was instrumental in creating the modern commercial internet.

Conclusion: Al Gore did not create the Internet. He stumbled, made a misquote, and then did not have the balls to say so. He is a smart man who should have known better

And be torn apart by jerks like you for waffling? Gore's statement is pretty much accurate and there was no reason for him to waffle or change it.

Now, in contrast, the corrupt, spineless chimp we have for a president would do well to take back some of his howlers, but I suppose he is such an idiot that people don't even expect him to.

Re:This is different

[AaronGTurner]

There is a significant difference.

The internet was a privatisation of ARPANET. Whilst we can argue about the finer semantics of what Gore said, as a 16 word summary of what he did, it is fairly accurate. Anyone wishing to delve deeper into exactly what he did should easily be able to access the additional information. Not also that he said that he took the initiative, not that he actually created it himself directly.

He was spinning the minor part of writing legislation supporting the Internet

And this is how he took the initiative. The legislation was an important part of ensuring that the internet occured in a timely manner. It would have happened anyway, but it might have taken longer, or might have damaged US economic development if it had meant that the USA was behind the curve on using the technology.

If he had said something wildly inaccurate like "I was responsible for ARPANET funding" or "I wrote the first implementation of TCP/IP" then fair enough, jump all over him.

but fails to remark that it was large compared to any other engineering project ever developed.

In terms of funding I would be surprised if the funding in 1986 was of the level of engineering project like Apollo in real terms.

Re:This is different

[marck]

The reason that people find the whole Gore statement so amusing is that well before Gore's 1990 bill we were already seeing the rapid growth of the internet.

Sun already required their VARs to have internet accounts. I already had trouble registering my company's domain name because so many of the cool ones were used up. We managed to get one cool domain name: inc.com. It was later sold to Inc. Magazine for a free magazine subscription (yes, I'm sorry to say I'm not joking!). This was happening long _before_ Gore's bill.

Anyone who was into technology at that time could see it coming. It was clear that as soon as regular PCs became network enabled the whole thing would explode. This took a lot longer than I expected because certain PC OS companies were so clueless about networking, but it did happen eventually.

The point is that this whole process was already set in motion, there was nothing Gore could do about it one way or the other. People who think Gore had anything to do with this just weren't around it or didn't understand what was already going on. The fact that Gore thought he had an impact simply shows he didn't know what was going on either.

We need to remember that the default PC or Mac system at that time had no TCP/IP stack, so the vast majority of users had no true networking, It wasn't until the OS evolved enough so that average users could install third party TCP/IP stacks that dailing into the internet was even an option. Once the systems were delivered with TCP/IP it became easy for everyone and the thing really started to take off and Metcalf's law kicked in.

Re:This is different

[Ryeng]

I was simply trying to make the point that while Al Gore didn't create the internet, he did make a significant contribution to getting it off the ground during its early years. I wasn't trying to be a troll or flaimbait. Simply trying to make a point at a joke I though was in poor taste. So if anyone was offended by my post, I can't see why, then I apologize, I was not my intention to hurt.

Re:This is different

[aaronl]

Nah, you're full of it. Universities had been on the 'net for a long time by 1990. We already had UNIX out there running things. BSD had been around since 1984, and running on the Internet. Just because the WWW didn't happen until 1990 doesn't make the Internet nothing until then. I was using the Internet right around this time, too, so I don't see how Al Gore made it happen. It hadn't been called ARPANET for a while, either.

Gore had very little to do with Internet development. All he did was get things through Congress to get schools to link up with the Internet. Most engineering and tech schools already did this.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem. Mine was actually a joke. Fido-net was a way to network BBSes, so that info could be passed back and forth between members of different BBSes. No offense taken.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

..ummm...rights? in the USA? HAHAHA@#@#$@$@$@#$
since when do THEY care about OUR rights as citizens? Fuck their rights. They fuck ours.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush said he doesn't have any regrets, remember?

Re:This is different

[mzipay]

and a consequence of those "unavoidable ambiguities" is that a person may make a statement that, while semantically "not false," can be quite misleading.

al gore made no attempt to clarify his meaning, which at the least marks his willingness to accept people's misunderstanding of the statement (to his benefit).

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a big fat lie either way. He never took the initiative in creating the Internet. The Internet existed BEFORE he had ANYTHING to do with ANY of it.

You can look it up (I did), but I warn you, it might shatter your preconceived notions, and that can hurt.

Re:This is different

[pjp6259]

the word "invented" is an overstatement

It definitely is an overstatement. Which is exactly why the right wing media always claimed that gore said he "invented" the internet, instead of using his actual quote that he "took the initiative in creating" the internet.

Re:This is different

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

People like you are the reason that I like low voter turn out.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Your birth certificate was an apology letter from the abortion clinic.

Re:This is different

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you're wanting to become a lawyer? Lawyers are scum, so it suits you to back a fuck like Bush.

Layers are the #1 reason this country is regarded as an international joke.

We all [non lawyers] hope you die a slow death while your loved ones watch helplessly. Then I hope they all get sued.

Re:This is different

[HBergeron]

They say never to argue with an idiot, as people might not know the difference, but I think I'll talk my chances here.

1) "Bob and I believe that the vice president deserves significant credit for his early recognition of the importance of what has become the Internet." - Vint Cerf

and

2) the whole thing -- http://www.politechbot.com/p-01394.html

Re:This is different

[LinuxLuver]

The old Gore myth, eh? The truth is that Gore - in 1988 - backed legislation that allowed any person or business to legitimately use what had previously - in law - been a government-funded, academic, research and military network. In seeing that legislation passed, Gore DID play a critical role in creating the Internet as we know it today. Not the technology......but the legal framework it rests upon (in the US). The claim that Gore "invented" the Internet is just one more neo-con/rightist lie. There are so many of them.

Re:This is different

[idlake]

and a consequence of those "unavoidable ambiguities" is that a person may make a statement that, while semantically "not false," can be quite misleading.

His statement was not misleading, it expressed what it was intended to express.

al gore made no attempt to clarify his meaning, which at the least marks his willingness to accept people's misunderstanding of the statement (to his benefit).

There was nothing to clarify. The people who deliberately misconstrued his statement would never be satisfied anyway.

In any case, it doesn't matter: the chimp has won twice, and like Republican presidents before him, he is bankrupting the country as we speak and as the voters wanted, so what do you care?

Re:This is different

[Raunch]

worse than that. Among non-geeks internet is that blue "e" icon that launches explorer.

I was told yesterday (by a woman who was reporting issues on a site that I develop for) that her browser is "Yahoo".

Basing you definitions of things like whtat internet means on non-geek circles is like, well (to bring this whole thing full circle) basing your definition of reality on what GB says.

Re:This is different

[jcurran]

AC - Al Gore's bill helped insure that the the NSFNET lived long enough to allow evolution into the commercial Intenet that we know today. The particular mechanism used for transition was NSF Solicition 93-52 which called for Network Access Points (NAP's). Without the additional funding provided as a result of Al Gore's efforts, there is a good question of whether today's Internet would have come into being.

The modern Internet was formed with the founding of the CIX in and the interconnection of ANS and the CIX (Thanks to Rick Adams, Bill Schrader, Susan Estrada, John Rugo, Steve Wolff and Mitch Kapor!) in 1991.

http://www.cookreport.com/p.part3.shtml.

Re:This is different

[jcurran]

The ARPANET was not ever made open to the public. There were MILNET-ARPANET mailbridges at BBN, but no public IP interconnection. Connectivity to the newly formed NSFNET was available to R&E (Research and Education) organizations which agreed to the NSFNET AUP.

The legislation sponsored by Gore was to provide additional funding for the NSFNET during the commericalization/privitization transition period.

I can't wait to see...

[hazah]

if one of those succeeds one day. I'm sure that when that day comes, I'll also see the general population running around aimlessly, in all directions, bumping into eachother.

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly did the patent inhibit the development or usage of IPv6?

Sound familiar?

[RayDude]

Hmmm. Sounds like RAMBUS.

Fascinating.

Raydude

What were they thinking?

[igny]

Is it really possible that such patents may be enforceable?

Re:What were they thinking?

[Sengoku666]

These days it would seem that if you have enough money anything is enforcable.

Re:What were they thinking?

[PHPgawd]

If the patent is based on one or more in-process IETF standards, then the short answer is "no way". There's no way they'd even grant their patents let alone let them enforce them.

Re:What were they thinking?

[nbert]

Having Rambus in mind it sounds not far off. I mean they've contributed to an open standard while filing patents on the very same technology. Just like Microsoft apparently did.

On the other hand it's quite unlikely that M$ would win such a case in every country implementing IPv6. And even if they would it wouldn't really matter, because the technology isn't widely spread and it's not too hard to come up with a different standard doing the same thing without using anything being covered by patents.

And, as a final resort of reasoning, Rambus didn't really win in court...

Re:What were they thinking?

[Ankh]

When people get involved in developing a spec, and at the same time patent things that are necessary to implement that spec ("essential", as the patent lawyers say), and then submerge, wait until the spec is widely adopted, and then announce their patent, this is sometimes called a submarine patent attack.

It's partly to prevent these that we (W3C) have our patent policy, which requires all participants to sign an agreement saying (more or less) they agree to let people implement the spec without paying royalties, even if they own patents that would otherwise apply.

It's all a big mess -- and patents also don't fit well with the GPL, of course, and neither does our patent policy, although FSF participated and we did the best we could: the problem is that you might want to take, say, an HTTP server, and re-use the network code for some other server. But if someone has a patent on servers, to which they have granted royalty free use for HTTP only, you may now have to pay them a royalty for the code.

Patents are intended to encourage innovation by ensuring inventors get royalties. Unfortunately the current system seems to have some disadvantages.

Note: I have no idea whether the slashdot story is correct in this instance about this patent, nor, if the patent is essential to implementing IPv6, whether Microsoft plans to enforce royalties or forbid implementations.

Liam

Re:What were they thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not have your patent policy say that if you want to be part of the standard, you donate your patent to the public domain.

It's not like there aren't a large number of strong computer scientists that couldn't create other viable protocols.

The inventor of the patent would still retain an enormous advantage over it's competitors simply because it had the most experience with the invention - so it's not like you'd be getting them to give up anything that significant. Heck, by avoiding the headaches of all those patent debates they might even have more of an advantage rather than waiting for the bickering to die down.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Ohreally_factor]

They were granted the patent, but it won't be enforceable because microsoft didn't disclose the prior art. What is particularly embarrassing and points to the fraudulence of MS is that the people who's names where on the patent were also on the IPv6 committee.

There should be a very stiff penalty for knowingly filing a fraudulent patent application. Both monetary, and being prohibited from filing for any other patents for a period of time sounds about right.

Re:What were they thinking?

[inode_buddha]

" Is it really possible that such patents may be enforceable?

Yes. The key is to understand that in the US, patents issued are assumed to be valid until they are overturned -- which costs a *lot*.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Taladar]

There should be a percentage given in patent law. When this percentage of fraudulent patents is reached (counting all patents of everyone who is found to have at least one fraudulent patent) the patent system should be automatically killed.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Antique Geekmeister]

With enough lawyers, yes. They can drag a defendent through the courts and use such fraudulent patents to counter-sue anyone who sues *them* for patent violation.

It's a fun hobby for lawyers of companies that engage in monopolistic behavior to crush opponents.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Microsoft is pulling the same kind of sleaze with SPF and their patented XML based SenderID, trying to wedge SenderID into an open standard and saying "pay no attention to that patent behind the curtain".

Re:What were they thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a better step is to simply fine a company some substantial amount of their gross income, say 10%. Imagine if MS had to pay 10% of before-taxes revenue. Oh, and block the company or anyone acting as an agent of that company from filing patent applications for a substantial period of time, say five years.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. We are starting the age of Corporate Law. You will now have three types of offenses. Criminal, Civil, and unofficial Corporate (being a subset of Civil but controlled by money).

To be found guilty of a Corporate Offense, you only need to have too little money to defend yourself against a corporation than has alot of money. The actual offense is irrelevant. The punishment is relative to the pre-determined settlement contract with the corporation or the civil law of choice.

Don't believe in Corporate Offenses? How do you justify some of the actions of the RIAA, MPAA, and SCO? Some are valid, some are made up. Some people settle when they are innocent because it is cheaper than the legal fees required to defend yourself. Others fight, win, and still lose money. To be guilty of a Corporate Offense does not require a judge. It requires only getting the attention of a corporation's legal department.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Ankh]

Why not have your patent policy say that if you want to be part of the standard, you donate your patent to the public domain
The patent policy is only effective if the major patent holders in any given area participate in the development of the specification. So the patent policy is a compromise, a sort of uneasy truce, so that we can try to keep the Web free. If we ask too much of patent holders, they simply walk away. We lost some even with the policy we have.

It's not like there aren't a large number of strong computer scientists that couldn't create other viable protocols.
Success of a specification isn't just about elegance of design. If it was, I don't know that SGML, HTML and XML would have got very far. It's about widespread adoption. For that to happen, you have to have buy-in of the major players. Otherwise they go off and do something on their own and impose it on people, which they vastly prefer doing.

So you end up putting in features to support legacy systems (pretty much everyone does this -- remember GECOS constants in C?) and you end up trying hard to get the big players involved.

IBM makes over $4bn, as I recall, from licensing patents to other firms. It's hard to persuade them to give patents away. They're the largest in our business, but most other big organizations have large patent portfolios. They use them to fend off attacks: Oh, you want to charge us a royalty on our Gizmo because it uses X? Well, your gizmo uses Y, Z, W and P, and those are just as expensive!

The people bickering are lawyers with (generally) no interest in or knowledge of the technical details, so arguments go beyond technical details. The argument taht they get early experience is a good one, and it's a lot of why some of our (W3C) Working Groups have to be member-confidential: because some significant players wouldn't participate otherwise.

It'd be great to live in a world where everyone was honest and trustworthy and friendly and didn't wear shoes, but, unfortunately, we don't live in such a world. We can (and do) try to change the world,but until it changes, or while it changes, we also have to live with it as it is today.

That's a bit of a general answer, but I hope it makes things clearer!

Liam

Re:What were they thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

When people get involved in developing a spec...this is sometimes called a submarine patent attack.

I'm literally sick from this one. I was at the IPv6 summit in 1998 and 1999. I talked with Microsoft's people, who were apologetic for having such poor implimentation in their IP stack for IPv6. They explained that while Microsoft Research folks were believers in IPv6, Microsoft proper didn't think it had many merits and refused to back it. Their stack crashed repeatedly (while Linux, Cisco and BSD folks had no problems playing well on the IPv6 network operational at the summits).

And now these followers are taking credit for the work of countless great people? Pretending to have actually invented it all? WTF???

I'm going to rip out Microsoft servers at work and treat them for what they are: intellectual property parasites. Nothing but thieves. I've laughed at the "worlds best marketers of mediocre software" jokes, but now it's personal. Those jokers admitted they were behind in 98-99. At Telluride in 99, they were embarrassed at how far behind Microsoft was in the protocol.

If you work for Microsoft, pay attention! Your company increasingly comes acrossed as nothing but a poseur in the technology community. Many of us have put up with MCSE pretenders. But now it's personal. Hang your head low, Microsoft grunt. Your credentials are a black mark in these circles.

Re:What were they thinking?

[bleckywelcky]

Anyone think this sounds familiar to the whole Rambus deal? Where Rambus was trying to push RDRAM to be the next standard ... while secretly patenting it behind everyone's backs. I knew an engineer/manager who worked for Rambus during that period. Once he figured out what was going on and that upper management wouldn't change their minds about being dicks, he quit.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Thing 1]

The government side I agree with, but there should also be penalties from the IETF -- like, people caught doing that can NEVER AGAIN define a standard, write articles, work for, or even be a member, of the IETF.

Re:What were they thinking?

[timshea]

some substantial amount of their gross income, say 10%

And, make sure that the fine isn't a tax deduction!

Re:What were they thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. The article heading is bullshit. go an d have a look at the patent. They are not patenting TCP/IP v4 or 6 they are simply patenting there process of self assigned IP addresses in a network with no IP addressing server (such as a DHCP server).

Re:What were they thinking?

[Citizen of Earth]

Unfortunately the current system seems to have some disadvantages.

You'd better pray that nobody has a patent on understatements!

Re:What were they thinking?

[zippthorne]

I thought patents were meant to encourage inventors to publish by protecting their work for a specified time.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Citizen of Earth]

and being prohibited from filing for any other patents for a period of time sounds about right.

We could synchronize this with copyright law and make the period end 70 years after the inventor's death.

Re:What were they thinking?

[grahamm]

And when they are overturned, not only should the entity holding the invalid patent be made to compensate the person challenging the patent, but the patent office should also be forced to pay compensation for not being vigillent in checking the validity of the patent before issuing it.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Savage650]

They are not patenting TCP/IP v4 or 6 they are simply patenting there process of self assigned IP addresses in a network with no IP addressing server (such as a DHCP server)

Bzzt! Self-assigned addresses is one of the major advantages of IPV6.

• computer generates a (random) link-local adress
• asks the local net "is this number taken?"
• if someone answers ("yes, that's mine"): retry from start
• link-local address is assigned

• computer asks the local net "any gateways out there?"
• all gateways (a.k.a. routers) respond, including their "global address prefix"
• computer combines his local adress with each of these prefixes to get all the the "global adresses" he will be reachable under

IPv6 has been drafted that way to overcome the hassle of network setup (not to mention the risk of misconfigurations when fiddling with address, netmask, broacast, DHCP, NAT, ...

With IPv6, attaching your box to the network will be as easy as "plug in the network cable".

For M$FT to try to (submarine-)patent this functionality is unethical even by todays standards.

Re:What were they thinking?

[AaronGTurner]

If you do not allow a company to be in the standards body then unless the standard has sufficient critical mass as to be impossible to avoid then the company will probably go and create a competing set of protocols that may become the defacto standard, meaning the standards body has no effective control or role.

Re:What were they thinking?

[pommiekiwifruit]

The scary thing will be when the USA criminalises patent infringement, like it has done recently with copyright infringement.

Couple that with "free-trade" agreements and then you will find that if you are a programmer anywhere in the world who does not have the protection of a large corporation, you could get extradited to hicksville virginia (like Huw Griffiths of Australia) to PMITA federal prison for the crime of being a programmer. Its not that big a step.

Re:What were they thinking?

[dossen]

On ethernet it gets even better, since RFC 2464 (page 3) defines a way to derive a globally unique interface identifier from the MAC adress. The great thing about Ipv6, implicit in your post, is that multiple adresses on the same interface and in the same network works a lot better than with IPv4. That combined with the larger adressspace allows much more flexibility to put organisational and geographical structures into the routing topology (I seem to recall that the suggested prefix size for organisations/customers of ISPs is /48, leaving 16 bits of prefix to be used internally by that "user").

Re:What were they thinking?

[northcat]

Prior art? The IPv6 RFC was released on December 1998 and the Microsoft patent was filed on April 1998 - months before the RFC was released (although the idea of the patent must have existed in the standards comittee and its mailing lists earlier).

Re:What were they thinking?

[FireFury03]

Those jokers admitted they were behind in 98-99

They're still behind now - none of the standard windows services support v6 yet and there appears to be no way (under XPSP2) of manually configuring the IP address.

Compared to my Linux boxes, which have all but a few stubborn services running on IPv6. (I currently have to use v4 for Asterisk, Portmap and CUPS... which is stunningly bad given that CUPS is a new system but doesn't do IPv6 at all.)

Re:What were they thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what you will about Microsoft and MCSE pretenders. Some of us rely on people using Microsoft software to earn a living.

While MOST of Windows admins don't really care for the way Microsoft handles its software and patents, we sure as hell enjoy the steady paycheck every week.

The only recourse we have is to explain why MS behaves this way to the corporate managers in hopes they push back on MS.

I'd love it if one day I walked in and was asked to install linux on all the servers. It's just never going to happen. And as long as the paychecks keep coming, I don't really care what they tell me to use.

-Microsoft Grunt.

Re:What were they thinking?

[cardpuncher]

Back in the dying days of DEC, the company suddenly started getting concerned about shutting stable doors around its IPR and "encouraging" patent filing.

My name appeared on a filing for a patent on something to do with network management, on which I'd been working. The application was sufficiently convoluted in impenetrable patent legalese that I really couldn't work out *what* the patent claims were, whether they were novel in any way or exactly how I was supposed to have contributed to them. The patent *could* have been a description of something I'd worked on; it could have been a description of almost anything. However, the patent lawyer assured the "inventors" it was carefully drafted to reflect the language required by the patent office and was all entirely above board. Though the patent lawyer couldn't quite explain what the patent was about in terms *I* could understand, which was a bit of a concern.

Despite my doubts, I was obliged to seek out a Notary Public (a rare beast in the UK) and attest to my heroic part in this revolutionary new invention because it was made fairly clear that if I didn't my future employment prospects would not be rosy.

I don't know if the patent was granted - I didn't stay around that long. Whether it's valid is pretty irrelevant now, of course.

I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't be so heavy handed of course, but people's names don't always appear on patent applications of their own volition. And interestingly, none of the people involved in the process were knowingly fraudulent. The lawyers didn't understand the technology and the technologists didn't understand the law. Neither of them really knew what the implications of the claims were. And provided that the number of patent filings went up, the management weren't interested in what was actually in the applications...

Re:What were they thinking?

[BLAMM!]

IwishGodwasalivetoseethis-Homer
333: Half Beast
555: One-Short-of-a-Sixpack Beast
999: Upside-Down Beast
You forgot 668: Neighbor of the Beast

Re:What were they thinking?

[doublem]

These days it would seem that if you have enough money anything is enforcable.

What's with the "These Days" stuff?

IT's ALWAYS been that way.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Sparr0]

I just dont get the idea behind huge big vs little legal battles. Perhaps someone can explain it to me. Sadly my experience with the american judicial system extends only to anecdotes and small claims court. Say a company with a million lawyers decides they dont like me. Even if those million lawyers file a million motions... every single one of those motions has to come before the judge. The judge has to read them and eventually hear arguments and rule on them. As long as I have as much time to dedicate to the case as the judge does (presumably less, since he has the overhead of dealing with multiple cases), what stops me from just actually showing up for every one of these motion hearings myself?

Re:What were they thinking?

[mark-t]

How do you justify some of the actions of the RIAA, MPAA, and SCO? Some are valid, some are made up.

Indeed... and notice how the company that made one up is currently losing? I don't necessarily condone the strategy being employed by the others, but at least their actions on this issue are commensurate with the fact that people are _actually_ infringing on their copyrights (although I admit I am at a loss as to what other strategy they could employ that may be effective without adversely affecting what copyright is supposed to be, so I don't really want to say any more on that particular subject).

Re:What were they thinking?

[Thing 1]

My Simpsons quote got progressively smaller as I added new numbers. ;-) Now I'm out of room. I guess I could start removing vowels...

Rambus did it first!

[Anonymous Coward]

They tried to steal DRAM, I guess Microsoft figured that it was worth a try for the Internet.

Slashdot and US Patent Office?

[XeroPurpose]

You see... the US Patent Office is alot like the Slashdot editors... more often than not, they get duped...

Re:Slashdot and US Patent Office?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and they don't RTFP.

Re:Slashdot and US Patent Office?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ask Jack S. Kilby, who filed the first patent for the integrated circuit, but Robert Noyce was granted the patent, despite the fact that he filed his patent way later than Jack. Jack got his recognition later on, but it just shows how things can turn out at the patent office.

Should we patent the transistor!?

[0xdeaddead]

While there is still time! PNP & NPN!!!!

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[kryptkpr]

I claim MOSFET and JFET!

Oh, and diodes too.

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's only about 6 people on /. that get this joke I bet. Sorry I'm out of mod points for you. :)

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[0xdeaddead]

DAM YOU!! well I claim Capacitors, resistors & Vacume Tubes!

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm patenting solder. Now license me, biatches!

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[DrLZRDMN]

well I call wire, batteries, PCBs, motors, LEDs, solder, free electrons, processes controlling elecron movement, movement of electrons, and manufacturing and using electronic components.

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> PNP & NPN!!

Here's a handy mnemonic if you can't keep them straight:

Pappa |<--
Needs --|
Pussy |---

No |->-
Pussy --|
Needed |---

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[Ohreally_factor]

processes controlling elecron movement

So you're AC and DC, eh?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that, patent recursive enumeration.

"We claim for patent the device herein named as LAMDUH, an operator which, for an immediately following string containing unbound variables, replaces said variables with the remainder of the string renaming variables when necessary to avoid ambiguity, recursively."

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it. Why does <-- mean that cunt is necessary, but ->- does not?

Re:Should we patent the transistor!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the following for BJTs (referencing their emitters)

NPN - Not Pointed iN
PNP - Pointed iN Polarity

Stupid but works. As for MOSFETs (in relation to the direction of the source):

NMOS is an iNMOS
PMOS is the other one

All your IP Belong...

[monopole]

...to us

Re:All your IP Belong...

[Tuxedo Jack]

I thought that was SCO's standard response.

Re:All your IP Belong...

[ender-iii]

I want to be able to mod things "Funny... Last year"

Re:All your IP Belong...

[Ki Master George]

IP... do you mean IP as in Internet Protocol, or IP as in Intelectual Property? Either way, that statement is accurate.

Re:All your IP Belong...

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the "are" part...

All your IP are belong to us

Re:All your IP Belong...

[alc6379]

I want to be able to mod things "Funny... Last year"

Hey! I still get laughs at my AYB T-Shirt! ...or maybe they're laughing because the shirt has shrunken so much it doesn't cover my gut anymore... :'(

Re:All your IP Belong...

[Alsee]

Funny... Last year, in Japan

-

Re : Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[Frankie70]

Can a topic title be modded as Troll?

Let them!

[thundercatslair]

If they actually recived it, what could they do with it? I know next to nothing about patents, but I can't think they could do anything with it.

Re:Let them!

[deltatype0]

So they can spend money on a lawsuit brought to them by whoever really invented it, after all, they spend 100 mil. on patent lawsuits, even though they filed 3,000 last year, and I bet 1/3rd of them are not theirs to patent. Funny how that works.

Given that ActiveDirectory uses DNS...

[PornMaster]

I'm surprised that they haven't patented DNS.

Re:Given that ActiveDirectory uses DNS...

[XeroPurpose]

They have. Didn't you read the EULA that came with the Internet?

Re:Given that ActiveDirectory uses DNS...

[Frankie70]

I'm surprised that they haven't patented DNS.


Apple probably has already patented it - you can search here

umm.. they're trying to secure all IPv6 software,

[peculiarmethod]

12. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the steps recited in claim 1.

if I read this correctly, and I doubt I do (I hope I don't), they are trying to secure even CDs, floppies, usb cards.. anything that contains code that allows the negotiation of an ip address for the network running the IPv6 'like' protocol. whaaaa??!

There needs to be a penalty...

[Max Threshold]

There needs to be some sort of penalty for filing fraudulent patent applications like this, and it needs to be something more than financial. Microsoft should be prohibited filing patents for a period of time. Ten years sound reasonable?

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[bani]

prison terms sounds better.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[servoled]

Do you have any proof that this is fraudulent?

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, membership on the committee that invented IPv6 without actually having permission from said committee to claim technology being discussed as your own.

Yes, I'd say that would be pretty fraudulent.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[rokzy]

RTFA - they allegedly withheld prior art documents.

(yes not "proof" but as close as you can get without some kind of official investigation. after all, I can't proove to you right now that the Earth goes round the Sun but you know if you look you'll find it.)

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[mas5353]

Nah... no way Bill Gate's frail frame would stand up in prison Not even the white-collar flavor! I can hear the resounding calls...

Fresh Fish!

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[the eric conspiracy]

There needs to be some sort of penalty for filing fraudulent patent applications like this, and it needs to be something more than financial

There are certainly laws against patent fraud. Whether the offense carries jail time usually depends on other issues. In exteme cases RICO has been brought into the picture.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[NanoGator]

"There needs to be some sort of penalty for filing fraudulent patent applications like this,"

There is. It's called a counter-suit.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[servoled]

I read the article, which states some guy as claiming that the inventors withheld RFC's. Perhaps you can point out the RFC's which would be considered relavent prior art.

I checked here which seems to list RFC's pertaining to IPv6, but didn't see much which would be considered all that relevant to this patent.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[tialaramex]

This is a patent on link-local address autoconfiguration for IPv4 (not as the article misleadingly says IPv6). Many Linux, Mac OS and Windows machines use this feature, but none of them need it to use the IPv4 or IPv6 Internet, in fact it's a fallback for when Internet service is not available.

Microsoft told the IETF back in August 2000 that they had patented this and offered RAND + Royalty Free terms to anyone willing to reciprocate.

http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/MICROSOFT-499.txt

Software patents are an abomination, but this just seems to be a case of mis-reporting.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[Timothy Brownawell]

prison terms sounds better

Prison is way overused. Whatever happened to "have the punishment fit the crime"?

Tim

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[quarkscat]

Parent has the right idea, but doesn't go nearly
far enough. The DoJ should revisit their penalty
(not judgement) against MSFT regarding monopoly.

Strip MSFT of all S/W patents, ban MSFT from
submitting any S/W patent for a period of 50
years, break MSFT (ala Ma Bell) into at least
5 competing little gorillas, throw the entire
Board of Directors of MSFT into prison for 10
years, and strip the Board of all salary and
bonuses from the time of the original DoJ
outcome (with all monies to be returned to
all other shareholders and customers -- that
is the penalty that should be incurred for
MSFT's continued monopolistic practices.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[maxwell demon]

IMHO there should be some sort of penalty for granting patents like this. That is, the patent office should be liable for the damage they cause with falsely granted patents. I think this would cause them to be much more careful in examining the validity of a patent claim.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[biglig2]

You forgot the public floggings...

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[greed]

I think the reason why people are reading this as IPv6 work is that they are still talking about class-based addressing:

Structurally, the IP address is broken into a network identifying portion (also known as an IP network prefix), a host identifying portion, and some bits used to identify one of three different formats of the IP address.

Apparently, they missed the entire industry switching to classless inter-domain routing over 10 years ago. (Which is what freed up enough address space to let IPv4 survive as long as it has; the old class-based allocation was amazingly wasteful. Which 126 organizations really needed 16,777,214 hosts on the globally-routable network? More to the point, how many organizations needed 65,534 hosts globally-routable? Turned out, very few.)

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the best solution is an open market solution. In this case passing a law stating that if you can prove a patent could theoreticaly in any way be used to sue you, then you can sue the patent holder for all she is worth if the patent is fraudulent.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[Max Threshold]

No, we should just give the patent office more resources to do their job properly.

It doesn't make sense to hold the patent office directly accountable, because it's a branch of the government, and (in theory at least) the government is us. If we fine them, we're just taxing ourselves.

Re:There needs to be a penalty...

[ArtStone]

and yet again the submitter totally misrepresents the substance of the matter in the summary.

The Patent itself (which is a link in the article) specifically mentions 32 bit addresses, and says that it is a product for use on a local network.

The quick and dirty summmary is:
- check to see if a DHCP server is available
- if one is available, accept the address given
- if not:
- compute an IP address using a hash the MAC id - something in the range of 10.x.x.x. Do an ARP WHOHAS and see if any computer on the LAN responds (it doesn't go to this level of detail)... if no other computer responds, that's your IP. If another computer does, pick a different one (probably adding 1 - guess)... After assigning itself its own non-routable IP, monitor to make sure that no other computer suddenly shows up with the same IP, and relinquish the address if it does.

This patent has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with IPv6. It specifically stipulates the prior art of DHCP, and states that it is a new idea because it only uses this function IF there is no DHCP server found on the local network.

Whether or not that should be a patent is its own issue - but the broad statements that Microsoft is trying to patent IPv6 is so incredibly reckless...

Screw you guys, we're going home.

[rokzy]

Let's all make our own internet and not invite Microsoft. It'll be great. With hookers. And gambling.

In fact... screw the gambling.

Re:Screw you guys, we're going home.

[EverDense]

Let's all make our own internet and not invite Microsoft. It'll be great. With hookers. And gambling.

In fact... screw the gambling.

Okay, sounds good, you screw "the gambling".
That'll leave more hookers for me.

Re:Screw you guys, we're going home.

[Anonymous Coward]

A linux users-only Internet?

Least. Fun. Web. EVER.

Re:Screw you guys, we're going home.

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

/me sticks a "moon" magnet on EverDense

Re:Screw you guys, we're going home.

[DCstewieG]

The punch line there is supposed to be "In fact, forget the internet!" but whatever...

Re:Screw you guys, we're going home.

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally speaking, shouldn't you be screwing the hookers instead?

Re:Screw you guys, we're going home.

[Anonymous Coward]

Off topic - but how many of you have paid for sex.
Trying to see if the myth is try unscientifically :)

Re:Screw you guys, we're going home.

[daft_one]

Off topic - but how many of you have paid for sex.

I got married; does that count?

Re:Screw you guys, we're going home.

[Pushnell]

I bet he's the same guy that cast magic missile at "the darkness".

Yes...

[Drew05]

First the desktops of morons around the world, then the internet, NEXT THE WORLD!

This is a patent on software

[Michael Hunt]

Based upon my cursory reading of the patent, it appears to be just the sort of thing that the EU keeps throwing out, again and again.

Admittedly in WIPO countries (since the patent is registered in the .us and .us patent law allows these kinds of shenanigans) royalties may have to be paid, but the EU parliament's reasonably clear stance on such things should go a long way towards making sure that this patent is a dead duck in a lot of the civilised world.

Regardless, this sort of patent tomfoolery should be illegal. WIPO should (although this will never happen) declare a patent unenforcable under the terms of the Berne Convention should said patent have been undisclosed during a supposedly 'open' working group.

Not that this sort of behavior is exactly unexpected from MS. It's what killed MARID.

Re:This is a patent on software

[dspisak]

What is MARID? And why should I care about it being killed?

Re:This is a patent on software

[Michael Hunt]

MTA Authorization Records In DNS. It was an IETF working group.

Google for it.

Re:This is a patent on software

[Macadamizer]

Just ot be nit-picky, "Berne" covers copyrights, notpatents. There have been a number of rounds of "harmonization" of patent laws, the Uruguay rounds under GATT, TRIPs, etc., but Berne isn't one of them.

No diasagreements, just thought I would correct that one point.

Re:This is a patent on software

[Michael Hunt]

I stand corrected. Thankyou.

Re:This is a patent on software

[VoidWraith]

Why should we listen to people who can't even spell "civilized" correctly?

(I jest, I jest! But its a Z sound goddammit!)

Re:This is a patent on software

[Morlark]

Yes, it's a Z sound. Just like in resistance.
Or should that be rezistanse? :P

Resistance is Futile.

We win

[Eh_Steve]

We are Microsoft
Resistance is Futile
You will be assimilated.

Re:We win

[John Seminal]

Dude, that is all large gluttonous corporations. Their leaders suffer from avarice. The problem is, at some point, it is no longer about a company providing people with a service, it is about one man, or a small group, that gets very greedy. It is what happened to Enron, Arthur Anderson Consulting, World Com, and what is happening in boardrooms all across the USA. It is where competition stops producing new products, or lowering price, but where corporations get so big they use every resource they have to kill the competition.

BTW, didn't the courts order MS to be broken into 2 divisions, the OS division and the applications division? I thought that was going to be the solution.

Re:We win

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Microsoft,
Just remember... in Soviet Russia, Internet tries to patent YOU!
-Anonymous Coward

They'll never enforce{}^^&&[NO CARRIER]

[Anonymous Coward]

Underground internet

[bird603568]

if they do get IPv6 couldnt there be a "undergorund" net using IPv4?

Re:Underground internet

[inject_hotmail.com]

What about IPv5?

Where did that go?

(Sorry, no time to research. I figured someone here could tell me much more quickly)

Inject.

Re:Underground internet

[Artifakt]

I hope you are seriously cluelsss and not just faking it, but here goes:
IPv5 doesn't exist, because by the time it became obvious that there was a need for more addresses, China and India's populations were rapidly joining the internet, and Bill Gates was talking about putting everyone's toasters on it too. It quickly became so obvious that this would not just overload the existing system, but over-overload it. So "they" jumped straight to 6 to make sure.
IPV4 has 256^4 addresses (minus a smidgen), and 6 has 256^6 (ditto)

Re:Underground internet

[TheSpoom]

Nah. If they get IPv6, we'll make IPv6.1.screwMS and it'll become the standard.

Re:Underground internet

[SirTalon42]

Actually IPv5 was used for some other protocol that never panned out.

Re:Underground internet

[inject_hotmail.com]

I hope you are seriously cluelsss and not just faking it, but here goes

Thanks for the update! I know I should have known it before...but...the versioning sequence makes zero sense. Remember back in the day when a new version number meant there was a serious change/overhaul? Not just simple additions/bug fixes/etc! Now new versions relate more to the year than anything else. Being that this is not a product, per se, I was curious about IPv5...anyway...another poster says it was used, but not widely.

So, why isn't IPv6 the default for all IP communication now? It's as easy as using a different protocol, so why hasn't (I have to say it) Microsoft made it the default for XP? Why don't commericial routers use it?

Anyway, no response required, this is just rhetoric.

Inject.

IPv6

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is how IPv6 determines an IP address it is a worse designed protocol than I had thought. Seriously, who came up with this crap?

Unfortunate Precedent: Rambus & JEDEC

[Nova Express]

I would like to say that this has no chance of suceeding, but unfotunately there's already one example of a company (Rambus) having their people attending a standards committee (JEDEC) in public while working to patent the same technologies in private. And they almost got away with it.

Re:Unfortunate Precedent: Rambus & JEDEC

[Michael Hunt]

A much closer precedent for this sort of tomfoolery was the IETF's MARID working group.

For those of you who don't remember, Microsoft allied themselves (and their Sender ID standard) with Meng Weng Wong/PoBox's SPF standard, to create a supposed uber-standard known as 'Caller ID' (SPF v2). Later on, it came to light that MS owned key patents on many of the methodologies which SPF2 and Sender ID used, and their patent license was abhorrent to many of the working group's participants. The IETF then disbanded the working group.

I'm working from memory, so I don't have much in the way of sources, but googling for "Microsoft MARID" should turn over a few stones.

Re:Unfortunate Precedent: Rambus & JEDEC

[Michael Hunt]

I hate nitpicking my own posts, but I got the names of MS's two standards backwards:

'Sender ID' was the later, merged-with-SPF standard.
'Caller ID' was their own, patent-encumbered proposal.

Sorry. That is all.

Re:Unfortunate Precedent: Rambus & JEDEC

[rudy_wayne]

What do you mean Rambus *ALMOST* got away with it?

Here's a news story from 2 days ago:
"Chipmaker Infineon Technologies and memory chip designer Rambus have reached a settlement in their closely watched patent infringement case.

Under the two-year agreement, announced Monday, Infineon will pay Rambus nearly $47 million for a global license to all existing and future Rambus patents and patent applications for use in Infineon products."

Re:Unfortunate Precedent: Rambus & JEDEC

[Macadamizer]

But part of the reason for the agreement is because each side is likely spending $1 million + per month on legal fees -- sometimes its better just to cut and run. Especially in litigation, where even if you spend the money on the lawyers, you still may lose anyway. At some point you just make a business decision.

This was a nasty case anyway -- just a couple of weeks ago a judge smacked down Rambus for spoliation of evidence (read: destroying documents), and before that, Infineon got into all sorts of trouble for the same types of shenanigans...

Re:Unfortunate Precedent: Rambus & JEDEC

[Antique Geekmeister]

Their later standard is still patent encumbered. They're also now claiming all the SPF users as SenderID users, which is blatantly false. Looking at the SPF archives, it's fun to watch Meng try and make Microsoft sound like they were ever reasonable. It's like a battered child, making excuses for their molesting parent and pretend that the violations were their own fault while their friends, teachers, and social workers say "report them and get out of that house!"

Re:Unfortunate Precedent: Rambus & JEDEC

[10Ghz]

If you actually think about it, Rambus got screwed there. They DO have alot of very nice technology. And Infineon now have access to all of it for all eternity, for a measly 47 million dollars! What did Rambus get from the deal? 47 million dollars and.... well, that's just about it. 47 million barely covers their legal-expenses in their case against Infineon!

Ars has a nice commentary on it here

Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[John Seminal]

This is why some things should remain in the public domain. It is like Joe's Brick and Morter company trying to patent roads, what MS is doing.

There are some things that only the public, aka government can do, that we can't trust private companies with.

I bet if government ran the phone companies and telecom, we could get service for pennies on the dollar. How much cost does it take to lay down the infrastructure? How much does it take to pay executives rediculous bonuses? Lets cut out the greed. And at the same time there will be public review.

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[jnetsurfer]

I bet if government ran the phone companies and telecom, we could get service for pennies on the dollar.

Yeah, but what would that service be like? Come on, we're talking about the government here! I don't trust the government to develop innovative features!

Besides, it's competition that drives successful business. If there's three or four large companies vying for customers, then they're all going to try and top the others, by offering better service, higher quality, more features, etc. It can be argued that this competition drives a large number of the innovations in technology. If the government handled all the phone service, they wouldn't care if we (the consumer) were satisfied or not -- they're just collect their money.

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm observing a whole lot of nothing from cable/DSL companies at the moment. We're getting speeds inferior to, say, Europe, at costs that are either comparable or higher. Go competition... NOT.

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[blincoln]

I bet if government ran the phone companies and telecom, we could get service for pennies on the dollar.

How old are you? AT&T used to have a government-granted monopoly on telecom service in the US, which is basically the same thing. Homeowners couldn't even add another wall jack to their house.

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

"I bet if government ran the phone companies and telecom, we could get service for pennies on the dollar."

Research the UK system. This was a state-granted monopoly rather than actually part of government, but close enough.
Unlike the US there was 100.000000% coverage, but I don't think it was any cheaper. You didn't have to mess around with calling cards or picking a provider though, so it was easier. It's privatised now, and seems a bit cheaper, though I think that's down to competition with mobiles rather than between phone companies. Also, the customer service went from poor to awful.

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Gees, where have you been for last four decades? I am, unfortunately, living in a country where ALL the telecom and related stuff was run by the state/governement owned companies and I can tell you, that you would NEVER have asked what you have, if you were in my place. We pay a dollar even now for things that the seroius-country citizens got for a dime yesterday. Socialism just does not work. Period. State /governement is just here to make and asure reasonable rules, not to run businesses. The point is NOT that the IT/Telecom/IP/Copyright (and whatever else you want) should be run by the state, but that these things should be REASONABLY (like in reason) regulated by law. Which apparently is not the case here, as this US patent story is becoming increasingly silly. (and should be treated as such in an appropriate Monthy-Python-like manner ;-)

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet if government ran the phone companies and telecom, we could get service for pennies on the dollar.

I think the government would see it as an opportunity to charge a lot: it would be another source of Tax revenue.

Not only would it not be pennies on the dollar, it might just be several times more expensive, and of service quality several times less.

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[cortana]

The barrier to entry for providing cable services is too high. The cable companies want to keep it that way--why else are they so anxious to outlaw municipal wifi? :)

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[zotz]

"I bet if government ran the phone companies and telecom, we could get service for pennies on the dollar."

Don't be naive. You would lose your bet. In my country (The Bahamas) the government owns and runs the telco, electric, water & sewerage, airline, tv station, and radio stations. All monopolies for most of my life. Things are easing up a bit lately.

I hear figures that more than 20% of the workforce in the country is government employed. This has large economic effects sure, but also large political effects for a democracy.

Until the last year, the telco rate for a long distance call to Miami (roughly 185 miles from where I live) was 99 cents a minute. The electricity is constantly going out. In the summer, they load shed so you can expect a several hour plus outage on a regular basis. It is illegal (as far as I know) to go off grid and generate your own power if the power company can supply you (however poorly.)

If you have better that this, you don't want what we have.

Don't get me wrong, life is good here anyway. It is just sad that it could easily be so much better.

What I think you should want for a start is for your government to ensure no monopoly or cartel type foolishness. Then to properly oversee any markets where they are not fully free. (This probably covers more markets than most of us realise or think.) As to whether this proper oversite is possible, who knows. Anyone have and actual current or past examples?

all the best,

drew

http://www.archive.org/audio/audio-details-db.php? collection=opensource_audio&collectionid=JohnConst antakisdrewRobertsRainwaterBlues

Re:Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Again

[Syberghost]

I bet if government ran the phone companies and telecom, we could get service for pennies on the dollar.

Because when it broke and you called them for help, the senior support people would be making $10 an hour, and wouldn't have to work on weekends, after hours, or on holidays, including holidays you never heard of.

In the old days, Corporations were disbanded

[WillAffleckUW]

for acting against the common interest.

Their charters were revoked.

Nowadays, this no longer happens, sadly.

However, considering that IPv6 is by virtue of creation a Government-owned (and hence Public) Patent, it would only be possible for MSFT to have an enforceable patent on a particular application or device that uses IPv6. Naturally, all this assumes (incorrectly) that the government will take action to enforce its rights and patents, which appears not to be the case in the USA.

Hey, give them credit.

[Stick_Fig]

They're mad hax0rz of the patent office.

Re:In other news...

[ArticleI]

Don't you mean the Internet with a capital 'I'?

DHCP

[StArSkY]

it reads to me like they are trying to patent DHCP

Re:DHCP

[Anonymous Coward]

No - this is for getting an IP without an DHCP server. It doesn't seem like their even patenting IPV6, it's just more of an algorithm to give yourself an IP without a colision.

Which is stupid in itself. How dare I create a hash based on my MAC address and try to ping an IP before setting mine to that!

Re:DHCP

[MavEtJu]

The auto configuration mechanics in IPv6 are indeed similair to parts of the DHCP auto configuration in IPv4: subnet address, subnet mask and default gateway (maybe more, but these are the ones I remember).

Re:DHCP

[Anonymous Coward]

no they are patenting the allocation of IP addresses when a DHCP or equivalent server does not exist. they specifically say this process is when no server is present to assign an IP address

And the award goes to...

[mas5353]

The award for creating a sentence with the most obsessive use of IP goes to: M$! ...for an entry in their insidious attempt at trying to patent the internet. As quoted: "assigning an IP address from the IP address server to the host when an IP address server is available over the IP network; and immediately discontinuing use of the generated IP address when an assigned IP address is received from an IP address server available over the network." Oh man... I hope that this isn't copyrighted because I could get sued!

Re:And the award goes to...

[Neil Blender]

You've obviously never read patents. They are written by lawyers, not english teachers.

IANAL, but I think Linux would be a good example

[jnetsurfer]

Now I am far from a lawyer, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that if Microsoft successfully patented IPv6, then they could demand that they get compensated for any implementation of ipv6. Which means that to use ipv6 under Linux, for example, you'd need to play royalties to Microsoft.

Wouldn't Microsoft like that? People who choose Free Software still have to pay Microsoft for the right to use it...

Re:umm.. they're trying to secure all IPv6 softwar

[kansas1051]

You are ocrrect that the claims of a patent determine its scope. however, the claim you cited is a dependent claim [the ... of claim 1..] so it will include all the limitations of claim 1. Thus, to infringe, a program must at a minimum include: 1. In a host that has been connected to a network that does not have an IP address server and is not connected with any network having an IP address server, a method for automatically generating an IP address for the host, without another component of the network being required to transmit, to the host over the network, an IP address of said other component, the method comprising the steps of: without the host having received over the network any IP address of another component of the network, selecting a valid network identifying value as a network identifying portion of the IP address for the host; without the host having received over the network said any IP address of another component of the network, generating a host identifying portion of the IP address for the host based on information available to the host; and testing the generated IP address for the host for conflicting usage by another host on the network and determining that no conflicting usage of the generated IP address exists. A program that doesnt perform each of the above steps, or their equivilent, would not infringe this claim, or any claims that depend therefrom, such as the dependent claim you quoted.

Heh

[daveschroeder]

This time they bought the rights to the internet from the creator, Al Gore.

And that would especially funny, considering Al Gore now sits on Apple's Board of Directors.

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Jason! 1998 called. They want your troll back.

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

"And that would especially funny, considering Al Gore now sits on Apple's Board of Directors."

And that Al Gore, Steve Jobs and the owner of the Hyatt Hotel chain are creating an Independant TV station/network.

Gee, I wonder who they will be critical of.

<HINT>Bush</HINT>

obligatory remark

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Microsoft,
Just remember.. in Soviet Russia, Internet tries to patent YOU!
-Anonymous Coward

Re:obligatory remark

[Anonymous Coward]

In Korea, only old people patent the Interent(s) in Japan.

Can IETF take any

[News for nerds]

sanctions on this kind of behaviour, like locking those related out of a board for several years?

Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Jugalator]

The patent abstract:

A method and computer product for automatically generating an IP network address that facilitates simplified network connection and administration for small-scale IP networks without IP address servers, such as those found in a small business or home network environment. First, a proposed IP address is generated by selecting a network identifying portion (sometimes known as an IP network prefix) while deterministically generating the host identifying portion based on information available to the IP host. For example, the IEEE 802 Ethernet address found in the network interface card may be used with a deterministic hashing function to generate the host identifying portion of the IP address. Next, the generated IP address is tested on the network to assure that no existing IP host is using that particular IP address. If the generated IP address already exists, then a new IP address is generated, otherwise, the IP host will use the generated IP address to communicate over the network. While using the generated IP address, if an IP address server subsequently becomes available, the host will conform to IP address server protocols for receiving an assigned IP address and gradually cease using the automatically generated IP address.

Now that bear pretty much zero similarity to IPv6, which is among others: expanding address space over IPv4 while being somewhat backwards compatible for a transition period, improved IP packet modularity for less overhead, new hierarchical infrastructure for improved routing support, built-in IPSec, improved quality-of-service (QoS) support, improved support for ad hoc networking, and improved support for extensibility.

That abstract seems to me that this is... well, something entirely different?

Is it even a protocol?? "A method and computer product for automatically generating an IP network address"... Huh??

Can someone clarify the huge similarities here to me that makes this big news?

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Michael Hunt]

Nope. Read the IPv6 specs.

IPv6 has an autoconfiguration mechanism whereby an IPv6 autoconfiguration server will spit out a 64-bit prefix (all local networks are /64s in IPv6), and a host will create an EUI-64 address to postpend to it, as a deterministic function of the interface's layer 2 address.

I'd find the RFC but i'm too lazy. Search for 'IPv6 autoconfiguration' on rfc-editor.org or google.

Have a nice day.

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[statusbar]

Interesting... so is it really a patent on zeroconf/rendezvous?

jeff

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Sampizcat]

Based on ONLY reading the abstract in the post above, I'd have to say: this actually sounds like a good idea.

From my understanding, it appears to be DHCP (as someone mentioned earlier), but without the DHCP server. In essence, it sounds like the perfect thing for mom & pop at home who don't know how to give their computer an "IP Address" (what the heck's that?). Instead, just have the computer assign one itself (you'll notice they mention this is for small networks only, they even specify that it would be useful for "home network environment").

What can I say (never thought I'd say this) - but nice idea Microsoft.

Cheers all,
Sampizcat

PS. I run Linux at home, worked as a sys-admin for Unix and prefer *Nix over Windows any day. However, a good idea is still a good idea, no matter who it comes from.

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[parnold]

IPv6 has stateless autoconfiguration, where machines are automaticlly given ip addresses. The first 64bit s of the address is the network prefix and the second 64 bits is a padded form of the 48 bit MAC address.

This is the similarity to IPv6, although i don't think that this patent stateless autoconfiguration to be a problem, although courts oftern seem to missunderstand computer patent claims.

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a good idea.. which is exactly why it was already thought of when creating ipv6.

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 95+ (maybe even 3.11) does that. Plug two boxes together. One will decide it's DHCP server for the day and assign both IP addresses in the 192.168.xxx.xxx range. Makes small LAN parties nice and easy.

I dunno if this is even in linux :(

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that this is what they are patenting
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/randz/protocol/apipa.asp

The relevant RFC for IPv6 autoconfig is
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ipv 6-rfc2462bis-07.txt

The patent's argument claims to avoid prior art using the following statement:

The present invention overcomes the limitations in the prior art by ascertaining the absence of a network IP address server, such as a DHCP server, automatically generating an IP address, testing the IP address to determine uniqueness, and periodically determining if an IP address server subsequently becomes available on the IP network. In this embodiment, the invention may be used in a network that has or does not have an IP address server. Furthermore, it will give priority to the IP address server whenever present so that the generated IP address is only used when necessary.

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Sampizcat]

I had a quick squiz through RFC1883 (http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc1883.txt?number=1883) "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification" and all it appears to mention on the subject is:

"IPv6 increases the IP address size from 32 bits to 128 bits, to support more levels of addressing hierarchy, a much greater number of addressable nodes, and simpler auto-configuration of addresses."

Going into more detail and reading RFC1971 (http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc1971.txt?number=1971) " IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration" gives you the nuts and bolts of how it actually happens. Abstract says:

"This document specifies the steps a host takes in deciding how to autoconfigure its interfaces in IP version 6. The autoconfiguration process includes creating a link-local address and verifying its uniqueness on a link, determining what information should be autoconfigured (addresses, other information, or both), and in the case of addresses, whether they should be obtained through the stateless mechanism, the stateful mechanism, or both. This document defines the process for generating a link-local address, the process for generating site-local and global addresses via stateless address autoconfiguration, and the Duplicate Address Detection procedure. The details of autoconfiguration using the stateful protocol are specified elsewhere."

Two key points here: 1) Stateful autoconfiguration and 2) Stateless autoconfiguration.

1) Stateful autoconfiguration: Is where it uses a server. Ignore.

2) Stateless autoconfiguration: Does NOT require a server, but requires a router if you want more than just a link-local address. From the RFC:

" IPv6 defines both a stateful and stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism. Stateless autoconfiguration requires no manual configuration of hosts, minimal (if any) configuration of routers, and no additional servers. The stateless mechanism allows a host to generate its own addresses using a combination of locally available information and information advertised by routers. Routers advertise prefixes that identify the subnet(s) associated with a link, while hosts generate an "interface token" that uniquely identifies an interface on a subnet. An address is formed by combining the two. In the absence of routers, a host can only generate link-local addresses. However, link-local addresses are sufficient for allowing communication among nodes attached to the same link."

For the record, "link local addresses" are defined as:

"an address having link-only scope that can be used to reach neighboring nodes attached to the same link. All interfaces have a link-local unicast address."

So, essentially, it looks like MS is getting VERY close to what this RFC states, although they seem to be allowing more than just a link-local address without needing a router.

Cheers,
Sampizcat

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit. Only problem is, Apple's been shipping this capability for almost three years now. And they submitted it to the IETF as Zeroconf.

Of course, since it's Apple, nobody on the Windoze side paid it any attention, and continued their wretched computing existences while Apple released Technology Previews 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Rendezvous for Windows.

Perhaps MS's patent attempt will legitimize once again something that Apple's been doing for quite awhile. We've seen it before with the 3 1/2 inch floppy, with wireless networking, with built-in networking, with too many innovations to list. Bill Gates always makes his fey way up to the podium and claims 'innovation' for the Borg.

http://developer.apple.com/macosx/rendezvous/index .html
http://www.zeroconf.org/

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Leolo]

I thought that was how rendezvous / ZeroConf / UPnP worked.

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[konmaskisin]

So, essentially, it looks like MS is getting VERY close to what this RFC states, although they seem to be allowing more than just a link-local address without needing a router.

Yup ... but they are still stealing.

This sort of thing should be illegal.

Re:Can't see why it's similar to IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

no the point is they are NOT stealing as they are trying to provide a way to autoconfigure WITHOUT the need of a router or server.

Oh Darn

[SunFan]

Who do I make the royalty check out to for my Solaris and OpenBSD installs that have had IPv6 capability for years?

Remind me

[Anonymous Coward]

To invite you to my next party.

For the lazy: patent text

[Frodo Crockett]

Inventors: Ford; Peter S. (Carnation, WA);Bahl; Pradeep (Redmond, WA);Khaki; Jawad Mohamed J. (Redmond, WA);Burns; Greg (Carnation, WA);Beeson; Frank J. (Seattle, WA)

Abstract: A method and computer product for automatically generating an IP network address that facilitates simplified network connection and administration for small-scale IP networks without IP address servers, such as those found in a small business or home network environment. First, a proposed IP address is generated by selecting a network identifying portion (sometimes known as an IP network prefix) while deterministically generating the host identifying portion based on information available to the IP host. For example, the IEEE 802 Ethernet address found in the network interface card may be used with a deterministic hashing function to generate the host identifying portion of the IP address. Next, the generated IP address is tested on the network to assure that no existing IP host is using that particular IP address. If the generated IP address already exists, then a new IP address is generated, otherwise, the IP host will use the generated IP address to communicate over the network. While using the generated IP address, if an IP address server subsequently becomes available, the host will conform to IP address server protocols for receiving an assigned IP address and gradually cease using the automatically generated IP address.

Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA)
Application Number: 57135
Filing Date: April 8, 1998
Publication Date: August 8, 2000

Claims:

What is claimed and desired to be secured by United States Letters Patent is:

1. In a host that has been connected to a network that does not have an IP address server and is not connected with any network having an IP address server, a method for automatically generating an IP address for the host, without another component of the network being required to transmit, to the host over the network, an IP address of said other component, the method comprising the steps of:

without the host having received over the network any IP address of another component of the network, selecting a valid network identifying value as a network identifying portion of the IP address for the host;

without the host having received over the network said any IP address of another component of the network, generating a host identifying portion of the IP address for the host based on information available to the host;

and testing the generated IP address for the host for conflicting usage by another host on the network and determining that no conflicting usage of the generated IP address exists.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the network identifying portion of the generated IP address is chosen to be 10.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of: determining that an IP address server is not present prior to selecting the network identifying portion of the IP address; and ascertaining if an IP address server later becomes present over the network.

4. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the steps of: assigning an IP address from the IP address server to the host when an IP address server is available over the IP network; and immediately discontinuing use of the generated IP address when an assigned IP address is received from an IP address server available over the network.

5. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the steps of: assigning an address from the IP address server to the host when an IP address server is available over the network; and gradually discontinuing use of the generated IP address when an assigned IP address is received from an IP address server available over the network.

6. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the step of assigning an IP address from the IP address server to the host

Re:For the lazy: patent text

[Stop Error]

Sounds to me like they are talking about the automated IP address that Windows 2000/XP give to themselves when there is no DHCP server available.

Re:For the lazy: patent text

[dascandy]

How did you ever get past the lameness filter with that sort of lame patent?

Re:For the lazy: patent text

[magarity]

Sounds to me like they are talking about the automated IP address that Windows 2000/XP give to themselves

No, that's just a random number that hopefully has no duplicate. There's no check mechanism to prevent dupes. If a 2k/XP machine gives itself a random address that conflicts, both that one and the first owner will get 'another machine has the same address!' messages and it's up to the users to take action.

Re:For the lazy: patent text

[Stop Error]

No, they do check for dupicates. while the host number it does broadcast to make sure there are no duplicates.

Re:For the lazy: patent text

[magarity]

Whups, you're right; i was thinking of something else.

Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'm not agreeing. I'm simply trying to help a liberal learn how to spell since the government funded public schools have failed us yet again.

Re:Exactly

[XeroPurpose]

Yeah... you know, the Amish have much better literacy rates, I'm sure...

Sounds like automatic static addressing

[codepunk]

Wow the just patented the network startup scripts
on unix machines.

What next?

[Patrick Mannion]

Are they gonna claim that they owned APRANET? Someday, Microsoft will own the IETF, Internet Society and W3C. We'll be screwed.

Re:What next?

[Cheapy]

No, for some geeks there is no chance of being screwed.

On the other hand if you meant assimilated...

Well if that's so...

[spaeschke]

The internet will be taken over "conquered" if you will by a master race of Microsoft software engineers. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume internet users or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; Microsoft will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new monopolistic overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Slashdot personality that I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground Excel, Access, and Dot.net cubicle farms.

Missed the boat

[pavera]

Ok, the article, the pubpat guy, the slashdot editors, everyone's missed the boat on this one.

While this patent is not quite brilliant, it's not ipv6, this is a patent on the "automatic addressing" function in windows ME, 2k, xp, etc, where if your network card has link, but can't find a dhcp server the system auto-assigns an address from like a 169 or something subnet that MS owns.

This patent has absolutely nothing to do with ipv6 further, I believe MS was the first to do anything like this, even now they are (unless maybe apple does it now too... but I don't think they do either). Anyway I've never seen the feature actually be useful, mostly it is an annoyance, but it's not ipv6

Re:Missed the boat

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Apple does self generate IPs now and they did even back in 1994 in the MacTCP days (who wrote MacTCP?). Caused havoc with your network admin if you had your Mac set to auto generate an IP and you weren't suppose to.

Re:Missed the boat

[Shamashmuddamiq]

I think this is what you're referring to:

auto-ip

Automatically assign an address on the 169.254.0.0/16 network if no DHCP server is found. Continue making DHCP requests every 2-4 minutes until DHCP server does respond...

Re:Missed the boat

[ockegheim]

this is a patent on the "automatic addressing" function in windows ME, 2k, xp, etc, where if your network card has link, but can't find a dhcp server the system auto-assigns an address from like a 169 or something subnet that MS owns.

Apple stole it then...

Anyway I've never seen the feature actually be useful, mostly it is an annoyance...

...complete with all its annoyance functionality.

Re:Missed the boat

[MacDork]

Apple stole it then

No actually, I believe part of the 1997 settlement between Apple and Microsoft included cross licensing of patents. I think the deal expired after 5 years though, so I would imagine they've licensed it, as they did one-click shopping.

Re:Missed the boat

[MacFreek]

I fear you missed the boat too, when it comes to the history:

1. Indeed, you are right that the patent is NOT AT ALL IPv6 related. So both PUBPAT, ZDNet and Slashdot are wrong here.
2. It is related to IPv4 link-local addresses. Indeed, the 169.254/16. address you mention. You're correct there. Now, please read RFC 3927 for all details.
3. As you can see in Appendix A of RFC 3927, these "IPv4 link-local addresses" where implement in Windows 98 and Mac OS 8. You missed the boat completely here.
4. This technology is NOT "owned" by MS as you claim.
5. However, both Microsoft AND Apple too(!) do claim IPR over this technology.
6. It is VERY interesting to note that both Apple's patents were submitted March 21, 1985, and have thus expired last week (!).
7. Microsofts patent is so new (filed 1998) it's laughable. There is VERY, VERY mucht prior art. Take Mac OS 8 (released 1997).

Please, read before responding:

• RFC 3927, Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses.

Both Apple's and MicroSoft patent claims are also old news:

• Microsoft's claims, U.S. Patent No. 6,101,499
• Apple's claims, U.S. Patent Numbers 4,661,902 and 4,689,786
• Patent 6,101,499, filed April 8, 1998
• Patent 4,661,902, filed March 21, 1985
• Patent 6,101,499, filed March 21, 1985

Re:Missed the boat

[pavera]

Thanks for all the information, I didn't use macs until OS X and then still not that often. Anyway, that's fine if there is a ton of prior art. the RFC doesn't exactly qualify as it was written and copyright 2005...

but anyway, I was mis-informed in an MCSE class I took where the instructor said that MS owned the 169.254 address space, sorry about that. I wasn't saying MS owned the technology, just the address space.. but I'm wrong there sorry.

Anyway, my point was just that MS is not in any way trying to "own" the internet, it has nothing to do with ipv6 as everyone was screaming. Let MS and Apple duke it out over the patents, it'll be fun to watch!

am I missing something?

[spir0]

but upon glancing over the patent, the abstract completely contradicts the complaints that this patent has received.

It is nothing like IPv6. It sounds like a zero-config DHCP.

Re:am I missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop reading the articles and just post complaints dammit ;)

Re:am I missing something?

[wjsteele]

I know what you're trying to do, you're trying to clutter the issue with facts, arn't you!

Bill

Re:am I missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, but you are one dupedot. Likely it's much easier to sex up a story then filtering... .

Re:am I missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're miles ahead of the slashdot editors, who apparently read it to mean "the internet". Fucking retards...

Re:umm.. they're trying to secure all IPv6 softwar

[Anonymous Coward]

Great cow of Moscow! You know that linebreaks are your friend, right?

DUPE

[Anonymous Coward]

DUPE

Sure, just like TCP/IP

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the things that bugged me the most was the lumping of TCP/IP protocol under Microsoft standards (circa win98)... What gall!

Imagine, if you will, co-opting a standard that existed 25 years before you were born!

or...

[santakrooz]

it's just a case where Microsoft spent resources developing nextgen protocol ideas, patented them and then donated those resources to the standards effort to build a standards based nextgen protocol... why does every single thing that MS does, have to be spun as an evil plot?

of course they are going to patent their work... sheesh. should they not be involved in developing standards because of it?

Re:or...

[unDiWahn]

Well -- yes, if the work they donate to the developing standards is part of the patent. Since then they can claim licencing fees off of anyone who uses the "standard", MS (or whichever company) should be required to note that the work is patented -- at which point, no sane standards body would accept it. Perhaps a no-enforcement contract could be spun up, but otherwise...

Can it be?

[aspx]

Dear Lord! Is Microsoft attempting to stifle my freedom to innovate?

Re:umm.. they're trying to secure all IPv6 softwar

[Anonymous Coward]

You are reading this line incorrectly. It is not a claim for any sort of computing device. It is merely one of several (at least 12) points about their invention. These dozen clauses are ANDed, not ORed.

Back in the day, patents were not allowed on any sort of software at all. So, the convention arose of describing the entire process of the invention, including its realization on a general purpose computer running some software. Without this description of a concrete implementation, the patent application would get rejected. This text is essentially boilerplate for inventions that happen to be implemented with a general-purpose machine and some peripherals rather than a dedicated single-purpose machine with a hardwired "program".

Software Patents Would Not Be So Bad

[MCTFB]

If not for the fact that they lasted so long. Hey, if Microsoft did not patent the internet, then some other company which exists solely for the purpose of extorting money out of other companies with patent lawsuit threats would have done it.

I myself have been personally involved in the patent process for reasons I can't mention here, but I have learned through it all that more times than not companies such as Microsoft file or acquire patents for defensive reasons much more often than for the purposes of bullying the small guy with threats of litigation.

I mean, what if Microsoft or Amazon.com didn't file some of these ridiculous patents and somebody else did, then sued Microsoft or Amazon.com or [INSERT GIANT MULTINATIONAL SOFTWARE COMPANY HERE], and this company was able to extort millions, perhaps billions of dollars from these big companies by abusing the patent system. I mean, if you are a patent-squatter what is the point of wasting your time suing a small fry when you can go for the Big Kahuna.

But the worst thing about all of this is that unless you defend your patent in court, you lose it. So, whether Microsoft or Amazon.com wants to defend their patents or not against a company which may have technology that is related to their patent, they are forced to sue those companies anyways.

In addition to health care costs for businesses, high corporate taxes, weak anti-trust laws as well as poor enforcement of them, I would say our ass-backwards patent system is one of the major poisons of starting a technology business in the United States these days.

I am no fan of oursourcing myself, but as a business owner of a software company myself, you sometimes have to ask yourself how the hell are you supposed to compete in the world marketplace when the laws and regulations in your own country AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF THOSE LAWS AND REGULATIONS is rigged entirely in favor of multinational corporations which really don't even have any national loyalty to any particular nation, yet due to the weakness of democratic republics around the world where votes can easily be bought and sold, small business owners in the technology industry either have to play by the rigged rules of the big companies or not play at all.

Technology patents may seem like a huge problem when it comes to stifling innovation in the United States and around the world, but unfortunately they are just a small problem in a giant sea of problems that exist due to well-intentioned ideas such as patents being corrupted by giant amoral companies and the soulless people who run them.

Re:Software Patents Would Not Be So Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking back over all your other /. comments, dude... you need to get a life. Your posts are way too logical, enlightened, and long. Find yourself a blog site, get nationally syndicated and clean up.

Re:Software Patents Would Not Be So Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, what if Microsoft or Amazon.com didn't file some of these ridiculous patents and somebody else did

Anyone can prevent something from being patented by someone else simply by publishing it. This is how people shared ideas & research before software patents came into being.

I patent...

[the eric conspiracy]

misreading an article about patents, and then submitting the erroneous conclusions to Slashdot who will then exercise their editorial bias against patents and post it as news.

Re:I patent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, too much prior art, see here.

Which TLD are you from?

[Cap'n Steve]

"(since the patent is registered in the .us and .us patent law allows these kinds of shenanigans)"

You just referred to an entire country by its domain. Wow, just wow.

I'd like a vacation in England, but I can't seem to find the .uk anymore. Is .co a British state or what?

Humor based on a falsehood

[VidEdit]

"Way to miss the point (hint: humor) and try to drag everyone into a politcal debate on GW bashing."

No, I didn't miss the point. I actually did find it amusing. However, it is a joke based on a falsehood and the joke perpetuates the falsehood.

Falsehoods and Urban Legends spread because individuals don't take the responsibility of double checking information before repeating it. Calling attention to the false premise of your joke is a first step in stopping the propagation of a falsehood. It is a small step, but even the longest journey starts with a single step.

As for GW Bashing, it is relevant because spreading the claim that Al Gore was a serial "exaggerator" was part of the Republican talking points in the 2000 election. The falsehood that Gore had claimed to have "invented" the internet was a popular refrain from Bush supporters. Now it is relevant to point out the immense irony of claiming that in a contest between Bush and Gore, Gore was the liar.

Given revelations about what the Bush administration knew about the claimed purchases of metal tubes and the yellow cake by Iraq, that Bush would seem to be the serial exaggerator, if not outright bald-faced liar.

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[Anonymous Coward]

If Al Gore actually used the word "creating" in his statement, does that not make him a creator? (Please note the difference between "a" and "the" in this circumstance.)

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[Anonymous Coward]

The falsehood that Gore had claimed to have "invented" the internet was a popular refrain from Bush supporters.

Actually, it's far more popular on slashdot, where tired old jokes are repeated, day after day after day... and where anal control freaks feel the need to respond to them.

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore was blathering incessantly about an 'information superhighway' in Congress for years before there was an Internet in the public consciousness. Sure, academics had access far earlier, but Al Gore deserves much credit for recogizing the potential for taking the Internet public.

Al Gore lost because he is pedantic. Because he thought that repeating one word over and over ('lockbox') was what it took to get the idea through our thick skulls. Turns out the electorate is thicker than that, even. GWB has been stealing the next generation blind, partially by sticking his hand in the 'lockbox.' Bottom line: people would rather elect a dumb guy than a smart guy.

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[CptNerd]

No, I didn't miss the point. I actually did find it amusing. However, it is a joke based on a falsehood and the joke perpetuates the falsehood.

You mean a priest, a rabbi and a horse didn't walk into a bar one day?

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[iowannaski]

Does this mean an iPod has more space than a Nomad, an FM tuner, and is not lame?

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[bigsteve@dstc]

They did too! The priest and the rabbi bruised their shins, and the horse had to be put down.

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[DavidTC]

I'm glad I'm not the only person who remember him going on and on and on and on about the damn 'information superhighway'. (At the same time Hillary was babbling about 'health care reform'.)

When I first heard people claiming he'd said to have invented it, I was thinking 'I don't know if he did that, but he sure wouldn't shut up about it before we had one.'.

I swear, this country has the attention span of a gnat sometimes.

Hey, remember when Gore had plans to send movies and TV shows on demand into people's homes using the information superhighway, and everyone who knew anything about computers thought he was crazy? Now, of course, the MPAA would come down on him so hard...

BTW, we're almost one month short of the 10 year anniversary of the private internet. April 30, 1995, NFSNet was sold and the government no longer owned the net.

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[Anonymous Coward]

Gore's ACTUAL STATEMENT was that he DISCOVERED the internet.

He discovered it when as a senator he voted on a spending bill.

That was only one of his exaggerations. I hope we've seen the last of him and his former boss.

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[Proney]

Nah, they all ducked

Re:Humor based on a falsehood

[SagaLore]

Nope, you missed the point. If the point had been the sun, and you were a rocket ship pointed directly at it and within 100 feet of hitting the surface, you still out of some miracle would have missed it.

Take your political soapbox elsewhere. This topic is about the Internet, Microsoft, and IPv6 for crying out loud. This topic is.. is... maybe I should define is for you.

You are fighting a losing battle

[Anonymous Coward]

Those in control routinely re-write history. The Nazi and USSR communist party did this routinely. I would have to say that real history has undergone a massive re-write over the last 5 years.

Re:umm.. they're trying to secure all IPv6 softwar

[Macadamizer]

Back in the day, patents were not allowed on any sort of software at all. So, the convention arose of describing the entire process of the invention, including its realization on a general purpose computer running some software. Without this description of a concrete implementation, the patent application would get rejected. This text is essentially boilerplate for inventions that happen to be implemented with a general-purpose machine and some peripherals rather than a dedicated single-purpose machine with a hardwired "program".

Exactly -- this is called a "Beauregard claim," from the case in re Beauregard where someone first tried to patent software using claim language of this type.

Nowadays, since we can directly patent software via business method patents, this claim language is somewhat superfluous, but a lot of patents still use it -- who knows, if they ever overturn State Street, maybe this claim language will save some patents...

I hear there's rumors...

[tepples]

No, one of President Bush's other internets.

Re:I hear there's rumors...

[Ohreally_factor]

That gives me an idea. Next time someone brings up "Al Gore invented the internet," jokingly or not, simply reply, "Which one?"

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

has done neither, yet.

[WindBourne]

The problem is that MS is taking a page from rambus. Basically, attend standards groups and then steal ideas and patent them, so that in the future they can sue. Back in 2000, MS had already figured out that they would not be able to maintain their monopoly (even illegally). So now they wish to use the legal system on their side. First thing is to change the system so that it works for them. Easy enough to do. There are plenty of politicians to be bought. Then aquire as many patents as fast as possible. Of which they are doing both.

Re:has done neither, yet.

[TheRaven64]

In the UK, and (I believe) the EU, filing a patent must be the first disclosure of anything that is patented*. You can not submit something to a standards body, for example, and then later try to patent it. In fact, you can not tell anyone without an NDA if you expect to patent it later. The US system, on the other hand, allows you to file a patent some time after disclosure - an approach which is wide open to potential abuse.

* Note that reciprocal treaties with the US provide a loophole for this.

Re:has done neither, yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's amongst the seemingly infinite reasons why we're better than America.

God save the King !

Give microsoft credit for some ingenious activity

[spagetti_code]

1. Sit in on many of the standards committees.
2. As the committee begins to discuss ideas, patent them behind the scenes
3. Dont implement standards properly (IE, Office, TransactSQL...), but do implement own proprietary protocols/specs/language correctly.
4. Scare people away from standards using patents
5. Profit!

I mean - these MS guys sat on the standards committee knowing that they had already attempted to patent what the standards committee was discussing. I bet they didn't disclose that to the committee! Dishonest - but brilliant.

Even for Microsoft, this one reeks.

Having said that, you can understand why Microsoft are claiming patent territory - they have been smacked around pretty badly by software patents in the past. I wonder how many other gems are out there waiting to be discovered in amongst the 3000 or so patent apps per year MS puts forward.

Re:Re : Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Aga

[pohl]

I think we need a "refreshingly direct" mod option that would +1 truthful flamebait.

Chill out

[Augusto]

> No, I didn't miss the point. I actually did find it amusing. However, it is a joke based on a falsehood and the joke perpetuates the falsehood

It sounded like he, like most politicians, was trying to take credit for it. We all know the urban legend behind this, but no matter how many times people post the snopes.com entry on it, it doesn't mean that is wasn't a poorly worded phrase and funny to cite.

Re:Chill out

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounded like he, like most politicians, was trying to take credit for it.

Maybe so, but it was well-deserved credit. Even Vint Cerf, widely considered one of the Internet's main creators (if not its "father") said so:

http://www.politechbot.com/p-01394.html/

Re:Chill out

[ppanon]

Even Vint Cerf, widely considered one of the Internet's main creators (if not its "father")
and co-recipient of this year's ACM Turing award for work on TCP/IP....

And if you don't know, or can't google to find out, what the ACM is, then you should stick to discussing non-technical topics like YRO.

Re:Chill out

[mwood]

Honestly, I didn't think that Mr. Gore was that old. Was he really a member of Congress in the 1960s? (I guess I should look it up.) I'm nearly 50, but I was just a little kid when the Internet began coming together.

Re:Chill out

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, you're right. Vint Cerf is a total retard who doesn't know anything about the Internet. Send him a correction e-mail forthwith!

Re:Chill out

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you don't know, or can't google to find out, what the ACM is, then you should stick to discussing non-technical topics like YRO.

I know what the Association for Computing Machinery is, thank you very much. I was a member while studying computer science in college. I participated in their yearly programming contests and my senior year I was the president of my university's chapter.

(I wrote the post about Vint Cerf)

Re:Chill out

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry about that. That snarky part of the post wasn't directed at you but rather at anybody who makes "technical" pronouncements based on some 30 second soundbite, on an article they read in PC Week or, even worse, parroted from some political pundit's talking point.

I remember way back in high school social studies class how there was this one female student who wouldn't believe the working conditions that children endured under laissez-faire capitalism in 19th century UK. She probably thought it was just some ugly boogeyman story meant to keep children quite and docile. Of such people are libertarians and extreme conservatives (and communists) made, becasue they close their minds to some of the likely consequences of their desires.

the MS strategy

[v1]

seems to be to get their people involved in standards committees, and when they smell something that might become a standard, they use this "insider knowledge" and patent it.

Definitely unethical, tho unfortunately probably legal. (good time to say "there ought to be a law...") And ethics seldom play a role in the decisions made by big business. (heh, and then sometimes legality doesn't even work its way in either!)

I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

it was owned by Apple. iNternet. Right?

If...

[introvertSoul]

from the article - "..if someone has a gun and promises not to shoot it, it's still scary." Must be hell to live in some countries (eg. US), where carrying guns is a subculture.

M$ Business Plan (Java source code excerpt)

[mas5353]

{
boolean x = weOwnBroadRightsToInternetForcingAlmostEveryoneEls eToPayUs;

while(x == false)
{x = attemptToPatentInternetIsSuccessful();}

...

System.out.println("MORE PROFIT!");
}

That's cool

[Starji]

by the time IPv6 becomes used widespread the patent will have expired.

Lets see...

[Brain_Recall]

Well, Microsoft, being logical, is going to try to patent windows next.

But, Microsoft, actually being illogical, will patent doors instead.

Re:Give microsoft credit for some ingenious activi

[spagetti_code]

Further to this...

Keep in mind that there has already been shown to be *signficant* revenue in licensing patents - its an awesome business model.

Create the patent (this does involve research and work and inventiveness). Then let other people productise it, take the risk, sell it and pay royalties to you. (Profit!!!)For example:

Collecting the patent royalties could add millions to IBM's net profits. In 1995--the last year IBM released figures--the company took in $650 million from royalties on all patents, software and hardware alike. Insiders say that senior managers believe IBM could collect $1 billion a year from its patents

Thats chickenfeed to what MS has paid out in patent licensing in the last couple of years.

My prediction: When the MS bottom line starts drooping, the patent suits will begin.

Re:Re : Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Aga

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

After I take over the world [somehow]

[Random832]

step 1: write lame slashdot comments about how the world should be run
step 2: ...
step 3: as listed below:
Software patents will only last eighteen months.
Only novel ideas will be patentable. Pointer comparison IsNot novel.
Any attempt to claim something that was being done before the patent was made public is patent infringement, will automatically invalidate the entire patent in question.
Any attempt to popularize a patent without disclosing the fact that it is patented, with the intention of collecting royalties later, will also result in automatic revocation.

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit...you're a guy?!?! :(

However . . .

[hawk]

. . . that puts you in violation of my patent on "patent applications" and "use of prior art"

hawk

Re:However . . .

[Oktober Sunset]

sorry, too bad I already patented your brain, so all your ideas now belong to me.

Re:However . . .

[hawk]

Perhaps, but all of your bases are belong to us :)

Besides, your use of a patent application is illegal prior art . . .

hawk

Enforcibility is not relevant

[Corpus_Callosum]

The patent system needs to be completely overhauled. In fact, for the same reason, it appears the US legal system needs an overhaul as well. To bad it is basically impossible. Here is the problem:

In patent law, all you need is the ability to claim infringement (hell, you can use a completely unrelated patent if you have a weaker opponent). Once you can get your toe in the door with the courts, it becomes about money. The more money you spend on lawyers, the longer the case will drag on and the more it will cost your opponent to defend himself (or in the case of a real patent lawsuit against a rich corporation, the more it will cost your opponent to prove his claim).

Because most individuals and corporations cannot tolerate the massive legal bill of a head-on IP conflict with a rich opponent, in the majority of cases, the weaker opponent must settle. The result? It makes no difference who is right, it only matters who is willing to spend more.

Today, it has become like that in practically every segment of the American legal system. This is nothing more than glorified corruption and all it does is serve to ensure that the wealthiest individuals and corporations are untouchable. To add insult to injury, it ties up our tax funded court system, so we end up partially financing the corrupt activities of the wealthiest individuals and corporations.

I don't know how it would be possible, but something is needed to correct this imbalance. There should be SEVERE damage recovery for defendants that are shown to be innocent to account for their time, money and suffering of being dragged through the courts. There should likewise be SEVERE amplification of damages for corporations and individuals that put up massive, expensive legal defenses and are found guilty. Perhaps there should also be some means of capping expenditures on both parties (e.g. Corporation sues individual - legal expense cap for both parties limited to spending power of individual).

The whole thing sickens me.

Re:Enforcibility is not relevant

[KiloByte]

I heard a rumour that in Sweden, traffic tickets and many other fines are proportional to your income as opposed to being fixed. This means, if a rich guy gets caught speeding, this mere fine can cost him millions. It's just a rumour I overheard, so don't take it for granted nor accurate.

However, this is a good idea for corporate fines. The "amplification of damages" you're speaking of can be made a portion of the plaintiff or defendant's income.

Right now, if an individual tries to bring a legal action against a corporation who breached his rights, in most cases, that individual can't even afford legal costs -- and even if he wins, the corporation loses nothing.
On the other hand, any transgression against the corporation will make you ruined or jailed, often _even_ if the letter of law stands on your side.

This idea would also make it possible for a small corporation to stand a chance against big guys like Microsoft.

Re:Enforcibility is not relevant

[mtempsch]

I heard a rumour that in Sweden, traffic tickets and many other fines are proportional to your income as opposed to being fixed. This means, if a rich guy gets caught speeding, this mere fine can cost him millions. It's just a rumour I overheard, so don't take it for granted nor accurate.
Not the minor stuff like minor speeding etc, there the fines are fixed, but towards the upper end (serious speeding etc) where the court gets involved you can get a penalty of x "dagsböter" (x "days earnings") which is based on your income -- what you bring home per day. Very much doubt it's ever reached millions (even in SEK) - maybe, maybe if someone like Bill Gates would do Mach 1 weaving through rush-hour traffic...

Re:Enforcibility is not relevant

[Bobsledboy]

Correct in Finland anyway...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.st m

Re:Enforcibility is not relevant

[Jesus_666]

In Germany there's similar stuff. We call it "Tagessätze", the translation and concept are the same.

Unfortunately, this stuff does not seem to apply to big businesses and rich people correctly. At least not for big stuff like paralegal IP warfare.

Re:Enforcibility is not relevant

[fusionsquared]

Great Idea. Who will punish the corrupt Judges that have no respect for the Constitution? Who will punish the corrupt congress that votes away its powers? Who will punish the presidents (yes plural) who makes unconstitutional wars and create unconstitutional departments??? Who will punish the unconstitutional federal reserve system? Us, the people. You want things to change stop voting for the Demopublican Republocrat party. It needs to be wiped off the face of the planet. Or do you like tyranny? You think corporations are the sole cause of your misery? Ha.

Re:Enforcibility is not relevant

[neonmagic]

You are spot on.

Dave

Already done

[Anonymous Coward]

Invented at Bell Labs in 1947, patented shortly thereafter, and the team got the Nobel prize in Physics 9 years later.

So: does anybody here seriously have a problem with that patent??

It sucks...

[wnarifin]

Whatever it is Microsoft sucks...

Why do you always assume "kill and inhibit"?

[NekoXP]

The flaws in the software patent system have spawned a whole new kind of patent
filing; that with which to PROTECT things so that OTHER unscrupulous assholes
don't patent them instead.

Imagine if a fairly original idea was had, but it was SO obviously done. Patent
it. Patent it NOW. Otherwise when someone has the same idea in the same week
and they patent it, they will f**k you in the ass in 9 years when you finally
finish your software.

Case in point;

Apple, IBM and Motorola have patented many algorithms using AltiVec units in order
to protect the vector unit from unscrupulous "inventors". If the vectorisation of
an algorithm is patented by someone else, they may choose to charge extortionate
fees for the licensing, at which point to effectively use a processor you first
have to buy it and then pay some unrelated company a fee. This is obviously
unacceptable.

IBM and Novell have been doing exactly the same for Linux in the past years too.
SGI have patented a few things in OpenGL in order to protect the API.

These uses of software patent law IMPROVE matters, not "kill and inhibit" software
and progress.

Microsoft here have basically repatented their own "AutoNet" idea (the use of a certain range of IP addresses to give to network cards if DHCP isn't there, no
other address protocol can be found, and an ARP check tells it's not already in
use). It's defined in prior-art style in RFC1971 for IPv6 (1995/1996) so the patent isn't "enforcable" per se by any company (Microsoft couldn't hope to use
it to extort money).

This is so obviously a cheap legal protection tactic, which any IP lawyer worth
is salt would suggest to the engineers defining the standard. Patent it now before
some prick does it for us.

Neko

Re:Why do you always assume "kill and inhibit"?

[Anonymous Coward]

If all they are trying to do is protect the "innovation" from being claim jumped by some IP holding company, then why don't they donate the patent to someone like the EFF?

Alternately, is there a way for the inventor to decare a patent "in the public domain" much as an artist can with copyright?

Re:Why do you always assume "kill and inhibit"?

[Macadamizer]

Alternately, is there a way for the inventor to decare a patent "in the public domain" much as an artist can with copyright?

35 U.S.C. 253 Disclaimer.

Whenever, without any deceptive intention, a claim of a patent is invalid the remaining claims shall not thereby be rendered invalid. A patentee, whether of the whole or any sectional interest therein, may, on payment of the fee required by law, make disclaimer of any complete claim, stating therein the extent of his interest in such patent. Such disclaimer shall be in writing and recorded in the Patent and Trademark Office, and it shall thereafter be considered as part of the original patent to the extent of the interest possessed by the disclaimant and by those claiming under him.

In like manner any patentee or applicant may disclaim or dedicate to the public the entire term, or any terminal part of the term, of the patent granted or to be granted.

Re:Why do you always assume "kill and inhibit"?

[NekoXP]

Yes, but why donate it? Why not let MS bankroll it's upkeep?

Re:Why do you always assume "kill and inhibit"?

[putaro]

What upkeep? There's no upkeep on patents. If this were what MS was planning to do with the patent we would have heard plenty from their PR machine about how wonderful they were.

Re:Why do you always assume "kill and inhibit"?

[Baricom]

Then they should have no problem putting a public statement on their web site that their patents may be used for any purpose, with the condition that if you sue them (or anybody else?), your license to the patents is void.

Except he didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Al implies that he was the driving force in congress when the truth is that he had nothing to do with the initiatives.

He lied.

Look, I think GWB is a complete idiot, but he's only in there because his opponents have just been horrible. Al Gore should have won in a landslide againt bush. The fact that he lost tells you what an idiot he is.

Don't forget, Al also claimed:
1) Internet creation (discussed)
2) He discovered love canal (he didn't)
3) The book love story was written partially about him (it wasn't).

The guy is...I don't even have a word for it.

Re:Except he didn't

[DavidTC]

Um, all those have been rebutted quite a while ago.

Love Canal quote, when Gore was trying to inspire some kids:
A girl wrote [Gore] that her father and grandfather suffered mysterious ailments she blamed on well water that "tasted funny."

"I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing. I looked around the country for other places like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. Had the first hearing on that issue," Mr. Gore said. "That was the one that started it all...We made a huge difference and it was all because one high school student got involved."

He never said he discovered anything was wrong there. He said he looked for places where something was wrong, and investigated it. Um, duh. That's part of what the government does.

He was just making the point that he started a series of congressional investigations because of a single young girl, not that he was Captain Planet and can detect pollution from hundreds of miles away. Because he was talking to a bunch of kids, trying to get them politically active. Some people would have told a lie there, or a story like the boy who stuck his finger in a dike, and no one would have thought the worse of them for that. He related an actual story of a teenager who, in essense, caused the creation of Superfund.

As for Love story:
Gore, indeed, along with his roommate Tommy Lee Jones (I've always rather expected someone to call him on that 'lie' also.), were the basis of the male characters in a Love Story. Tipper was not the basis for anyone, but Gore had read a newspaper article which had misstated the author as saying she was. This article actually exists, and it does indeed say that. (Actually, technically, he said that he'd read a newspaper article that said such, so nothing he'd said was even false.)

So the Love Story thing was mostly true, and partially repeating something he'd read in a newspaper that was false.

And can I point out that both those comments were not made to the public? Love Canal was to inspire a bunch of kids, kid who couldn't even vote. Love Story was when he swapping stories with reporters on Air Force one, and he spent like ten seconds on it. I think that shows how much 'falsehoods' had to be searched for. (I'm amazed you didn't bring up the union song joke, too.)

The internet thing, however, was made to the public, and has already been covered here.

In Korea ...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Korea only old people try to patent the internet.

IETF and patents

[Dolda2000]

I thought all parties who submitted RFCs to the IETF had to disavow all intellectual property regarding the described technologies?

Either way, the IPv6 effort started in like 1995 or 1996 or therearound, and many IPv6-related RFCs in active use today are dated 1998, so it seems this won't be a problem due to prior art.

Of course, that doesn't justify Microsoft's demeanor...

Re:IANAL, but I think Linux would be a good exampl

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than that. Since the patent is incompatable with the GPL, you would not be permitted to distribute Linux with IPv6 support.

Sounds like you'd have to pay microsoft to use BSD, though - but Linux would simply be shut down.

In think George Lucas beat you...

[ackthpt]

Re:Should we patent the transistor!? While there is still time! PNP & NPN!!!!

I think Lucas has this covered with his patent on the

Boba FET

Actually the transistor was a british invention.

Re:In think George Lucas beat you...

[Anonymous Coward]

no, transistors were invented by aliens and stolen by at&t: http://www.ufoarea.com/technology_how_could_att_ha ve.html

Re:In think George Lucas beat you...

[FuzzyDaddy]

That link is hilarious.

Re: Can a topic title be modded as Troll?

[weighn]

my thoughts exactly.
A story I'd like to see:
Slashdot posts non-sensationalist, accurate headline relating to Microsoft story

Interesting link

[ChatHuant]

After reading TFA I read the actual patent (well, what I could get from the legalese). And, from my (admittedly limited) understanding of IPv6, I couldn't see the issue. So I went to check the fine links in the FA.

Surprise, the name of the guy that came up with the original complaint sounded familiar.

So I did a Google on it, and found the article I remembered (he's mentioned somewhere close to the end).

Looks to me like a lot of FUD.

I'm Tired om MS

[--rune]

Microsoft = ""

Re:IANAL, but I think Linux would be a good exampl

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't Linux' IPv6 stack be considered prior art?

Re:Re : Microsoft Tries to Patent the Internet Aga

[huge colin]

Why would it need to be?

How they will suppress it by association .

[davvr6]

When people find they have any thing to do with it, it will immediately die.

Microsoft and Rambus

[Newer Guy]

How is this any different then what Rambus tried to pull?

I mean TRIED too, because they were summarily taken to the woodshed by the courts.

Hopefully, the same thing will happen to Mr. Gates and his ilk..

There's one problem though...ol Billy boy might LIKE being spanked!

just wait until they make navis--er--xboxs

[deltatype0]

Sounds like the world is going to end up like Serial Expieriments Lain... WE'RE ALL CONNECTED.. and then the "Start" button appears.

First, let's fire all the lawyers

[Doc Ruby]

Why doesn't the PTO revoke these patent attorney's licenses for repeated "frivolous patenting"? Our law system has an enforcable code of ethics (go ahead, laugh) that makes the lawyers part of the guard of the integrity of our justice system. We all subsidize these lawtyers lucrative careers by funding the courts and police on which they depend. They should get kicked off the gravy train for abuse and gaming the system. That would clear out a lot of the hungry patent lawyers who file these things without accountability or any legitimate basis.

Slashdot has been punked

[humankind]

After reading all this it seems that Slashdot and Ziff Davis have been punked by a sleazy group trying to hawk "Linux litigation insurance" by spreading FUD over MS's encroaching patent processes. The actual patent is nothing like IPv6 in the first place.

Re:Slashdot has been punked

[angio]

Not really. See claim 1 of the patent:

1. In a host that has been connected to a network that does not have an IP address server and is not connected with any network having an IP address server, a method for automatically generating an IP address for the host, without another component of the network being required to transmit, to the host over the network, an IP address of said other component, the method comprising the steps of:

without the host having received over the network any IP address of another component of the network, selecting a valid network identifying value as a network identifying portion of the IP address for the host;

without the host having received over the network said any IP address of another component of the network, generating a host identifying portion of the IP address for the host based on information available to the host; and

testing the generated IP address for the host for conflicting usage by another host on the network and determining that no conflicting usage of the generated IP address exists.

And compare it to RFC1971 and RFC2462, where they define the creation and testing of link-local addresses. The patent seems to cover things outside the scope of IPv6 autoconfiguration, and IPv6 autoconfiguration goes beyond the patent to specify how to do router-based autoconfiguration, but there is a distinct area of overlap at claim 1.

Hey, look at the bright side...

[Spy der Mann]

Someday, Microsoft will own the IETF, Internet Society and W3C. We'll be screwed.

If that happens, Internet Explorer will be 100% standards compliant! :D

[OT] So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you may have noticed that the press has stopped using that word because it no longer quotes him, and almost no one online ever uses it, either.

Re:umm.. they're trying to secure all IPv6 softwar

[Thing 1]

GUIDs are prior art. Once an IP address gets long enough, it can hold a GUID, which is a combination of the current date and time, and some information about the machine (MAC address, hostname, stuff like that).

It's trivially simple to say, once you have IP addresses that meet or exceed the size of GUIDs, that we should not have IP addresses distributed via DHCP, but instead just choose the GUID at install time.

Higher layers can segment the network (both in software and, like, firewalls).

I find it abhorrent that several individuals secretly patented this while working on the IETF spec. That should get jail time.

Re:umm.. they're trying to secure all IPv6 softwar

[Anonymous Coward]

if you actually read the patent, all they are patenting is exactly what they do in win2k and XP for auto assigned IP addresses. just because these people helped out IETF shouldn't exclude them from patenting stuff that has NOTHING to do with the IPv6 standard per se.

A Call to Microsoft

[angio]

We keep seeing this happen. The patent system is a mess -- and even Microsoft agrees. We can, and should, try to solve this problem through legislative means, but we, as the people and companies that invent and use technology, can and must also take steps ourselves.

I call on Microsoft to to take the lead in cleaning up the patent mess starting with patent 6101499. Bill Gates has established himself as a leader in philanthrophy through the Gates foundation; Microsoft is surely capable of helping lead the fight to clean up the IP system by example.

David Andersen
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University

Old patent

[angle_slam]

The patent was issued in August 2000 and it just becomes news now?

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

..aww crap..both of you?

At first cut, it sounds like Novell clients...

[awfar]

..picking up the NetID, and slapping on the ethernet address to generate a unique global address...

Maybe I got it wrong, but it seems hauntingly familiar.

Microsoft's other patent attempt

[sp5]

I remember they tried to patent zeros and ones a few years ago.

Wait a sec... that may have been on The Onion. Who would have thought Microsoft would try something like that for real? I'm shocked!

not so much IPv6 as IPv4 link-local addressing

[keithmoore]

Reading the patent claims this doesn't look so much like IPv6 (and certainly not a fundemental part of IPv6 - it resembles IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration, but only vaguely). What it looks like is IPv4 linklocal addressing, which has shipped in both MacOS and Windows for several years, and is a draft that is either just about to be approved or has already been approved as a standard. See draft-ietf-zeroconf-ipv4-linklocal-17.txt The really unfortunate thing is that linklocal addresses are quite useful on isolated networks, but are really harmful to applications unless they're turned off when a computer has a "real" address assigned by manual configuration or DHCP. And from a quick reading the patent would appear to apply to any implementation that turns off linklocal addresses under such conditions.

Elisha Gray anyone?

[zippthorne]

I like the story about Elisha Gray's tangle with Graham Bell. (mentioned in wiki, Elisha Gray) The version I heard may have been spiced up a bit though:

supposedly, Gray submitted his plans to the patent office but did not have a prototype at all, a requirement at the time. Bell's prototype did not work, but since gray did not have a full patent, he was able to look at gray's work and fix his prototype before gray was able to build one. I'm not sure what the lesson was supposed to be though.

Re:Elisha Gray anyone?

[AaronGTurner]

Also Meucci and Bell.

Got all of ya beat

[jhylkema]

I claim a patent on dihydrogen monoxide! And ya know what? The USPTO would probably grant it.

MIcrosoft probably isn't the only...

[Anonymous Coward]

large corporation out there filing fraudulent patents. It's probably standard practice for a lot of corporations to do this, since there is not much of a penalty for it. Besides, anybody on /. that has ever read a patent can tell you, that even if it's in your field of specialization, you will not understand what the hell they are talking about, more than half the time. Do you think some clerk, who probably isn't specialized beyond bookkeeping, is going to be able to keep all of the patents straight?

followup: licensing terms

[keithmoore]

It took awhile to find it, but this turned up under IETF's IPR disclosures page: http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/MICROSOFT-499.txt

Re:This is different [winhat]

[Anonymous Coward]

A pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very subjective thing. It's quite hard tell if it is called the gum tree. Gore's statement in the name of him who sat on it was death, and hell followed with him. And power was given to them that security is something that does affect them directly.
Imagination is more important to the creation of the internet did not target the most popular system; rather, the most attacks have always targetted the easiest systems to crack.

So...

[LittleBigLui]

IPv4 is outdated.

IPv6 is 0wnz0r3d.

Good thing we have IPv5 to switch to.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv6, but the doctor said id be ok.

Lesson Learned

[Anonymous Coward]

0. Hear about device ABC being developed by XYZ
1. File Patent on ABC
2. Submit 'Black Box' Prototype with ??? innards
3. Steal details from XYZ
4. Profit!

Well

[fozzmeister]

I guess you can say that MS (along with others) did invent IPV6. I hope thier employees get thrown out of the IETF for this.

RTFP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read The Fucking Particle?

The big flaw is...

[mlopes]

There's prior art: IPv6.

Where was CISCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

You would think players like CISCO would cry wolf at this bluff.

No matter what MS patent, CISCO would be drawn into argument or paying dollars, so it is in their interest to 'call it'.
That they did not may indicate they have a 'deal' that ensures silence, because they better than anyone could trash it fast.

But then with JAPAN scandal, we learn of 'no sue' agreements. Clearly the USPTO needs weapons to the veil/collusion thing can be pulled aside, and the truth outed.

Prior art for v6

[mikeborella]

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1971.html

The claims may be more valid for IPv4 autoconfiguration where the host chooses one an address range in the 169.254/16 range.

The prior art for v6 is very strong and obviously pre-dates this application.

OT: MS innovation

[ZeroExistenZ]

Other innovations of MS

MOD PARENT INFORMATIVE

[northcat]

N/A

OK, Kid

[hey!]

Unless you know what a TIP is you probably weren't there in the ARPANET days. The network was a lot like the GPS system -- it was built for the DoD's use and they deigned to let certain civilians use it for non-commercial purposes. When IP rolled around, if you wanted a network number assignment, you had to submit a long questionnaire with extensive essay sections on what you were using it for, and your application would be examined for worthiness by a beaureaucrat. You couldn't just call an ISP -- there were no ISPs. A company couldn't just decide to resell Internet access. A company couldn't even get access to the Internet iself without going through the gatekeepers.

So, yeah, the computer network and the underlying technology was there, but the vision of this as a truly public infrastructure -- an "information superhighway", was his.

Need to set a precedent

[mwood]

That an entity which contributes patented, or patent-pending, technology to an open standard without clear formal notice to the standards body of the proprietary status thereof has constructively abandoned its patent, and any part of it so contributed passes immediately into the public domain.

Then maybe some entities would be a little less inclined to engage in such shenanigans.

uh

[suezz]

"Microsoft won't ever assert this patent -- they know it's worthless," said Ravicher. "But there will still be people who are afraid of it -- if someone has a gun and promises not to shoot it, it's still scary."

don't you all think if microsoft is in the process of going out of business like sco - that they would use anything,anywhere to keep from going out of business.

why are they filing so many patents whether legit or not - they will go down sueing and getting any money they can for their stock holders.

"Did Al Gore invent all the Internets?"

[tepples]

Taken.

Re:"Did Al Gore invent all the Internets?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn you, Tepples!!!!!!

Or_f

"Internet" phrase was NOT popular

[Tungbo]

until at least 1988-89 era. Very few people (in the tens of thousands) even knew about Arpanet in 1976. Please don't make up history that you have no knowledge of.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Try reading the patent before you comment

[hoppo]

The article itself is very misleading, and it is obvious you have taken it at face value. I just read the patent's claims, and I don't see where these critics are coming from. This invention is not a protocol. In fact, I don't really where see the comparison between it and IPv6 holds water. If anything, it appears to be an attempt to improve upon or simplify DHCP, and is based on IPv4 -- both of which were referenced as prior art in the application.

I know the going modus operandi around here is to latch onto any article that attempts to bash Microsoft, but at least do a little fact-checking before you do so.

Repeat after me: "Al Gore helped finance the 'Net"

[itsNothing]

I really wish that you, you the nerdy Slashdot reader who SHOULD have some command of what is a reasoned arguement, would PLEASE STOP slandering Gore about the internet.

As a post below states, Gore was critical in the passage of an education funding bill that was instrumental in development of the internet infrastructure. And, as i recall, the bill was passed in 1989, well before the world wide web

Let's save the cheap stupid shots for the Bill O'Reilly Show

IPv6 vs APIPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this looks more like the APIPA (Automatic Privae IP Address) stuff that Microsoft uses. I didn't read the entire patent, but that is what I got from the abstract. Nothing to do with IPv6.

Loser-pays

[quinkin]

Loser-pays works for a lot of people. Of course no-win, no-fee litigation negates a lot of the risk...

Q.

Rollerball!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the crappy remake. This version is actually worth watching, and is all about the corporate-controlled future.

Though is a corporation any worse than a government? I mean really? They both do exactly as much harm as they think they can get away with, and they both manage to isolate themselves from the consequences of their actions.

Fundamentally both institutions only have power because we give it to them. If we (in very large numbers) just stopped playing they would be powerless. Good luck getting it to work though. Humans are just too darn obedient for that.

Apple's IPR on IPv4 link-local adresses

[MacFreek]

Interestingly enough, Apple also claims IPR on IPv4 Link-Local addresses (which, _finally_ have been standardized this month in RFC 3927). However, those patents have been filed in March 1985, meaning that they just expired (If I understand correctly that patents expire 20 years after their filing).

http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/apple-ipr-draft-ietf- zeroconf-ipv4-linklocal.txt

Re: Al Gore helped finance the 'Net'

[obiwan2u]

I'm not defending Gore's boringness as a politician, but ragging on him about inventing the internet is unfair. What Gore actually said in a Mar 9 1999 interview on CNN was:

"I took the initiative in creating the Internet"

which is very definitely true.

A report by Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf (the Vinton Cerf who created the Ethernet networking technology) says:

"Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development."

Gore was the major player in converting the military DarpaNet to the private sector NSFNet which is, for all practical purposes, the birth of the Internet as we know it today. That's a really big deal.

The "created the internet" quote is a partisan distortion created by Republican Dick Armey and picked up by the press because the real quote was too boring. Shame on those who ignorantly repeat it.

Govt. vs. Corp.

[evbergen]

The difference is that it's easier to change governments in a democracy (one man, one vote) than it is to change corporations in a market (one dollar, one vote).

Governments can't put votes in the bank.

Money can be concentrated freely, and if money is power, then power can be concentrated freely. That's inherently anti-democratic and that's the problem with corporate law.

Cheers,

Emile.