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

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??!

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: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

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.

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.

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.