The patent is at Delphion (free registration required) and the USPTO. Paul Vixie is listed as an inventor but probably has no ownership rights, or even the ability to collect on royalties. So don't lynch him yet...
The first base (or independent) claim is:
A method for transferring information via the Internet, comprising the steps of:
intercepting a message from an Internet user directed to a content provider address;
determining whether or not the message is an information request;
sending the message to the Internet without being affected if the message is not an information request;
determining whether or not said information request relates to a content provider address having a corresponding alternative address, said alternative address providing at least part of the information provided at said content provider address; and
directing said information request to said corresponding alternative address, if existing, or sending said information request to the Internet without being affected, if not.
Doesn't sound much like my understanding of how Akamai works (I didn't think Akamai "intercepted" requests -- the origin servers actually pointed to the cache servers in their img src tags). It does sound an awful lot like a transparent proxy however.
There's 36 claims, but only 3 are independent -- the rest are derived from those 3 (dependent claims). It's only the claims that are worth reading and worth worrying about. Press releases, abstracts and summaries are all irrelevant to what a patent actually covers. I find them more confusing than useful.
Let's concentrate on the 3 independent claims then. Here's the other 2:
15. A system for transferring information via the Internet, comprising:
first means for intercepting a message from an Internet user directed to a content provider address;
second means for determining whether or not the message is an information request;
third means for sending the message to the Internet without being affected if the message is not an information request;
fourth means for determining whether or not said information request relates to a content provider address having a corresponding alternative address, said alternative address providing at least part of the information provided at said content provider address; and
fifth means for directing said information request to said corresponding alternative address, if such a corresponding alternative address exists, or sending said information request to the Internet without being affected, if not.
36. A method for efficiently delivering cached information to Internet users, comprising the steps of:
intercepting a message from an Internet user directed to a content provider, the message requesting specific information;
determining whether or not the message relates to a content provider address having a corresponding alternative address, the corresponding alternative address providing at least part of the information provided at the content provider address;
determining whether or not the specific information is within the at least part of the information provided at the corresponding alternative address; and
providing the at least part of the information to the Internet user, if the specific information is within the at least part of the information, or sending the message to the Internet, if not.
As you can see, the differences between these claims are very subtle. I'd need to spend more time reading those claims to understand
The spectacle of CIO's and IT managers, running around like Henny Penny, stressing their desire to "align ourselves with the goals of the enterprise" is truly disturbing.
If the head of Sales, or Marketing, or the legal department, or Finance went running around all over the place reminding each other of their need to get "aligned with the enterprise" they'd be bloody fired. I mean seriously. It'd be bloody scary if the sales team WASN'T aligned with the enterprise. This is not something they need reminding of. How badly have these CIO's mismanaged if they're ONLY NOW picking up on the fact that they're PART OF A BUSINESS?
This kind of consulting is the worst kind of sophistry out there. IT consultants constantly restate the basics with a slightly hipper rap.
Nicholas Carr is spot on when he writes that IT technologies are becoming commodity inputs. Fungibles. There is no strategic advantage to be gained in having a Content Management System. It's useful, but it's not strategic. Soon, the same will be true of "CRM", "Data Mining" and "Data Wharehousing." It's been true of ERP systems for a long time.
Once you recognise something as a commidity you try and reduce its cost as much as possible. Aggresively. You commoditize your complementsand your inputs. I harbour a fantasy that one day my company will dump JD Edwards, embrace GNU Enterprise, and happily submit its changes and enhancements back the project because what do we care if our competitors get the same code? In fact, why not band together and jointly fund such a thing? It will reduce costs, without sacrificing what we see as our strategic value or differentiating strengths. Aaaah, pipe dreams.:-)
PS: To me, "book review" implies some kind of analysis or critical thinking. It's not supposed to be a chapter summary. I can get that from the Cliff Notes.
Most countries with national copyright laws are signatories to the Berne Convention. The relevant article is (from memory) Article 5 -- National Treatment.
The National Treatment article provides that a copyrighted work in one country (say, the US) shall receive copyright protection in all other Berne Convention countries (say Australia), but under the relevant national laws of the second country. In other words, works copyrighted in the USA receive copyright protection in Australia -- but under the provisions of the Australian law, not the US law. Importantly, the article provides that US copyright holders do not need to do anything special to be covered by Australian copyright law.
The Berne Convention has been supersceded by various WIPO agreements but the principle of National Treatment remains. As others have pointed out, there is increasing uniformity in national approaches to copyright laws, so the differences are seldom important.
So, to answer your questions:
A work created in the US with a valid term of copyright for 75 years would only receive protection for 10 years in your example second country. Such a short term would earn that country a special place on the US State Department's list of non-IP respecting countries they don't like.
(Your second question isn't 100% clear) Yes -- the copyright is still valid in the second country, at least until the shorter term is up. Then, under national treatment, it should receive no protection -- but I think TRIPS (Berne's successor) might have complicated this.
No -- the originating country is not authoritative on the length of the copyright outside its borders -- the length of copyright is determined by the national legislation. However, outside the 10 year term the work would not be copyrighted -- so would it still qualify for national treatment in the US? This is a technical distinction sure but it may be important in areas other than determining the length of protection.
Probably as clear as mud but there you go. A lot has changed and I think even IP lawyers get lost in the detail.
Thanks for that -- you are, of course, correct. I was sloppy in the quoted sentence (always dangerous to rush your posts!). "Invalid" was the wrong word, since what I had in mind was applicability, or coverage, rather than some invalidity trigger like prior art or obviousness (your point in the first para).
I think some of the language difference might be the difference between US and Australian patent law and practice but there's enough overlap between them to be able to make broad, general, useless statements of principle that apply to both.:-)
I hope most/. readers realise that interpreting patents and their applicability to your own code is difficult. Darren's suggestion is the right one -- if you fear that there's a prima facie ("at first glance") patent issue you should consult your IP lawyer or in house counsel.
I should have also pointed out that it's still a good idea to read the entire patent -- it's just that you need to be aware that abstracts and summaries are just background to the claims, where the real legal action is.
When reading a patent such as this it's important to keep a few things in mind:
Ignore the abstract. It has no legal effect -- it is illustrative only. The abstract is often drafted by legal (but not technical) staff based on some summaries prepared by technical (but not "legal") staff. A lot is lost in the translation.
Ignore the summary -- skip to the claims. The most important part of a patent is the Claims section. Everything else is illustrative. The summary of the "present embodiment" (ie what was actually built) is only useful in so far as it gives you an idea of what the patentee is trying to protect. But you will almost always see that the claims are far wider and it is the claims that have legal effect.
Concentrate on the base claims. Almost all patents set out 3 or 4 "base claims". The rest of the claims will be derived claims -- they'll start with "The method set forth in claim X, where...". If a base claim is invalid (or not applicable to what you're doing) then all derived claims are also invalid. So, concentrate on them and try to find your points of difference there.
Claims repeat themselves. Generally, you'll find that the earlier base claims are narrow in scope. They'll then refine some of this in derived claims to make the application clearer or cover the most valuable applications of the invention. Then, a new base claim is started, with more generic language. That process tends to continue until the patent is very large. This is deliberate -- the patent attorney is trying to be as broad as possible, but if they're too broad, the patent will be invalid. So the strategy is to repeat the basic claims so that if a broad claim is struck down as invalid the narrower ones can still survive. If you don't infringe the narrowest patent you can often skip the broader claims. This one's a little different -- some of the claims cover different aspects of the "invention".
Get a lawyer if you're serious. A real lawyer properly briefed will do a better job than you're own analysis or general advice from others -- as Darren suggests.
Careful what you write. Finally, if you're doing some kind of patent analysis, never write "we infringe this" or "possible infringement." Instead, draw up two columns -- the list of patents you "do not infringe" (with reasons) and the list of patents "under investigation".
In this case, note that base claim 1 does not require type or offset. Derived claim 2 simply adds that as a possible variation. Like all patents it's difficult to read (it should be taken out back and shot) -- however, it does seem to envisage only a hub, depending on your definition of "destination node" and "destination port." I think claim 1 could be distinguished from IPfilter on that basis. It follows that claims 2 - 13 are also distinguishable and don't apply to IPFilter.
Claim 14 seems overly broad and relates to configuration of the invention under patent. Not easily dismissed based solely on the language of the claim though. Claims 15 - 21 are derived.
Claims 22 and 28 are problematic, and frankly, poorly drafted. 28 seems most likely to cause IPFilter grief, if it applies. But they're both (overly) broad and could be covered by prior art. These two claims need some careful analysis.
Basically, prior art is not the only way to show that you don't infringe a patent. Going the prior art route can require you to go to court to invalidate or modify the patent -- expensive proposition. It's cheaper and easier to invent around the patent by avoiding the base claims.
Slashdot Mirror
The patent is at Delphion (free registration required) and the USPTO. Paul Vixie is listed as an inventor but probably has no ownership rights, or even the ability to collect on royalties. So don't lynch him yet...
The first base (or independent) claim is:
Doesn't sound much like my understanding of how Akamai works (I didn't think Akamai "intercepted" requests -- the origin servers actually pointed to the cache servers in their img src tags). It does sound an awful lot like a transparent proxy however.
There's 36 claims, but only 3 are independent -- the rest are derived from those 3 (dependent claims). It's only the claims that are worth reading and worth worrying about. Press releases, abstracts and summaries are all irrelevant to what a patent actually covers. I find them more confusing than useful.
Let's concentrate on the 3 independent claims then. Here's the other 2:
15. A system for transferring information via the Internet, comprising:
36. A method for efficiently delivering cached information to Internet users, comprising the steps of:
As you can see, the differences between these claims are very subtle. I'd need to spend more time reading those claims to understand
The spectacle of CIO's and IT managers, running around like Henny Penny, stressing their desire to "align ourselves with the goals of the enterprise" is truly disturbing.
If the head of Sales, or Marketing, or the legal department, or Finance went running around all over the place reminding each other of their need to get "aligned with the enterprise" they'd be bloody fired. I mean seriously. It'd be bloody scary if the sales team WASN'T aligned with the enterprise. This is not something they need reminding of. How badly have these CIO's mismanaged if they're ONLY NOW picking up on the fact that they're PART OF A BUSINESS?
This kind of consulting is the worst kind of sophistry out there. IT consultants constantly restate the basics with a slightly hipper rap.
Nicholas Carr is spot on when he writes that IT technologies are becoming commodity inputs. Fungibles. There is no strategic advantage to be gained in having a Content Management System. It's useful, but it's not strategic . Soon, the same will be true of "CRM", "Data Mining" and "Data Wharehousing." It's been true of ERP systems for a long time.
Once you recognise something as a commidity you try and reduce its cost as much as possible. Aggresively. You commoditize your complements and your inputs. I harbour a fantasy that one day my company will dump JD Edwards, embrace GNU Enterprise, and happily submit its changes and enhancements back the project because what do we care if our competitors get the same code? In fact, why not band together and jointly fund such a thing? It will reduce costs, without sacrificing what we see as our strategic value or differentiating strengths. Aaaah, pipe dreams. :-)
PS: To me, "book review" implies some kind of analysis or critical thinking. It's not supposed to be a chapter summary. I can get that from the Cliff Notes.
Most countries with national copyright laws are signatories to the Berne Convention . The relevant article is (from memory) Article 5 -- National Treatment.
The National Treatment article provides that a copyrighted work in one country (say, the US) shall receive copyright protection in all other Berne Convention countries (say Australia), but under the relevant national laws of the second country. In other words, works copyrighted in the USA receive copyright protection in Australia -- but under the provisions of the Australian law, not the US law. Importantly, the article provides that US copyright holders do not need to do anything special to be covered by Australian copyright law.
The Berne Convention has been supersceded by various WIPO agreements but the principle of National Treatment remains. As others have pointed out, there is increasing uniformity in national approaches to copyright laws, so the differences are seldom important.
So, to answer your questions:
A work created in the US with a valid term of copyright for 75 years would only receive protection for 10 years in your example second country. Such a short term would earn that country a special place on the US State Department's list of non-IP respecting countries they don't like.
(Your second question isn't 100% clear) Yes -- the copyright is still valid in the second country, at least until the shorter term is up. Then, under national treatment, it should receive no protection -- but I think TRIPS (Berne's successor) might have complicated this.
No -- the originating country is not authoritative on the length of the copyright outside its borders -- the length of copyright is determined by the national legislation. However, outside the 10 year term the work would not be copyrighted -- so would it still qualify for national treatment in the US? This is a technical distinction sure but it may be important in areas other than determining the length of protection.
Probably as clear as mud but there you go. A lot has changed and I think even IP lawyers get lost in the detail.
Thanks for that -- you are, of course, correct. I was sloppy in the quoted sentence (always dangerous to rush your posts!). "Invalid" was the wrong word, since what I had in mind was applicability, or coverage, rather than some invalidity trigger like prior art or obviousness (your point in the first para).
I think some of the language difference might be the difference between US and Australian patent law and practice but there's enough overlap between them to be able to make broad, general, useless statements of principle that apply to both. :-)
I hope most /. readers realise that interpreting patents and their applicability to your own code is difficult. Darren's suggestion is the right one -- if you fear that there's a prima facie ("at first glance") patent issue you should consult your IP lawyer or in house counsel.
I should have also pointed out that it's still a good idea to read the entire patent -- it's just that you need to be aware that abstracts and summaries are just background to the claims, where the real legal action is.
Thanks for the correction.
When reading a patent such as this it's important to keep a few things in mind:
Ignore the abstract. It has no legal effect -- it is illustrative only. The abstract is often drafted by legal (but not technical) staff based on some summaries prepared by technical (but not "legal") staff. A lot is lost in the translation.
Ignore the summary -- skip to the claims. The most important part of a patent is the Claims section. Everything else is illustrative. The summary of the "present embodiment" (ie what was actually built) is only useful in so far as it gives you an idea of what the patentee is trying to protect. But you will almost always see that the claims are far wider and it is the claims that have legal effect.
Concentrate on the base claims. Almost all patents set out 3 or 4 "base claims". The rest of the claims will be derived claims -- they'll start with "The method set forth in claim X, where...". If a base claim is invalid (or not applicable to what you're doing) then all derived claims are also invalid. So, concentrate on them and try to find your points of difference there.
Claims repeat themselves. Generally, you'll find that the earlier base claims are narrow in scope. They'll then refine some of this in derived claims to make the application clearer or cover the most valuable applications of the invention. Then, a new base claim is started, with more generic language. That process tends to continue until the patent is very large. This is deliberate -- the patent attorney is trying to be as broad as possible, but if they're too broad, the patent will be invalid. So the strategy is to repeat the basic claims so that if a broad claim is struck down as invalid the narrower ones can still survive. If you don't infringe the narrowest patent you can often skip the broader claims. This one's a little different -- some of the claims cover different aspects of the "invention".
Get a lawyer if you're serious. A real lawyer properly briefed will do a better job than you're own analysis or general advice from others -- as Darren suggests.
Careful what you write. Finally, if you're doing some kind of patent analysis, never write "we infringe this" or "possible infringement." Instead, draw up two columns -- the list of patents you "do not infringe" (with reasons) and the list of patents "under investigation".
In this case, note that base claim 1 does not require type or offset. Derived claim 2 simply adds that as a possible variation. Like all patents it's difficult to read (it should be taken out back and shot) -- however, it does seem to envisage only a hub, depending on your definition of "destination node" and "destination port." I think claim 1 could be distinguished from IPfilter on that basis. It follows that claims 2 - 13 are also distinguishable and don't apply to IPFilter.
Claim 14 seems overly broad and relates to configuration of the invention under patent. Not easily dismissed based solely on the language of the claim though. Claims 15 - 21 are derived.
Claims 22 and 28 are problematic, and frankly, poorly drafted. 28 seems most likely to cause IPFilter grief, if it applies. But they're both (overly) broad and could be covered by prior art. These two claims need some careful analysis.
Basically, prior art is not the only way to show that you don't infringe a patent. Going the prior art route can require you to go to court to invalidate or modify the patent -- expensive proposition. It's cheaper and easier to invent around the patent by avoiding the base claims.
My two cents.