Alan Cox Files Patent For DRM

booooh writes "Alan Cox has filed a patent for DRM (Digital Rights Management). From the filing: 'A rights management system monitors and controls use of a computer program to prevent use that is not in compliance with acceptable terms.' According to the patent pledge of Cox's employer Red Hat, they will not license this technology if the patent is granted. And it can probably be applied to the DRM that is in Vista. This forum has a few more details.

Comments

Wow!

[noamsml]

Either the patent system will be proven rotten, or DRM will be halted! It's a win-win!

Hope this works

[AlanS2002]

It might be something that reduces the threat of DRM completely making our computers useless.

It's not likely to affect Vista

[rumith]

Microsoft has got its back protected: http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6330670&id= tNcIAAAAEBAJ&dq=digital+rights+management

Making DRM-aware applications even more annoying?

[tfbastard]

From this patent application

The present invention provides a technique for preventing the unauthorized use of a computer application, operating system, or other program without causing the loss of any information or data.

And a bit further down:

When unauthorized use of the computer program is detected, any information and data is saved and the computer program and/or a portion of the computer system is disabled.

As patent law, legalese and such is not my area of expertise, I'm out on a limb here, but doesn't this sound like a patent for saving the state of an DRM-aware application before exiting if a DRM-breaking state occurs, thus making legal DRM-aware applications even more annoying to use?

Not really

[rumith]

You see, he's not trying to patent DRM as a concept, he's trying to patent the technology of DRM system state saving. While this patent may have little value itself, it might be a show-stopper for Apple, Microsoft and the like. IANAL, but I suppose that Red Hat lawyers have studied the piles of MS et al DRM patents and Vista license agreement, and have found a hole in it [i.e. something that they use in the license or in their technology but haven't patented]. And now that Vista is getting ready for launch, Microsoft gets this blow. Let's keep our fingers crossed and see what follows.

Flamebait??

[Cheesey]

Flamebait? "The threat of DRM completely making our computers useless" is not a contraversial statement. Even if you really like DRM, you can probably think of some examples where it has been taken too far: think Sony rootkits, Starforce CDROM damage, and Jon Johansen and Dimitri Skylarov being arrested for hacking their own computers.

Read up on TCPA immediately. Consider how much of the design of Vista has been aimed at preventing access to high-quality copies of information protected by DRM. Should the film industry really have been allowed to design an operating system?

Mr. Cox, you are brilliant

[ratboy666]

The current attack vectors on cryptographic based "DRM" schemes are (1) accidental key leakage, (2) the key exchange system or (3) the fact that the data must be eventually decoded.

Note that (3) is what makes DRM systems very dumb. It also follows that the Operating System must get involved in order to so hide the data.

If the Operating System allows a debugger to run AT THE SAME TIME as the "DRM", its attackable. If the OS allows "unsigned" drivers to run, its attackable.

The OS (for example, Vista) will (eventually) not allow unsigned drivers. It must also "kick out" or "suspend" all non-DRM (unsigned) software when DRM content is played.

This behaviour falls into Mr. Coxs patent.

Now, if (Vista) doesn't implement the scheme, it remains vulnerable. So, the problem must be solved another way.

My suggestion then is to ALSO patent (or disallow) by widely publishing the idea that a hypervisor (VM supervisor) can be used for DRM control as well, and can also be used to suspend, terminate or otherwise control applications that could be used to attack DRM software.

Got that? It's now published.

Re:*All* claims must be meet for patent violation

[FallLine]

No, actually, your product or process does have to show all the elements listed in the patent.

No, it does not. The product/process must contain all the elements of just one claim: not all the elements of all the claims. There is a huge difference between the two. If this were really the case, it would be impossible to violate the majority of patents as they contain dependent claims that are mutually exclusive (often the dependent claims describe various implementations of the same idea).

You don't have to take my word for it. Read this:

Something infringes a patent if it has all the elements of a claim in the patent, or performs all the steps of a claim. It does not have to match all the claims, a single one will do. However, it is important that it matches all elements in that single claim. Most patent courts take this requirement quite strictly and will not easily ignore an element in a claim unless it is clearly irrelevant. One often-heard argument against ignoring an element is that patent writers are aware of the strict interpretation and so would not put in an element unless necessary. Therefore, an element that is present in the claim must have been deemed necessary and so may not be ignored.

One great example is that lawsuit against Nintendo http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/08/ 2138250 over the Wiimote, because it has a "trigger" button underneath. And coincidently, the Wiimote also has buttons on top just like the item that Nintendo is supposedly infringing on.

I didn't read this case, but citing slashdot on patent issues is like citing Soviet propaganda to find out about the US Constitution. It is just about the worst place to find reliable information on patents.