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EFF Patent Busting - Prior Art Needed for VOIP

Posted by Zonk on from the who-you-gonna-call dept.

JumperCable writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to bust an overly broad patent by a company called Acceris. Acceris claims patents on processes that implement voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) using analog phones as endpoints. These patents cover telephone calls over the Internet. Specifically, the claims describe a system that connects two parties where the receiving party does not need to have a computer or an Internet connection, but the call is routed in part through the Internet or any other 'public computer network'. The calls must also be 'full duplex', meaning that both parties can listen and talk at the same time, like in an ordinary phone call. To bust these overly broad claims, we need 'prior art' — any publication, article, patent or other public writing that describes the same or similar ideas being implemented before September 20, 1995."

7 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe they have the answer themselves by vivaoporto · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe EFF already has the answer, depending on how long AT&T is routing all phone calls through NSA network. They would even kill two birds with one shot, the subpoena to obligate AT&T to disclose the info could come from the patent suit. It's a win-win! What could possibly go wrong?

  2. VOIP Prior Art by azrider · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not sure if it was patented, but in the 70's when I worked for IBM, all office extensions worldwide went through the "tie-line". This was a linkup that used the massive IBM internal global network to make calls, i.e. I call Tokyo from LA and the call never touches the PSTN apparatus. Indeed, it never left the building on anything other than data lines. The phones at the desks were plain old analog WE2500 sets.

    --
    And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
    John 8:32(King James Version)
    1. Re:VOIP Prior Art by Andy_R · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sorry, if the IBM system never touches PSTN as you describe, then this fails part 4 of the EFF's list of features the prior art needs to have:

      From the EFF site: CRITICAL FEATURES OF PRIOR ART NEEDED:

            1. The system must have the ability to connect an audio telephone call from a calling party to a receiving party.
            2. The telephone call must be "full duplex," meaning that both parties must be able to talk and listen at the same time. For example, regular telephone calls usually are full duplex, whereas walkie-talkie conversations in which a person cannot receive transmissions from others while he or she is transmitting generally are not.
            3. An ordinary telephone and telephone line are the only equipment the receiving party needs to have. The receiving party does not need to have a computer or an Internet connection to receive the call.
            4. The transmission of the call is routed in part through a "public computer network" and in part through the PSTN. This implies that the transmission must cross at least one gateway between the "public computer network" and the PSTN. The Internet is one example of a "public computer network," but the patent does not define what else would qualify as a "public computer network."

      Additional Features:

            1. The caller must only have to dial the destination number and no additional phone numbers

      --
      A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  3. Prior art should NOT be the problem. by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is ridiculous. All this patent covers is bridging between the Internet and POTS networks. It shouldn't need "prior art" to be struck down, it should be struck down merely because it's fucking obvious! I mean, it'd be one thing if it were a patent on one particular clever method of connecting the two networks, but the idea in general should not have been patentable in the first place.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  4. Artisoft LANtastic could do this by scsirob · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How about this link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1161458,00.as p

    It describes a voice adapter for Artisoft LANTastic in 1990. I used to operate a LANtastic network but didn't use the voice adapters. However, it seems to fit the 'prior art(isoft)' requirement ;-)

    --
    To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
  5. Graham Article by Rob_Warwick · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I'm not sure if this qualifies, since the article wasn't written until 2005, but Paul Graham mentions in one of this articles that a friend of his wrote some VoIP software in 1994. The article is available online.

    In 1994 my friend Koling wanted to talk to his girlfriend in Taiwan, and to save long-distance bills he wrote some software that would convert sound to data packets that could be sent over the Internet. We weren't sure at the time whether this was a proper use of the Internet, which was still then a quasi-government entity. What he was doing is now called VoIP, and it is a huge and rapidly growing business.
  6. Found one! by DigitAl56K · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Please google "1994 gsm over ip"

    http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-721578/ip- access-and-RigNet-deliver.html

    M2 PRESSWIRE-24 February 2004-ip.access: ip.access and RigNet deliver GSM Abis over IP via satellite; ip.access and RigNet partner for implementation of GSM-over-IP-over-satellite solution; Successful trial paves way for delivery of GSM services to remote locations(C)1994-2004 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

    Also looks interesting:
    http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/toast.html
    http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/gsm/toast-igp.ht ml