British Telecom Claims Patents on VOIP Session Initiation Protocol

An anonymous reader writes with bad news for operators of SIP gateways. From the article: "VoIP-to-PSTN termination providers and SIP vendors will be watching their inboxes for a lawyer's letter from BT, which has kicked off a licensing program levying a fee on the industry, based on a list of 99 patents .. The British incumbent is offering to allow third parties to use the Session Initiation Protocol under a license agreement... BT is requesting either $US50,000 or a combination of 0.3 percent of future revenue from affected products, plus 0.3 percent of the last six months' sales for products as 'past damages.' It's kindly offering a discount for customers that pay up within six weeks of receiving a BT letter of demand, and there's a premium to $US60,000 and 0.36 percent of revenue for those who hold out."

Comments

who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

BT is just another failed Tory privatisation, retarding and overcharging for UK telecoms ever since. Its only redeeming feature is that it is set up by regulatory-captured Ofcom to be the less awful alternative to Murdoch and Branson's brands.

Ah, the true nature of competition where there is natural monopoly.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

is a distinct entity.

This makes me laugh. Openreach is part of BT and operates in the interests of BT shareholders - where these shares also convey ownership of the retail arm. No amount of handwaving by Ofcom, which essentially behaves as BT pleases, is going to enable this system to be any fairer.

Also, "competing bill-printing services" - as with the privatisation of electricity and gas - is a joke. At least the privatisation of water companies was honest, in that there are no alternatives, because, well, there is still only one water pipe to your house.

The original solution worked just fine: a single company provides not just the physical infrastructure, but also the bill-printing services. That company, e.g. British Gas per the Gas Acts, happened to be owned by the people with a requirement to operate at least break-even over a particular accounting period (e.g. 2 years for BG). Now it's just about middlemen and other leeches (e.g. here the patent trolling arm of BT and the lawyers working on its behalf) taking their slice of the pie without needing to be productive.

Everyone should switch to IAX2 then...

[Anonymous Coward]

All ITSPs then should ditch SIP for PSTN trunking and move to support IAX2. A much simpler protocol and it goes through NAT like a knife through butter.

Re:No more Gotcha! patent suits

[denis-The-menace]

This is what is also known as a "submarine patent"

It lurks under the water while adoption builds.
Later on, the "submarine patent" surfaces and sues everyone.

Declared patent coverage in RFC 3261?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see BT's name associated with RFC 3261. When you work in an IETF Internet Standards Track working group, you're meant to declare any patent encumbrances that you may possess over the subject matter. That allows potential users to avoid it like the plague.