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Patents Spam Your Rights Online

McAfee Granted Far-Reaching Spam-Control Patent 449

Titusdot Groan writes "Infoworld is reporting that Network Associates, makers of McAfee, have been granted a broad anti-spam patent. The patent covers "compound filters, paragraph hashing, and Bayes rules" and was filed in December of 2002. The patent appears to affect Spam Assassin, Spam Bayes and many other anti-spam products and services. As an aside Paul Graham's "A Plan for Spam" was published August 2002."
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McAfee Granted Far-Reaching Spam-Control Patent

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  • by spikestabber ( 644578 ) <spike@spykes. n e t> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:04AM (#9313289) Homepage
    Lots of prior art on this one. The USPTO never does their homework anyways.
    • yes but (Score:4, Insightful)

      by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:11AM (#9313330) Homepage Journal
      They got the patent which means lots of lawyers fees to straighten it out. So, the question is...who is going to stop them?

      It probubally won't be an open source system. Needs to be someone with lots-o-money.
      • Re:yes but (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JWW ( 79176 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @08:39AM (#9313962)
        who is going to stop them?

        This is a very interesting question. Until now the mainstream hasn't gotten riled up about software patents. This might be the straw that broke the camel's back. What happens when all the spam filters out there dry up? What happens when all the ISPs filtering spam are sent threating legal letters telling them to stop filtering?

        There is one issue out there right now that everyone who uses the internet knows, and that is that spam is absolutely crippling email. I think your general user will not give a damn whether spam filters are patented by one company. They won't see that as a vaild excuse for allowing the destruction and uslessness of their inboxes.

        The government has already realized that people are very upset about spam and tried (albeit worthlessly) to deal with the problem. If patents start getting in the way of people clearing spam from their inboxes, I think the government will step in again. And if this patent does miraculously stand up to prior art, I think the government might be compelled to think seriously about invalidating this patent.
    • by spikestabber ( 644578 ) <spike@spykes. n e t> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:14AM (#9313339) Homepage
      American patents are just a big cash grab for the govt since all the USPTO does is grant and grant, and get paid big bucks for granting such garbage. Of course corporations take advantage in this hoping they can gain control of prior art for their own gain anyways. Patent reform anyone? They keep talking about it, but they been talking about it for a long time now. Seems its just a bunch of hotair. The big software companies would probably just hate it.
      • by txviking ( 768200 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:25AM (#9313398)
        Is there anywhare a statistic pf granted vs. denied patants by the PTO. Otherwise it seems save to assume the PTO is just rubberstamping ...
        • by michael_cain ( 66650 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @11:20AM (#9315712) Journal
          Is there anywhare a statistic pf granted vs. denied patants by the PTO. Otherwise it seems save to assume the PTO is just rubberstamping ...

          Not a meaningful statistic (sample of one), but... My name is on four different software or software architecture patents. Of the four, two were denied on initial filing. Of the two that were denied, one was granted after several claims covered by prior art were removed, and the other was granted after writing a several-page submission that showed how the prior art cited by the patent office did not apply to our situation. Casual conversation with other people listed as inventors on patent applications made by the giant corporation where we worked suggested that my experience was not unusual -- a substantial portion of applications seem to be initially rejected.

    • by Khalid ( 31037 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:18AM (#9313358) Homepage
      the USPTO has neither the competence nor the will or the means to do prior art search. In practice they grants every patent provided you can PAY the fees for that.

      The USPTO get it's funding from the fees you pay to have you patent granted. In practice they procrastinate the patent validation to the court. This is why free software and small businesses are screwed and why big business push and are very happy withe the patent system in the US and in EU.

      This is how it works.

      • Embarassing (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Mark_MF-WN ( 678030 )
        The United States is rapidly becoming the most embarassing nation on Earth. Let's review:
        • A pitifully lame patent office.
        • 200 year copyright terms.
        • The US's last election was rigged (at least the Florida portion of it was) and no one cared.
        • The lying-est politicians ever known.
        • A constitution that has no meaning, because not a single line of it hasn't been overruled.
        • An obesity epidemic that is among the world's most severe.

        There's a lot more, but I think that's enough for now.

        I'd bitch about the US m

        • Re:Embarassing (Score:3, Insightful)

          by bigchris ( 54369 ) *
          I'd bitch about the US more, but my own country (Canada) is trying to become the US as fast as it can. Who's the bigger loser -- the loser, or the loser who looks up to him? Oy, what a world.

          Same with Australia, my country. So much for the "Land of the Free".

          "They hate us because we're free" - shouldn't this be "They hate us because we say we're free even though we're not really, we just like to think we are."
        • Re:Embarassing (Score:4, Insightful)

          by morganjharvey ( 638479 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @08:30AM (#9313889)
          The lying-est politicians ever known
          A constitution that has no meaning, because not a single line of it hasn't been overruled.


          While I might agree with your other points, at least to an extent, I take issue with these two.
          First, about our politicians being the "lying-est" ever known -- have you ever been to, say, South America? Russia? Africa? I think that when you have cases where a country has to make a rule for its first democratic elections that no person who ever took over the country using military force can't run for office, and one suc person turns around, pays off the courts so he can run, I think you have a problem.
          Now, what's this about no single line of the constitution hasn't been "overruled?" This is not only wrong, but also a very ignorant statement to make. Feel free to give an example of what you mean.
          • Re:Embarassing (Score:5, Insightful)

            by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @09:14AM (#9314333)
            Google for "Jersey City corruption" or "Albany, NY democratic machine". Patronage, graft and corruption have been a feature of US politics for 200 years.

            Stepping on the Constitution is a regular practice in the US as well. The Federal government, by way of its regulation of electionic media and control of all sorts of information, has essentially turned the press into the public relations arm of the political class. Read about what happens when independent companies without Congressional sponsorship apply for FCC broadcast licenses to use the public airwaves.

            Move on to the Second Amendment. Right now, the Feds are looking at prosecuting members of well-maintained & regulated citizen militias that are defending their ranches on the Mexican border from foreign incursions.

            Move on the the Fourth Amendment. You are routinely searched and may be detained and strip-searched by a TSA employee for the "crime" of attempting to travel via plane. A police officer can and will rip apart and search your car if he feels that you are acting "suspicious" and are trying to "conceal" something.

            Move on the the Fifth Amendment. Today, when a state government loses a politically sensitive criminal case, the Federal government will prosecute you for nebulous "civil rights" violations.

            • The Federal government, by way of its regulation of electionic media and control of all sorts of information, has essentially turned the press into the public relations arm of the political class.

              Then how come there's so much anti-Bush viewpoints flying all over television? Man, our government really got the raw end of that deal.
              • Re:Embarassing (Score:3, Insightful)

                by aminorex ( 141494 )
                It doesn't matter one bit whether Bush or Kerry
                wins. The rulers of the nation own them both.
                The fix was already in. You've got to let the
                slaves pick between potatos and rice, or they won't
                feel free. But don't give them beans, or they might
                grow strong enough to mess with you.
          • Re:Embarassing (Score:3, Interesting)

            The big problem with our nation's constitutional form is that we wrote our Federal Constitution over 200 years ago. The Founders, the authors, were both brilliant and men of their times. Being men of their times, they created a system of limited, enumerated powers. By the letter of the federal constitution, the federal government has only a finite grant of power: what is not granted, is forbidden. That grant of power was sufficient for the time. Times have changed.

            Today, we have a federal constitution wher
    • by the_rajah ( 749499 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @08:26AM (#9313847) Homepage
      These improper patents have to be fought by someone. See PubPat [pubpat.org] and, if you agree with what they are doing, make a contribution. The Electronic Freedom Foundation [eff.org] is doing some of this worthwhile work, too.

      "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
    • by CaptainFrito ( 599630 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @09:18AM (#9314361)
      It's easy. Just make the prior art available on a website somewhere, with verifiable dates. Use it, one-by-one, to demonstrate that their solutions were obvious to one skilled in the art at or before the time they filed, right down the claims list. Once the information is public they won't ever try to enforce it, because patents -- invalid or not -- are considered valuable assets, particularly if the company has the financial resources to fund a lawsuit to enforce. So they'll prefer to simply let sleeping dogs lie. And if they do try to enforce it, the defense will be straightforward an inexpensive.

      IANApatentL but I believe that patents only prevent others from commercializing a claimed invention. OSS is not a commercialization per se. It is simply a public disclosure of a particular method. Patents too are a public disclosure of particular solutions. But it would be hard to prove [to me, anyway] that a patent assignee would be damaged by publicly telling others something they had already publicly disclosed themselves.

      As far as I am aware, time-limited monopolies are permitted in exchange for the disclosure. It it completely legal and non-actionable, as far as I understand the law, to use the disclosure for personal non-profit use. So, for an anti-spam filter, it would be hard to argue that anyone, even businesses would be using such a system for profit. I would argue that it is a necessity under law to prevent things in the workplace that harass or oppress or [truly] offend, which a lot of spam does. So, rather than for profit it is a legal necessity (in many countries, certainly in the jurisdictions that would be asked to enforce this patent).

      Complaining that the world is unfair -- a fact known to most adults -- is profoundly useless.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:04AM (#9313293)
    All you holier than thou EU people should show this to your reps as a great example of the kind of crap that shouldn't be patentable.
    • by mbyte ( 65875 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:09AM (#9313320) Homepage
      Do you really think the represantives would listen to reason ? Here in germany i highly doubt that, our minister did the opposite she said ... very clear case of lobbying.
      As a small company we don't have the money to lobby them .. so if they'll really pass that law in EU, we vote with our money ... move the core business out of EU ...
      • by Animaether ( 411575 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:37AM (#9313470) Journal
        I'm curious... was she ever confronted directly about this ?

        I.e. by a journalist or otherwise quoting their earlier statement about being vehemently against software patents, and then voting otherwise ?

        I'd love to know what her explanation for this about-face would be.

        I know that in practice this is what politics has come down to - pay lipservice to your voters, even if it means saying the opposite of what you said even just a few hours ago to a different group of constituents, but I'd still be interested.
  • by nother_nix_hacker ( 596961 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:05AM (#9313296)
    ...if they can accept this then there is still hope for my application: "Use of the letter E (used in upper or lower context)."
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:05AM (#9313297)
    Perhaps McAfee is secretly in league with spammers, so that this patent will help eliminate competition, increasing the overall number of unwanted messages delivered. Thus McAfee benefits, as do spammers whose audience is increased.
    • Perhaps McAfee is secretly in league with spammers, so that this patent will help eliminate competition, increasing the overall number of unwanted messages delivered. Thus McAfee benefits, as do spammers whose audience is increased.

      McAfee is also one of the leading virus creation operations in the entire world. The Backdraft law applies to situations like this. If you've got a crazy arsonist burning down buildings, he's probably a fireman. If you've got tons of viruses being introduced into the wild, i

      • by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:41AM (#9313492)
        You do realize that it's illegal to do this, and if a single employee defecting(and lets face it, if they are malware creators, they will probably defect eventually) could result in arrests/massive fines.
        They don't need to create viruses, there are enough people out there to do that allready.
  • And so what? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Some legal experts have expressed doubt that the patent will stand up to challenges given its wide scope.

    I think Spam Bayes/Assasin can rest easy to be honest.
    • Re:And so what? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Cally ( 10873 )
      I think Spam Bayes/Assasin can rest easy to be honest.
      So what? NAI bought Deerfield who produce SpamAssassin. It's the same code.

      • Re:And so what? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by pixelbeat ( 31557 )
        Yep, Network Associates aquired Deersoft,
        the makers of spamassassin in Jan 2003
        (one month after this patent was filed).
        I know the main guy behind spamassassin
        Justin Mason [jmason.org]
        is very opposed to software patents.
  • Prior usage? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Advocadus Diaboli ( 323784 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:08AM (#9313312)
    As an aside Paul Graham's "A Plan for Spam" was published August 2002."

    IANAL, but isn't that a proof of "prior usage" and makes the patent invalid?

    Another question: Can somebody explain me why the "logo" for this article on Slashdot is "fork, knife and spoon" (in German we call it "Besteck" but I know that the english language has no equivalent for it)? Just curious about that... :-)

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Can somebody explain me why the "logo" for this article on Slashdot is "fork, knife and spoon" (in German we call it "Besteck" but I know that the english language has no equivalent for it)?

      It's a kind of joke, but I know that the German language has no equivalent for it.
    • Re:Prior usage? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Iamnoone ( 661656 ) * on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:12AM (#9313333)
      why the "logo" for this article on Slashdot is "fork, knife and spoon"

      Because they are well known, common items and they have the word patented stamped on them - trying to point out the problem with patents for things that are "obvious to those versed in the art".
    • Re:Prior usage? (Score:5, Informative)

      by fw3 ( 523647 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:26AM (#9313403) Homepage Journal
      No.

      What matters is date of invention, not filing.

      If NAI can demonstrate that they were working on a Bayes approach prior to Graham's work, then they may indeed have thougth up the idea first.

      <researching> ....

      Clearly Graham was not the first to think of Bayes as an approach to spam This [arxiv.org] paper ca 2000 predates both and is cited by the USPTO in the patent as a reference.

      Contrary to prevailing /. wisdom the patent process does actually involve research on both the Patent office and the applicants part.

    • Re:Prior usage? (Score:3, Informative)

      by sapped ( 208174 )
      "fork, knife and spoon" (in German we call it "Besteck" but I know that the english language has no equivalent for it)?

      The english equivalent of Besteck is cutlery.

      In the USA they refer to it as silverware. (Even if it is made out of white plastic.)
  • Going backward (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KoriaDesevis ( 781774 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {sivesedairok}> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:09AM (#9313318) Journal

    All this patent will accomplish is it will give McAfee legal right to knock everyone else's products in the dirt, while they try to push their own. If their antispam product is anything like their antivirus, their product will suck. Net result - everyone will lose, except the spammers who will keep doing their thing while McAfee screws everone else out of making effective solutions.

    The US patent office is becoming as bad as the US legal system that allows you to sue anyone at any time for any reason. *shakes head in disgust*

    • USPO (Score:5, Insightful)

      by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:16AM (#9313348) Homepage Journal
      The US patent office is becoming as bad as the US legal system that allows you to sue anyone at any time for any reason. *shakes head in disgust*

      Well, it's lawyers who file and handle the patents and lawyers that fight the patents. Maybe they are just setting themselves up for more business.
      • Re:USPO (Score:3, Funny)

        by Sepper ( 524857 )
        Well, it's lawyers who file and handle the patents and lawyers that fight the patents. Maybe they are just setting themselves up for more business.

        Reminds me of this [schlockmercenary.com] Comic Strip...
  • Patent idea (Score:2, Funny)

    by valentyn ( 248783 )
    I'm going to patent "a method to patent methods" in Europe. Of course, as patenting business methods is currently void, this patent would not work - yet. But once the new legislation is there, I'd have a great patent! And, as NAI's anti-spam patent proves: there's no such thing as prior art in software and/or business methods. Great.
  • McAfee is only patenting this as a defensive move. They would only use it if someone tried to attack them with another patent. They would never use it to try and derail competitors or shut-out or steal ideas from the small newcomer that tried to enter the market.

    Bleh, enough of that! I need a coffee .. and a shower.

    • McAfee is only patenting this as a defensive move. They would only use it if someone tried to attack them with another patent. They would never use it to try and derail competitors or shut-out or steal ideas from the small newcomer that tried to enter the market.

      Will they just use it for defense? Maybe to start but what happens if their product sucks and doesn't sell. Then they could attack the competition with it.
  • by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:13AM (#9313336)
    It seems that there is prior art to this patent, but it might not matter. This patent could be used by NAI to lock out others filtering spam.

    Let's hope they do.

    It would signal the end of e-mail. That would be sad, seeing how it has served us well for so long. But in the end, a new system for e-mail is all but unavoidable anyway. Currently, instant messengers, online "contact us" forms and forums are replacing e-mail's functionality for more and more users every day that goes by.

    To a certain extent that isn't such a bad thing, really.

    Yes, most IM systems lock you into some vendor, they're not open, forum contributions and the like aren't as easily forwarded and sorted as e-mail, etc. But in the end, all those systems will catch up. Let's not forget that some of the most useful new uses for e-mail are webbased; that the underlying technology is SMTP doesn't really matter to most people.

    More and more people chose to use whitelists on their e-mail inboxes, akin to the whitelist approach of IM. It would be a better world if you didn't have to, but it's happening.

    The end of e-mail (as we know it) appears to be nigh for many reasons. If it dies an ungracious death, it might as well be SPAM and software patents that kill off the killer application, as a warning to future generations. Or at least, to politicians.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:16AM (#9313351)
    ...and the management were not well-regarded by the techies. (This was when they were still Network Associates.) There were a number of practices which I personally had profound moral qualms about, which later lead indirectly to my leaving. So far as I know later events [fsf.org] lead to those practices being stopped, but the general demeanour of the NAI execs can be seen in the string of Slashdot stories (over the years.)

    We were always encouraged to write ideas up as patents; lots of the people there received regular royalties or bonus payments from their personal patent portfolios, sponsored/owned by NAI. With the buy-out of SpamAssassin, I'm not terribly surprised at this news.

    One tiny peeve, though: it's pronounced "muh'k AFF-ee ".

    • I am confident its pronounced "Make A Fee" by most people who have seen their priced ;-}
    • by belphegore ( 66832 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @01:31PM (#9317431)

      I worked at McAfee too back when it was Network Associates, after they bought Deersoft, which I founded. Deersoft you'll recall was the company that made and marketed commercial versions of SpamAssassin. I'd just like to point out that we, the Deersoft folks, had nothing whatever to do with this patent. It appears to have originated with the prior-to-Deersoft SpamKiller product (the windows desktop app).

      Also, the open source SpamAssassin project is likely 100% in the clear on this patent, even if it is valid (which is a separate question), since Network Associates and all of its employees who worked on the open source project have filed CLAs [apache.org] or CCLAs [apache.org] with the Apache Foundation. Section 4 of each document is worth a read. Looks like anyone who licenses a copy of the SpamAssassin code from ASF gets the right to use Network Associate's patent. Though IANAL.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:19AM (#9313359)
    Mr Bayes published some of his early work in the 1764 edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

    I believe the article is available online here [ox.ac.uk], though right now it looks like this specific issue is kind of broken. It's called "An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances" anyway.

    The Internet Archive of Early Journals [ox.ac.uk] is a great resource for 18th century journals and magazines. The Philosophical Transactions in particular are very interesting to history-of-science-minded science geeks everywhere.

    • by AftanGustur ( 7715 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @09:33AM (#9314491) Homepage


      Mr Bayes published some of his early work in the 1764 edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

      It doesn't matter if Jesus Christ himself wrote that article..

      The primary purpose of the US patent system is to generate revenue for the economie and you can patent almost anything already existing, as long as it has a different colour and those who have prior art can't affort a lawsuit to nullify your patent.

      For example, McAfee would surely like to patent farting *in public* if they thought it would be enforceable.. And good luck on finding a prior art on that one ..

  • by Advocadus Diaboli ( 323784 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:19AM (#9313362)
    ...that if McAffe can get a patent for anti-spam techniques then I should be able to get one as well for spam techniques. That would enable me to sue every spammer even if spamming in some countries is not treated as illegal, but patent violation surely is. :-)
  • by speters ( 523864 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:21AM (#9313371) Homepage
    Mr. Graham's article discussed the Bayesian filter he was already using in the article. Several other spam filters, including SpamAssassin, added Bayesian processing shortly after the article was published. The patent holders would have a very hard time trying to go after those who had Bayesian rules processing prior to the patent being filed.
  • Patent Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by tronicum ( 617382 ) * on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:22AM (#9313383)
    Here is a link to the patent at USPTO [uspto.gov]

    They are refering to Bayes a lot, beside really simple stuff like "hashing an paragraph with MD5". That is like making an patent on the progress bar (that exits too!)

    It is only for US anyway....

  • by ram4 ( 636018 ) <Raphael_Manfredi@pobox.com> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:22AM (#9313384)
    Let's not forget that this kind of broad patent can be easily circumvented. You only have to do one single improvement over the patented method, and you no longer fall under the patent. It's not the idea of doing Bayesian filterting that can be patented, it is rather HOW it is done. You patent a specific implementation. Ideas cannot be patented, in Europe (don't know about the US system, but I would say it is similar in intent).

    That's why people look at prior ART to dispute a patent.

    I don't know about SpamAssassin, but I use SpamBayes and I know that their algorithm involves more than just a Bayesian filter. I doubt they would fall under the patent that was just granted, or it would be really bad luck, doing the exact same things the exact same way as it is documented in the patent.
    • To avoid infringement, the circumventing product must eliminate one of the elements of the claims. In other words, for each of the claims, you have to find one element in the claims that isn't in the product. For claimed methods, one of the recited steps must not be performed.

      Adding a feature or an improvement will not circumvent.

      As to the "prior art" in August 2002, that by itself isn't enough. If the date were more than one year before the filing date of the patent, perhaps it would be effective
      • Re: BZZZT. Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by njdj ( 458173 )
        As to the "prior art" in August 2002, that by itself isn't enough

        Read the link in the article. Bayesian spam filters were published in the academic literature in 1998.

  • Bad McAfee (Score:5, Informative)

    by sufehmi ( 134793 ) <sufehmi&gmail,com> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:23AM (#9313389) Homepage Journal
    OK, McAfee is officially in my "bad company" list now.

    What are they thinking exactly by patenting Bayes rules, etc ? So take the best from open-source community, and then patent them under your own name, eh ?

    I'll share some info about McAfee now:

    • For a better antivirus, use NOD32 [nod32.com] instead (they never missed a single virus in 6 consecutive years).
    • For better anti-spam software, use POPfile [sourceforge.net] instead (and it's free)
    • For anti-spyware, use Spybot [kolla.de] instead (and it's free)
    • For firewall, use ZoneAlarm [zonealarm.com] instead (and it can be free)


    Do I miss anything ?

    I think we should distance ourselves to nasty companies like this. Let's speak with our money.

    • by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:29AM (#9313427) Homepage Journal
      Do I miss anything ?

      For better evil, use SCO [sco.com] instead (Limited time offer: Just $699!).

    • Re:Bad McAfee (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ram4 ( 636018 )
      Flag me as a troll if you wish, but I would not say that, because they were awarded this patent after submitting it, they are necessarily a bad company. Let me explain:

      We have no idea what they are going to do with this patent. If they don't enforce it, maybe they submitted it to protect themselves against a competitor doing the same thing and then trying to enforce it?

      We will be able to say that McAfee is "bad" when, and only when, they try to enforce their newly awarded patent against anyone, because
      • Re:Bad McAfee (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Laxitive ( 10360 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @08:47AM (#9314040) Journal
        You know, I'm really getting tired of this rationale.

        You want me to trust some massive company, with a patent, to "use it nicely". If a patent is invalid, then I don't want a company to have it, regardless of wether they are going to use it "defensively" or not. I really don't give a shit - the idea that the government is telling them that they have a monopoly on a an obvious idea makes me uncomfortable.

        Do you know ANYBODY who would agree to such a contract between private parties? "Yeah, sure Bob, just give me the right to reposess your house at my whim.. I promise I'll only use it 'defensively'." Would you TRUST somebody who said that? Why are we asked to trust companies that ask for obvious patents?

        -Laxitive
  • by davegaramond ( 632107 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:24AM (#9313393)
    They should've patented the virus warning message instead. You know, when a virus/worm sends the server a copy of itself, and antivirus on the server returns a bounce saying the original message contains virus and has been removed/quarantined/whatever by Acme(TM) VirusNoMore 1.23.

    I'm so pissed off by these messages. The antivirus maker _knows_ the Sender is faked. But they send it anyway. They're basically spammers!

    If this is patented, then no other companies can use the same process, which is fine by me.
    • That's actually a pretty neat idea! Someone should really do that!

      Think about it: It's something really obvious, since everybody gets tons of these, yep, I agree, spams, so if the patent is granted, you'll have a weapon both against the virus companies that do this, and a great argument against software patents and the incompetent patent office.

      The best thing is that since the patent doesn't cover legitimate bounces, it won't hurt anything legitimate.

      So, any geeks with patent attorney friends, have a

  • by richieb ( 3277 ) <richieb@gmaELIOTil.com minus poet> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:25AM (#9313401) Homepage Journal
    Earliest mail filtering I remember is procmail [procmail.org], which is still alive and well.

    It was first published in 1990.

    • by ram4 ( 636018 )
      Larry Wall's "mailagent" initial implementation appeared in comp.sources.unix in 1989 IIRC, in his "dist" package (the package that contains metaconfig, the Configure script generator).

      This early implementation was sending acks to people and was also processing "commands" embedded in the message. I think it pre-dates procmail.

      The "mailagent" script finally grew outside of the "dist" package and became a standalone mail filter, with a nicer syntax than procmail. Search for it in CPAN if you want to compa
  • not that broad ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pbhj ( 607776 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:29AM (#9313428) Homepage Journal
    Whilst the InfoWorld article quotes '"To me this looks like a pretty broad patent," said Rob Tosti' it doesn't look as broad as the headlines suggest.

    The key feature is in claim 1 ...

    "paragraph hashing by hashing a plurality of paragraphs and utilizing a database of hashes of paragraphs, wherein the paragraph hashing excludes at least one of a first paragraph and a last paragraph of content of the electronic mail messages wherein a plurality of hashes each has a level associated therewith, and the hashes having a higher level associated therewith are applied to the electronic mail messages prior to the hashes having a lower level associated therewith"

    That's quite a tight restriction. If you're hashing the first and last paragraphs, for example, then you're in the clear! Of course this wouldn't stop them chasing you with a law-suit it would just mean you could be acquitted if you could afford to go the distance - [sarcasm] capitalism, I'm loving it!! [/sarcasm]

    Also, I note that in the http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html article hashing is only used in terms of words [yeah tokens really, but who's being pedantic?]. Here the restriciton of the claims is to hashing paragraphs. If you're hashing words you're OK (previous disclaimer applies!).

    That's not to say that I think they deserve a patent. Just that the knee-jerk - "this is hugely broad" - isn't really justified IMHO.

    pbhj
  • FSF Patents? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cuban321 ( 644777 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:31AM (#9313435) Homepage
    Has anyone thought the only way to combat this maybe to have the FSF start patenting things? I'm not sure of the cost, but at least it'll prevent evil corps from doing it first.

    Daniel
    • Re:FSF Patents? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cgreuter ( 82182 )

      Has anyone thought the only way to combat this maybe to have the FSF start patenting things?

      What the FSF (or some similar organization) should do is start a defensive patent pool. (A patent pool is a collection of patents that may be licensed as a single unit, often held by different entities.) The rules would be:

      1. Anyone can use any patent in the pool to write open-source software.
      2. Any person or company that doesn't hold any software or business-model patents may use any patent in the pool royalt
  • by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:39AM (#9313482)

    Why can't the patent process be public? I mean, you file for a patent, it must be made public on the web for say three months, if nobody files any complaints/prior art then you're granted it.

    • Would you disclose the ingredients of the secret sauce without getting something back? A patent is supposed to be about a trade between the patentee and the public. The patentee discloses the invention to the public, and in return he gets to exclude others from practicing the invention.

      If a patent application were immediately published as you suggest, companies would be reluctant to file because their inventions would be picked up immediately by the competition. The company may not be successful in ge
  • by sabat ( 23293 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:40AM (#9313488) Journal

    I just noticed that in the 0.3 (initial) release of SpamAssassin, Justin Mason freely admits he based the idea on someone else's work. That's fine if you're in the free world, but since SA is apparently the basis for NAI's patent, wouldn't this be a problem? You know, other than all the other obvious prior art, and the ridiculousness of patenting an obvious idea.

    Quoting:

    SpamAssassin owes a lot of inspiration to Mark Jeftovic's filter.plx, http://AntiSpam.shmOOze.net/filter/ , which I contributed some code to. However, SpamAssassin is a ground-up rewrite with an entirely different ruleset, and a different code model and installation system.

    • by sabat ( 23293 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:49AM (#9313539) Journal

      The following text is currently on SpamAssassin's site (see http://spamassassin.org/prehistory/ [spamassassin.org]) -- keep in mind that it's the basis for the patent. Emphasis below is mine.

      SpamAssassin Prehistory: filter.plx

      Before there was SpamAssassin, there was Mark Jeftovic's filter.plx. This was a 'context/keyword spam filter', which came up with the basic scheme of what we use in SpamAssassin: namely, named rules identifying spam-like 'features' of the mail, each rule has a score, and once the number of 'strikes' goes above a certain threshold, the mail is marked as spam. And written in perl, of course ;)

      I (Justin Mason) used this for several years, adding a few small snippets of code; eventually though, the code was getting a bit stale, and Mark seemed busy on other stuff, and I had a few thoughts about some improvements I could do with a total rewrite ;) -- so I decided to recode from scratch under an open-source license, and that was SpamAssassin.

      Unfortunately the original site at http://antispam.schmooze.net/filter/ is no longer up, but the Internet Archive has a snapshot of it from December 1998 here.

      Also courtesy of the Internet Archive, the change log of filter.plx is here, spanning June 1998 to August 1997.

      Finally, Mark was kind enough to dig up a source code tarball for filter.pl-1.02d.tar.gz (20k). This is the 1.02d release, February 1998.

      Whatever you do, don't actually run the code -- spam nowadays looks nothing like spam did back then, before e-mail clients grokked HTML. Plus I don't think Mark wants to get bug reports at this stage, it's been 5 years ;) This page is here instead to document the history of this project.

      --j. Jul 14 2003 jm

  • US patent system (Score:4, Insightful)

    by matdodgson ( 203405 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:42AM (#9313497)
    Just goes to show you the US patent system is made for large corporates...
  • hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by martin-boundary ( 547041 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:42AM (#9313498)
    If software patents weren't so serious I'd laugh my head off at the inept patent office examiner who let this one through.

    The description of using Bayes rules alone is hilarious. Firstly, there is no "Bayes rule" applicable to spam filtering. "Bayes rule" is a mathematical identity relating probabilities. What Bayesian filters do is set up a probabilistic model and calculate quantities using this rule.

    An analogy would be to pick a few numbers and add them using the "plus rule". The value is entirely in what numbers you pick, and similarly with Bayesian filters, the value is entirely in what probabilistic models you pick.

    But if you read (ok, I skimmed ;) the patent, it never explains any models at all, except to say that words have probabilities. Probabilities of what? How? Why? Again, it's like saying "we store numbers compatible with the plus rule".

    This is so broad it's laughable. They might as well have patented statistics.

    As an aside, this should definitely be brought to the attention of the European anti-patent people. Spam is a high profile case in the public mind, and it would be a great example of how patents stiffle the fight against spam. It shouldn't be difficult to set up demo systems with McAffee's spam filter versus the best open source spam filters on the same sample mail stream, showing the superiority of the latter. Then reminding people that with this broad patent, McAffee could shut down the superior open source solutions.

    • Re:hilarious (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ajakk ( 29927 )
      This is not a broad patent AT ALL. IT IS AN EXTREMELY NARROW PATENT. For once, I wish that people on Slashdot would stop trying to characterize how broad or narrow a patent is without even having any idea about what makes a patent broad or narrow. Here is a primer, just so that you won't look like a fool next time you post. First, look at the date the patent was filed, so you have an understanding of when prior art must have existed to beat it. Next, skip down to the section labeled "Claims". The clai
  • by ear1grey ( 697747 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:47AM (#9313525) Homepage
    ...all your Bayes are belong to us.
  • Patent Spam (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chatmag ( 646500 ) <editor@chatmag.com> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:47AM (#9313526) Homepage Journal
    Then sue the spammers for infringment of your patent.
  • by dekeji ( 784080 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @07:56AM (#9313604)
    Even if it were to hold up, the patent is useless. Spam filtering is a trivial application of text classification: given a piece of text, you classify it as belong to the "spam" class or the "non-spam" class. People have been doing text classification for decades and there are hundreds of methods for doing it. The kinds of naive Bayesian filters used by current anti-spam software are actually some of the worst text classifiers around (they aren't called "naive" for nothing). The fact that they work so well on spam shows you how easy the text classification problem actually is in this case.

    If you want to see lots of other approaches, look on Google for "decision tree spam filtering", "svm spam filtering", "neural network spam filtering", "latent semantic indexing spam filtering", "boosting spam filtering", and "vector space spam filtering", to name just a few approaches. All of those methods are published, and NAI's patent doesn't read on them.

    As for NAI's patent, I suspect it is actually fraudulent: the widespread use of naive Bayesian classifiers for spam detection, in place of better text classification methods, was a historical accident, and the fact that they patented this rather than any kind of better method strongly suggests to me that Bryson and Ekle didn't actually "invent" this, but that they applied for the patent after observing that the method was becoming popular.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @08:01AM (#9313644)
    You just need to read the claims...

    Every one of the claims either includes the phrase

    "wherein the paragraph hashing excludes at least one of a first paragraph and a
    last paragraph of content of the electronic mail messages"


    or is dependent on a claim that includes that phrase.

    In short, as long as you don't clip off the first or last paragraph, the patent does not apply.

    A good (in the FSF sense) side effect of this patent is that the methods given _absent_ the clipping (or, for that matter, absent any of the other processing bits listed in the claims) ARE NOW PUBLIC DOMAIN AND CANNOT BE PATENTED, EVEN BY MCAFFEE! :)

    So, just don't worry about it, don't clip either the first or last paragraph, and you're fine.

    You can also dissect the patent on the grounds that it only covers spam filters that both hash paragraphs AND do bayesian filtering... not either one alone ( the so-called "three-legged stool" rule in patent law - given two patents, one patent claiming only a subset of the stuff in the other patent, then the smaller patent wins)... and in this case, IF this is the smallest patent McAffee can make, we're in good shape.

    (disclaimer, I am not a lawyer. But I do occasionally have to do patent stuff for work. And I'm also the prime author of CRM114, which is a moderately hot-shot spam filter among other things. So I'm not entirely third-party disinterested. But I'll also say that I'm not worried. :) )
  • by magefile ( 776388 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @08:25AM (#9313841)
    Should be easy to challenge. Not just on prior art, but on the grounds that if it works so @%#&_* well, why is my inbox so )^@%^&* full after using their software?
  • Prior Art (Score:5, Informative)

    by epsalon ( 518482 ) * <slash@alon.wox.org> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @08:38AM (#9313953) Homepage Journal
    Bayesian spam filtering was invented and implemented long before Paul Graham's "A plan for spam". A project I wrote for a course [sourceforge.net] in July 2001 that does Bayesian filtering was based on papers suggesting to do the same for spam, the predated that time. I used the same technique in 2001 to write an internal ad filter (something to filter ads inside mailing list postings) using bayesian methods, so this is clearly prior art.
  • Knuth on Patents (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rbowles ( 245829 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @08:56AM (#9314155) Homepage

    "I decry the current tendency to seek patents on algorithms.
    There are better ways to earn a living than to prevent other people
    from making use of one's contributions to computer science."

    -- Donald E. Knuth, TAoCP vol 3

    And yet this is somehow worse, the only algorithms are "use a combination of other people's algorithms" and "apply some tools to some task". Seems now that NAI owns "combining and applying"...

    Perhaps I'll patent a method for "solving problems with obvious solutions" (which isn't done often nowadays in any event).

  • Disputing Patent (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @09:02AM (#9314217) Homepage
    If anyone's research was published before this patent was filed (Dec 2002), you can request an investigation by submitting a letter and a copy of your research (and of course, when it was published) to:

    US Patent Office
    PO BOX 1450
    Alexandria VA 22313

    Make sure you reference Patent 6,732,157

    I was told it would be routed to the right department. The patent was filed in December 2002, and I know much of everyone's research in the anti-spam arena was published long before that.
  • by Goo.cc ( 687626 ) * on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @09:23AM (#9314416)
    Where I have a problem with all this story is that someone in McAfee had to have known that there was prior art in this area before the patent was applied for. I think that applying for a patent when prior art is known about should be a criminal offense and punishable by a court of law.

    This patent needs to be fought.
  • Prior Art (Score:4, Informative)

    by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1&twmi,rr,com> on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @09:31AM (#9314478)

    bogofilter [sourceforge.net] was released as follows: from their web page

    Revision 1.1 - (download), view (text) (markup) (annotate) - [select for diffs]

    Sat Sep 14 22:15:20 2002 UTC (20 months, 2 weeks ago) by adrian_otto
    Branch point for: bogofilter-vendor
    Initial revision
  • by mabu ( 178417 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @11:20AM (#9315714)
    patent "the process of acquiring a patent in lieu of creating an original process, and as a means by which to provide a false sense of value in a venture and as a weapon to employ litigous intimidation to stifle competition"?

    I'm sure it could be worded appropriately so the USPTO has no clue (not that they ever had one), and then we can let the fun begin.
  • by adam613 ( 449819 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @12:28PM (#9316685)
    Pay a prolific spammer to send out a bulk message that is severely critical of the Church of Scientology.

    Now that's a fight I'd LOVE to see.
  • I have prior art! (Score:3, Informative)

    by jefferson ( 95937 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @01:26PM (#9317382) Homepage
    In 1999 I wrote a paper comparing Naive-Bayesian classifier learning to a good rule-learning algorithm [utexas.edu] for classifying email, including spam. And showed how well the Bayesian classifier worked on spam. The paper is linked from Paul Graham's spam research page.

    Here is the reference:

    Provost, J (1999). Naive-Bayes vs. Rule-Learning in Classification of Email. The University of Texas at Austin, Artificial Intelligence Lab. Technical Report AI-TR-99-284

    I should mention that I don't think I'm the first to use Naive-Bayes on email. I think some folks from Microsoft did it in 1998, and there may be others too.

  • by crisco ( 4669 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @03:09PM (#9318460) Homepage
    Dating back to December of 2000, Patent # 6,161,130 [uspto.gov] appears to cover some of the same techniques.
    Abstract

    A technique, specifically a method and apparatus that implements the method, which through a probabilistic classifier (370) and, for a given recipient, detects electronic mail (e-mail) messages, in an incoming message stream, which that recipient is likely to consider "junk". Specifically, the invention discriminates message content for that recipient, through a probabilistic classifier (e.g., a support vector machine) trained on prior content classifications. Through a resulting quantitative probability measure, i.e., an output confidence level, produced by the classifier for each message and subsequently compared against a predefined threshold, that message is classified as either, e.g., spam or legitimate mail, and, e.g., then stored in a corresponding folder (223, 227) for subsequent retrieval by and display to the recipient. Based on the probability measure, the message can alternatively be classified into one of a number of different folders, depicted in a pre-defined visually distinctive manner or simply discarded in its entirety.

    John Graham-Cumming (author of POPFile) has this to say [sourceforge.net] about Microsoft's patent:
    1. POPFile was not designed for the sorting of spam from legitimate mail it is a general email classification system.

    2. I believe the patent to be invalid because of the ifile system being prior art. ifile dates back to at least 1996 while the patent has the date June 23, 1998 on it. The patent does not acknowledge ifile's existence. Evidence of ifile being prior art can be found in the ifile change log http://www.nongnu.org/ifile/ChangeLog and the original README (http://www.nongnu.org/ifile/old/README-0.1A) which shows the date: Released Sat Aug 3 20:49:01 EDT 1996

    3. If Microsoft were to sue me and win I would be happy to pay them every penny that I have made from POPFile ($0.00) :-)

  • It makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2004 @05:10PM (#9319926) Homepage
    I wonder if Network Associates lobbied against proper anti-spam regulations as strongly as Microsoft did.

    It makes sense; you don't want the government to legislate against something you're selling protection from. It'd cut into your bottom line.

    Suddenly I feel nauseous.

It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing. -- Descartes

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