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."
Invalid stupid patent. (Score:4, Insightful)
yes but (Score:4, Insightful)
It probubally won't be an open source system. Needs to be someone with lots-o-money.
Re:yes but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Could be good... (Score:3, Interesting)
No, that should be trashing everyone's software patents = good, because these never seem to do anything but stifle innovation.
Anyhow, there are ways to deal with this, which is why the EFF has announced [eff.org] a Patent Busting Project [eff.org], which you can read about in this article on Groklaw [groklaw.net].
The gist of it is that you can file with the USPTO to have a patent reexaminated if you present them with prior art. Of course, it costs money, too, which is rath
Re:Could be good... (Score:3, Interesting)
No thanks. They claim that Spam is "Free Speech", and are not on my side. I donated to http://spamcon.org/ [spamcon.org].
Re:Invalid stupid patent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Invalid stupid patent. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Invalid stupid patent. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Invalid stupid patent. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Invalid stupid patent. (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed, it appears that there is some money to be made from patent applications. Upon some quick research, a patent application is quite expensive...and it's clear that the USPTO is not spending that money researching prior art. However, to shut the anti-corporate camp up a little (and Cyberlync, this is not a rip into you by any stretch)...if you read the fee schedule, there are separate fees for a small entity and "other than a small entity". The latter half have to pay double for everything.
Re:Invalid stupid patent. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm against process patents as a matter of principal but in this case I feel that the USPO is not the bad guy. Go complain to your congresscritter so that the USPO keeps all its fees so that they can do some decent research in prior art instead of rubber staming everything.
Re:Invalid stupid patent. (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
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:5, Insightful)
The right to free speech, if applied only to benign conversation is useless. Try to exercise it by telling everybody that the feds requested private information under the Patriot Act's provision. Your ass will land in jail, lightning fast. Also try to publish a way to decrypt some lame ass DVD and prepare to pay fines out of your wazoo (you're breaking the DMCA). Just two examples, there are countless others. Slashdot drivel is not important for the powers that be, I could sau "Fuck Bush" or "Rumsfeld is an idiot" on every forum on the internet, and they wouldn't care, because it's NOT IMPORTANT, since the mindless masses won't see it, notice it or even care. Try to say something that IS important, something that has the potential to affect their interests, or the interests of their corporate friends and see how far you get
Free speech aside, why are American Citizens arrested in the US and jailed without access to a lawyer and due process? Just because somebody labeled them terrorists? Are you sure that in 10 years from now you won't be labeled terrorist if you don't vote Republican?
I'm not a US born citizen. I came here from an Eastern European country that, until 89, was a communist dictatorship (one of the worst). I'm old enough to remember those days. What I see happening here is a slow erosion of civil liberties that brings back painfull memories.
Re:Embarassing (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:Embarassing (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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)
Today, we have a federal constitution wher
Sounds like another job for PUBPAT or EFF!! (Score:5, Informative)
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Stop complaining, start proving (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Invalid stupid patent. (Score:3, Insightful)
patent [uspto.gov]
A good example for EU (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A good example for EU (Score:5, Insightful)
As a small company we don't have the money to lobby them
Re:A good example for EU (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:A good example for EU (Score:4, Informative)
The European Commission (appointed by ministers in each state) proposed to introduce software patents along US lines. The European Parliament (the only democratically elected pillar) amended the proposed directive to prevent software patents. The Council of Ministers (made up of ministers of each state (the ones who appoint the Commission)) have just voted for an even more extreme pro-patent position than the original Commission proposal. In order to defeat this, an absolute majority* of all the Parliament's MEPs must vote against the Council's new version.
* this is an absolute majority of all elected MEPs, not just a majority of those who bother to vote.
Great news.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gr*at n*ws.. (Score:4, Funny)
Just gr*at. I can't *v*n us* th* <blockquot*> tag to quot* your original m*ssag*.
I gu*ss I'll n**d to chang* my signatur* -- Th*r*'s no l*tt*r form*rly known as * in t*am...
Re:Great news.. (Score:4, Interesting)
In League with Spammers (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In League with Spammers (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:In League with Spammers (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't need to create viruses, there are enough people out there to do that allready.
Re:In League with Spammers (Score:5, Insightful)
[AKnightCowboy]> If you've got tons of viruses being introduced into the wild, it's probably coming from an anti-virus company whose entire life depends on them existing and being a threat.
[AC]>Symantec survives only as long as malware.
Frankly, the latter makes more sense. Symantec will instantly be doomed once everyone becomes nice. So the future looks rosy for them.
In similar news, cops were told that, as soon as crime goes away, they're all out of a job. I don't think most people think crimes are caused by cops for job security.
Unfortunately, anti-virus and anti-spam companies are going to have long, rosy futures until people learn to universally behave decently towards one another.
And so what? (Score:2, Informative)
I think Spam Bayes/Assasin can rest easy to be honest.
Re:And so what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And so what? (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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... :-)
Re:Prior usage? (Score:2, Funny)
It's a kind of joke, but I know that the German language has no equivalent for it.
Re:Prior usage? (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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, Interesting)
They seem to be the first Bayesian Spam Filterers. So if the patent belongs to anyone, its Microsoft and Stanford University.
Doesn't that make you feel better.
Re:Prior usage? (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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)
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)
Reminds me of this [schlockmercenary.com] Comic Strip...
Patent idea (Score:2, Funny)
Obligitory Apologetic Disclaimer (Score:2, Funny)
Bleh, enough of that! I need a coffee .. and a shower.
Re:Obligitory Apologetic Disclaimer (Score:2)
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.
Death by patents and spam? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Death by patents and spam? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Death by patents and spam? (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't matter whether that HTML form uses SMTP or whatever, it's the same form to the user. So for those, E-Mail can be easily replaced with something else.
I worked at McAfee... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 ".
Re:I worked at McAfee... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I worked at McAfee... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Prior art dates to 1764 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
You are missing the point .. (Score:4, Insightful)
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 ..
It just came to my mind... (Score:5, Funny)
This won't stand for long (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This won't stand for long (Score:5, Informative)
"A bayesian approach to filtering junk e-mail"
In AAAI-98 Workshop on Learning for Text Categorization, 1998.
Re:This won't stand for long (Score:3, Interesting)
Patent Link (Score:5, Informative)
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....
Patents can be circumvented (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re: BZZZT. Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Read the link in the article. Bayesian spam filters were published in the academic literature in 1998.
Bad McAfee (Score:5, Informative)
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:
Do I miss anything ?
I think we should distance ourselves to nasty companies like this. Let's speak with our money.
Re:Bad McAfee (Score:4, Funny)
For better evil, use SCO [sco.com] instead (Limited time offer: Just $699!).
Re:Bad McAfee (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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
Re:Bad McAfee (Score:3, Insightful)
In this race, the notion of good/bad is no longer appropriate. Patents are viewed as an investment.
Patent the Virus Warning Message instead! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Patent the Virus Warning Message instead! (Score:3, Insightful)
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
procmail as prio art? (Score:5, Informative)
It was first published in 1990.
Re:procmail as prio art? (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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)
Daniel
Re:FSF Patents? (Score:3, Insightful)
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:
Public patent applications (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:The answer (Score:3, Insightful)
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
(NAI's) SpamAssassin Admits Prior Art? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
UGH, It Gets Even Worse for NAI (Score:5, Informative)
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)
hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Someone set up us the Patent.... (Score:5, Funny)
Patent Spam (Score:3, Insightful)
patent is useless and possibly fraudulent (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
This patent is not a problem. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Easy to Challenge (Score:3, Funny)
Prior Art (Score:5, Informative)
Knuth on Patents (Score:4, Interesting)
"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)
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.
There Needs To Be A Penalty (Score:4, Interesting)
This patent needs to be fought.
Prior Art (Score:4, Informative)
bogofilter [sourceforge.net] was released as follows: from their web page
Maybe someone should... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Permanant solution to spam (Score:3, Funny)
Now that's a fight I'd LOVE to see.
I have prior art! (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Microsoft has at least one patent in this area. (Score:4, Informative)
It makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Whining but no substance (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking as someone who is about to take the patent bar exam (so I acutally know what I am talking about) you're wrong.
Yes, McAfee would have to be the original inventors to get a patent. However, it's going to be hard, if not impossible, to prove they aren't. What can be done is show that the information on this invention was in the public domain prior to filing of the patent.
35 USC 102(b) provides that you can't get a patent on your invention if the invention has been published over a year prior to the filing of the application. That's where December 2001 comes from.
Paul's article may still be relevant. However it does not prove that McAfee didn't invent it first. If you really think Paul's article shows prior invention, why not submit a third party request for reexamination based on that article?
Oh, I forgot, you're just a slashtroll who doesn't actually know what you're talking about.