Altnet Threatens P2P Companies Over File Hash Patents 201
devil_doll writes "I saw over on p2pnet that Altnet is trying to 'mug' a number of P2P companies with seemingly bogus patents. One of them is titled 'Data processing system using substantially unique identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the same identifiers,' and appears to be nothing more than a simple hash table."
Another great move in the patent office (Score:2, Funny)
'Bogus patents' (Score:5, Interesting)
When it comes to software isn't this just tautology?
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:3, Informative)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tautology [reference.com]
tautology Audio pronunciation of "tautology" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (tô-tl-j)
n. pl. tautologies
1.
1. Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.
2. An instance of such repetition.
2. Logic. An empty or vacuous statement composed of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it logically true whether the simpler statements are factually true or false; for example, the statement Either it w
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:3, Informative)
Flame ahead
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:5, Insightful)
/ incidentally, any "all patents must be abolished" responders need not bother. go visit economic history 101 instead.
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
Good patents (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect we would never have given software patents a second thought, were it not for the countless abuses that were foisted on the world. In other words, the people getting the patents brought our rage down on themselves by being total asses about it. One-click patent indeed...
I'd love to see a list of top-ten "good software patents". In other words, patents that meet (at least) the following criteria:
- The patent is on software (duh).
- The patent covers something not entirely obvious to an experienced programmer (the "five minute test": given the problem, could an experienced problem come up with a solution in less than five minutes?).
- The patent represents an innovation, rather than a restating of previous known techniques (as this one appears to be).
- The patent describes something that actually exists, as opposed to wishful thinking (like patents on artificial intelligence)
And since everyone who is in favor of software patents mentions that the poor inventor spent so much of his time and resources, I'll also add:
- The patent protects significant investment.
To me the "five minute test" is the most important: any problem that can be solved in that time isn't worthy of a patent, and any patents in that category will only hamper development of the field as a whole. Maybe the patent office should have panels of experienced programmers who get five minutes to reproduce each patent, immediately invalidating it if they do? That would certainly cut down on a lot of crap...
incidentally, any "all patents must be abolished" responders need not bother. go visit economic history 101 instead.
Is that the one where you learn that the USA became an industrial and economic powerhouse by shamelessly stealing every invention they could from Europe during its formative years, i.e. before it acknowledged any so-called intellectual property from other places in the world?
Re:Good patents (Score:3, Interesting)
the five minute test is not as simple as it seems. the way you stated it, a problem is presented to an experienced programmer who then tries to find a solution. sometimes, the real genius is in defining the problem. at any rate, there is an 'nonobviousness' clause in every patent scheme in the world, albeit the problem that it is imperfectly enforced.
the idea that it not be a combination of existing techniques is likewise
Re:Good patents (Score:4, Insightful)
You say that patents are "overall an economic good and a necessity" but what innovation has come out of Microsoft since 1998's State Street decision establishing "Business Process" patents? Just years before that they radically changed the look and feel their operating systems. Of course, according to you that must have been trivial, since NOBODY would have invested any work in software if it couldn't be patented. People wrote whole operating systems with nothing more than copyright protection, and made money off of it!
The purpose of a patent is twofold: protect a temporary monopoly, with the people of this country (or in this day and age, the world) receiving the benefit of that creation when the patent expires. How about we call for all patented software to be opensourced when the patent expires? As it is, even after the patent expires the code is still protected by copyright. If you don't like that plan, don't patent it. Thats why the government created copyright and trade secret classes of intellectual property.
Re:Good patents (Score:4, Insightful)
If, on the other hand, there are no current software patents that are easily defineable as good, then I'd doubt your premise that the idea is fundamentally sound.
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
read it. from 1992. if you havent read this before, then ask yourself why you are spouting off in public forums about software patents without informing yourself of some of the basics first.
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
The paradox of Marxism is not just a theoretical issue. Stallman, the founder of the League for Programming Freedom, heads the Free Software Foundation which is developing and planning to distribute a clone of the Unix operating system. AT&T has invested in Unix based on its ownership as manifest in pat
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
From the article:
HyperCard created expectations that Zoomracks could not meet, and other companies began to develop HyperCard clones. Meanwhile, I asserted my rights, sued and settled with Apple
Reads, word for word, as: "Oh shit! My technology is 6 years old and at the end of the product cycle. I better start suing rather than innovating a new product because my inferior crap is protected for another 10 years!"
So te
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
Oh, but wait! We give special treatment to certain types of ideas in specific fields! It doesn't apply to fiction...and why? Because perhaps doing so would highlight the absolute absurdity of curr
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
There is no such thing as a good software patent First, you are patenting the use of a general purpose constructed of general purpose devices being used as it was intended by it's inventor. Second, you are using development tools and software components for their intended purpose. At the end of the day you are riding on the backs of too many others who have far more claim to a
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
The fostering of invention only happens when it is economical for someone to make invention/creation. With the system now with extended copyright the system has turned around and it is starting to stifle invention. With patents the controls on what constitutes a patent are not well done and invention in sof
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
I disagree. I believe the Founding Fathers meant what they said when they said that the government was given the right to grant limited monopolies on works and inventions to promote the sciences and the useful arts. Not to protect the creator, but rather to enrich the sum set of knowledge available to the public. That the way this enrichment of the public is done happens to benefit authors and inventors is well
Re:Good patents (Score:2)
They probably did not invision, nor
Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
With some patented hydraulic invention, I am still free to come up with a better way of doing the same thing.
With these software patents, I'm prohibited from making anything that accomplishes X, even if I have a novel method, because company Y has a patent on software that does that.Re:Copyright (Score:2)
Nonsense. If i come up with a novel compression algorithm 10 times better than any known compression algorithm, you are still welcome to come up with your own compression algorithm. Try to beat mine!
Re:Copyright (Score:2)
Re:Copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
From the Article: 'Data processing system using substantially unique identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the same identifiers,'
From the grandparent: With these software patents, I'm prohibited from making anything that accomplishes X, even if I have a novel method, because company Y has a patent on software that does that.
What is getting under everyones skin is OVER BROAD patents.
Read the grandparent AGAIN.
Let me show you why your response doesn't
Re:Copyright (Score:2, Insightful)
If one company develops a facial recognition system, using laser scanners to map the 3D surface of a persons face. Later someone comes along and makes use of a digital camera, and color comparisons. With patents, thats allowed (IIRC).
With software patents, someone is just patenting "A method of recognizing facial features using digitizing methods", which covers both implementations.
Just imagine if someone patented "a method of reducing the size of a file on disk, by using an algorithm."
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need patents for algorithms (Score:2)
> patents shouldn't exist at all) to produce
> something useful and novel shouldn't enjoy a
> temporary monopoly from the fruits of his labour
If you want to protect your algorithm, just don't release the source code. If you really have a novel idea, chances are that others would not be able to duplicate it just by using the program. This way you get your temporary monopoly without incurring the cost of filing patent lawsuits.
> "all patents must b
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
However if in certain areas they cause more harm than good, the governement should simply not issue them. I think in the case of software, a good case can be made that copyrigh
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
If it takes some other guy 2 days to come up with the same algorithm independently, it just means you were slow, not that you deserved a patent, and he should have to pay you.
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
I'd first say that abuses of patents are costing society far more than they are worth. The existing system is badly broken. When a government sets policy, the rule should be to maximize benefits for the governed; that is not happening. True, a few lawsuit-happy people are getting wealthy, and true, a few mega-corporations are enjoying their use of patent cross-licensing ("I won't sue you if
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:3, Insightful)
So far, I've heard: the "copyright" argument-- that software is like the plot of a novel. Bullshiat, says I. Copyright covers only the specific instantiation of an idea, not the idea itself. If you spent 10 years coming up with a novel software algorithm that could, say, accurately detect a person's diseases from a facial photograph, then by the copyright explanation, i'd only be covered in m specific code. anybody else could reverse engineer this in a week and sell th
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:4, Insightful)
Patents work really good for protecting mature industries where true innovation is both revolutionary and rare. Incidently, these are also the industries where small players are the least likely to be able to make a dent - you're going to have a tough time selling a new car even if you have some nifty new engine that has all the performance of a V8 but 100x the gas mileage. Patents work really poorly in rapidly evolving new industries (and there's never been an industry that's moved as fast as software is).
Further, patents are supposed to be on an INVENTION, not a PROCESS. That's why you can't patent mathematical theorems.
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
You must live on Bizzaro world. If you did this, you would quickly sell the rights to 1% of the future earnings of this invention to a few mbas/lawyers who would take care of the paperwork for you of selling or licensnig this to the fords and mercedes of the world for billions of dollars. there are basically tens of thousands of small research driven co
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
And Edison is actually a really good example. Maybe you don't remember when we broke up the energy monopolies and forced a market? It's hard to play what-if in economics, but I'd say that we weren't served in the long run by Edison's capitalist greed - we had to take measures after the fact to correct the situation.
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
even with your auto example, the distinction is stupid. either way your invention has value that can be equivalently explouted.
as far as energy goes. oil OLIGOPOLIES have little to do with edison's ELECTRICIY example. in fact, oligopoly economics have relatively little to do with patent economics. again, get clues.
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:2)
"appears to be ... a hash table" (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again, this is P2P we're talking about, so it's not like we're expecting them to close up shop because they are violating some ambiguous law.
P2P is here to stay. It's doubtful that this company will win in the long term because the technology is already out there used by millions of users. The genie, so to speak, is out of the bottle.
Re:"appears to be ... a hash table" (Score:2)
p2p _companies_? (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems that PiXPO, the company referred by the article is selling a p2p application that lets its users share photos (not trolling, but I don't see the point) - does any Slashdotter use commercial p2p products? If so, for what reason?
Re:p2p _companies_? (Score:2, Insightful)
I try not to, and have an itchy uncomfortable feeling after playing hl2, but I think thats more life mirroring art than anything else.
Re:p2p _companies_? (Score:2)
Blizzard uses a customized BitTorrent client to download patches, instead of getting the patches right from Blizzard
Smart usage of BT to distribute their patches... otherwise sending out a patch would be much more costly - think a few
Re:p2p _companies_? (Score:2)
And it sucks. Hard.
We pay for their bandwidth - waiting a week for their sucky client to download at 1k/second isn't acceptable (no I do *not* port forward on my network. I give a shit about security, for some insane reason).
That's why I wait for someone to mirror the patch before downloading.. means I can't play for a day or so though.
Re:p2p _companies_? (Score:2)
prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:prior art (Score:3, Funny)
prior art -- HA!
All p2p applications have to do is use a data processing system using substantially similar identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the different identifiers.
Come on. Using unique identifiers to uniquely differentiate one item from another, bah, thats so 20th century. Think about how easy but unnecessary it would be to steal one's identity once we all have the same social security number.
Damn, then money will all have the same numbers on it too, so a penny
Re:prior art (Score:2)
What's a bogus patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or do you mean it's a real patent, but one that should be indefensible? That's a different matter.
If this is the case, maybe they're doing the standard trick of going after people too small to challenge the patent in court, who will settle quickly.
Re:What's a bogus patent? (Score:4, Informative)
But where the problem lies is that there's no requirement for the applicant to do due dilligence in seeking out prior art -- that's the job for the patent office. As many recent events have shown, they're not doing a very good job of it. So, the patent gets granted. Then it's a real pain to get it overturned, obvious prior art or not.
Re:What's a bogus patent? (Score:2)
Re:What's a bogus patent? (Score:4, Insightful)
The answer, of course, is to change the law, and make due dilligence incumbent upon the applicant. Then you build in punative laws that discourage patenting things for which prior art obviously exists. And you make the patent holder pay for all litigation costs incurred by whoever sues them when the patent is overturned.
Re:What's a bogus patent? (Score:2)
Its also a real mistake to be patented.
What?! (Score:5, Funny)
Here is s simpler way -
1) Powder dry herb
2) Place in a jar of 90% isopropyl alcohol
3) Shake vigorously for 2 minutes
4) Strain, filter
5) Evaporate on a plate over a source of steam
6) Scrape up the goodies
7) Profit
Re:What?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What?! (Score:5, Funny)
The Dept. of Homeland security has just dispatched the black helicopters. Please get up from your hash table and exit your mom's basement with your hands on your head.
Re:What?! (Score:2)
> Don't worry, I'm sure it was your "friend" who told you what to type...
"Erm.... some guys put spyware on my PC and stole my password.... Sorry, didn't catch that.... Oh, I mean, you're right, it *was* the same paedophile hackers that store child porn on other people's machines. I think they're terrorists as well, you can't trust anyone these days."
Re:What?! (Score:2)
Re:What?! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What?! (Score:2)
Hey dude, I don't get it... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't see how the patent attaches..... (Score:5, Informative)
For example, you have foo.txt. Someone copies foo.txt to bar.txt, without changing any of the data contained within foo.txt (it's some pretty piece of ascii art, just to keep you amused for a moment....).
This thing would keep tables on the files, and when run, would go back and rename bar.txt to foo.txt if wanted, or could delete bar.txt if the user requested.
But still, it's pretty obtuse. Even as someone with legal training, and a computing background, I had a hard time making out exactly what they were patenting.
A link to the Washington Post article mentioned in the p2pnet article would be nice, too, if someone can find it...?
One of the downfalls of the patent process..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Patents were supposed to be monopolies granted for disclosing a discovery - that's what sets them apart from trade secrets.
In reality, most patents can barely be understood by anyone but other patent lawyers. They are designed to be obtuse, complex, uninformative and in legalese. Why? So the patent will have no actual value, it is basicly a free mon
The Washington Post Article (registration req) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The Washington Post Article (registration req) (Score:2)
Think, for example, of pretty much any internet-based software distribution. cd
The scripts go and fetch the source to GNU Screen from ftp.gnu.org, or a mirror site. It then checks the hash against the hash recorded in the distinfo file.
Imagine if the non-profits like Debian, the BSDs, etc. would have to license this just to distribute software. It'
Bullshit they are patenting the hash table... (Score:5, Interesting)
When I did my own patent last year, part of the process involved the patent lawyer explaining how to read patent'ese. It's just like a programming language.
Claim 1 - hashed files
Claim 2 == Claim 1 && something else
Claim 3 == Claim 2 && something else
etc
etc
So claim 1 probably has no chance of being enforced whatsoever.
However, claim 25 may be enforcable.
"some incredibibly specific thing in the context of some bigger thing in the context of some bigger thing... etc... in the context of a bunch of hashed files"
If they wrote it all in one claim, then it would only take the most minute difference to invalidate the whole thing.
So they do this 1 && 2 && 3 etc etc thing so that they get real coverage.
Nobody expects claim 1 to be upheld.
Think of it as a giant complex regular expression on the field of computing.
That said, it does appear like it's an attempt to create a blanket patent of the entire field of manipulation and distribution of hashed files, and so it's probably still qualifiable as a mugging
But it's not an attempt to patent the hash table.
Re:Bullshit they are patenting the hash table... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's irrelevant. You can still (threaten to and actually) sue people over the fact that they violate the claim. Each claim is a separate monopoly that has been granted, and each claim must be individually struck down.
If one claim simply covers using hashes to determine whether two files are equal, then they did receive a state-mandated monopoly on that (regardless of how likely it is enforceable in court).
Re:Bullshit they are patenting the hash table... (Score:2)
Re:Bullshit they are patenting the hash table... (Score:3, Funny)
Really? You'll be telling us next that our u83r-1337 HTML-coding skills don't count as "programming". Hah!
Re:Bullshit they are patenting the hash table... (Score:2)
If it's that obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, they HAD to know the patent is bogus. They hoped it will pass through USPTO, and they hoped right. But how can they hope anyone will agree to pay them money for that?
If I wanted to sell Eiffel Tower, I don't think I'd avoid jail. Why people who try to sell (force!) idea they don't own could go free?
Re:If it's that obvious... (Score:2)
No, it wont. You need to get the patent overturned, and to do that you need up to about $1M.
As it is so expensive to get the bogus patent thrown out, they can easily get many companies to pay them lesser amounts to get rid of them.
Prior Art coming out the ying yang (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was much much younger, I used to purchase a magazine - Micro User [tiscali.co.uk] for my BBC Micro. For about 10+ years, this published code listings ever month. You typed in 500ish lines of code, and were rewarded with a game or a useful little utility.
It was very frustrating to enter all of the code and not have the program run. Therefore, they introduced a checksum program. This ran on the code and gave you a string of digits back, which you could compare with the digits issued in the magazine. This was active from 1984 onwards, and most likely even before that.
Prior art?
Proof of the overabundance of lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't matter wheather the patent is right or wrong, it doesn't matter how rediculous the tort, what matter is if it will generate collectible fees for a lawyer. If you are upset about rediculous government granted monopolies get upset about the monopoly on justice granted to lawyers. The fact that one of the most common tactics employed by large companies to eliminate competition is litigation to death should be enough for anyone to realize its time to do something.
More information and prior art (Score:5, Informative)
Somebody inform USPTO they violate law. (Score:3, Funny)
Tripwire is prior art (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tripwire is prior art (Score:2)
Re:Tripwire is prior art (Score:2)
I couldn't find MD1
Re:Tripwire is prior art (Score:2)
Wikipedia?? Why not link to tripwire.com? (Score:2)
There are certainly hundreds of cases of prior art, and Tripwire is probably one of them. It computes and maintains a database of hashes for all the files on a file system to check for intrusions and corruption. The wiki entry says it first surfaced in 1992
This is [to me] the most irksome characteristic of wiki-people: even when there is an obviously better link , e.g. this page [tripwire.com] (which also provides the 1992 date), they insist on linking to a non-vetted, potentially spurious source like wikipedia.
Th
Sued RIAA too (Score:2)
Well well (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that my purchase of An Introduction to Algorithms has borne fruit. I actually understood the patent application, although it's probably the worst description of a hash table ever. It's worth reading the patent, BTW, it has an unintentionally silly background history for its case.
Insofar as it's a specialized implementation of a hash table, how altnet thinks it has a case is beyond me. Code containing the word TrueName would be a dead giveaway, otherwise this is just harrassment litigation.
Patent Law (Score:2, Informative)
I was once involved in a patent case where a medium sized company was suing a smaller company over their use of "laser etched checking fixtures" (a
Resistance is futile (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Resistance is futile (Score:2)
Sarcasm aside, it could have the effect of driving P2P software completely underground/free and chill the rest of software development, particularly as it's overbroad.
Oops! (Score:2)
This can only be true if the CRC has the same number of bits as the number it's verifying, in which case my hash algorithm is simple:
CRC = Value
More prior art (Score:2)
Anyone who understands file hashes and hash tables will think of using it for finding duplicate files. Especiall
Re:As an attorney... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you should try actually talking to your esteemed clients, and suggesting to them that if, quoting the music industry as an example, they didn't want to make $8 of PURE PROFIT on a CD, whilst giving artists a 50 cents share that they may be able to reduce prices, and make the cost of a CD lower to the point that it becomes less at
Re:As an attorney... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Maybe you should try actually talking to your esteemed clients, and suggesting to them that if, quoting the music industry as an example, they didn't want to make $8 of PURE PROFIT on a CD"
I'm not sure I understand you. Are you talking Australian dollars? In the US, CDs are sold into the channel for around $8 and are sold to the consumer for about $12.95 [bandradio.com]. That $5 delta is used to pay for employees, keeping the lights on, etc. shrinkage and so on and is not "pure profit." More importantly, it's mone
Re:As an attorney... (Score:2)
Holy crap, man, where are you buying CDs? Maybe that price includes the cost of used CDs and extra-rackspace (the $3 CDs at Drug Stores, etc) CDs, but new discs at chain music stores are rarely lower than $17.
Re:I remember (Score:2)
Hashes are shorter than the original file, so there always multiple files reducing to the same hash.
Re:I remember (Score:2)
Consider contents of the file, compressed, to be the hash. It fulfills the premises: depends on the file contents, is shorter than the file (or at least not longer), uniquely identifies the file. So, while md5 is not unique, bzip2 can be treated as a 100% duplicate-free hash creation program.
Of course such "granted" hashes are MUCH longer than what is typically used, but they still fulfill the premises of a hash.
Note it's still possible to create a hash that is unique (like the above) but r
Re:I remember (Score:2)
BTW wouldn't it be theoretically possible that you take two different bz2 files but when you encrypt them you get the same result? Since the input files and thus md5-hashes would be different.
The counting argument (Score:2, Informative)
Not necessarily :-)
The "counting argument" can be used to show that no compression algorithm can hope to reduce the size of every file. Hence most (all?) compression programs will, from time to time, have to store an
Re:I remember (Score:2)
f(x) = y
generally contain values of x (inputs) that produce 'collissions'
That is -
f(x) = y and f(x') = y
does not imply that x = x'
for some x,x'
You are right - the resultant values (y) are not unique.
In general, a 'good' has function means that for x and another value, with a small difference from x, produces a 'big' difference in the hash value (y).
Re: Not applicable to ./ (Score:2)
Re:US way of doing business (Score:2)
Max