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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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]

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!!!!

All your IP Belong...

[monopole]

...to us

Re:All your IP Belong...

[ender-iii]

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

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.

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.

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: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: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".

Re:This is different

[sh1ftay]

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

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: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.