Cisco Applies For Patents To Secured TCP 290
An anonymous reader writes "Following the recent excitement over a potential vulnerability in TCP, Cisco's "Worldwide Patent Counsel", Robert Barr, has let it be known that they have pending patent applications for one or more of the IETF recommendations for improving TCP's security. KernelTrap has the full details."
if tcp is copyrighted (Score:5, Funny)
only the criminals will have network connections
Re:if tcp is copyrighted (Score:5, Funny)
On the plus side, the (MP|RI)AA would be just as illegal in hunting you down... maybe I should take up P2P trading.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:if tcp is copyrighted (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was as simple as implementation (binary or even source code), "we" could write a new implementation that was compatible with their one (did the same thing in a different way), and multi-vendor secure TCP comms could happen. Unfortunately it's not that simple because they've likely patented the processes, although we'd have to wait for the patents to be available to see, I think.
This is actually rather risky for Cisco, because they may cut themselves off from everyone else. If OpenBSD indeed has a better and free solution, organisations should be using them. The result then is no secure communications if your non-Cisco equipment talks to Cisco equipment (unless Cisco implements the OpenBSD stuff too...).
Presumably the USPTO is smart enough to shoot down a process patent that's based on published recommendations by a third party, but maybe there's something clever in Cisco's particular implementation that's worthy. Either way, I suspect Cisco has just killed an otherwise reasonable way of doing secure TCP on the public Internet.
And props to people like the OpenBSD guys for being there and continuing to grind out alternative and often better solutions.
Re:if tcp is copyrighted (Score:5, Informative)
Dream on:
- USPTO Grants CA Lawyer Domain-Naming Patent [slashdot.org]
- Patent Granted on Sideways Swinging [slashdot.org]
- Patent On Software Downloads Upheld [slashdot.org]
and to sum it all up:
- Enter The 'Stupid Patent Tricks' Contest [slashdot.org]
Re:if tcp is copyrighted (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course in many parts of the UK we don't have swings now, because they are considered to be dangerous, by the fascists at the Health and Safety Executive, or maybe because the owner simply has not the time to do a risk assessment, as required by law.
It gets realy stupid sometimes.....
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Methinks that it is much more interesting that there were people from outside Cisco working on that vulnerability. If I recall correctly the list there was Juniper and someone else there as well. So unless Cisco did the correct paperwork with these guys they are fully entitled to sue Cisco's arse flat.
In btw, it is quite time someone questions the exact origin of SSL, SSH, NTP and a few other items in IOS which are known to be bug for bug compatible with OSS code and do not have stated copyrights in the IOS release notes.
Cisco using open source code (Score:3, Informative)
Parent raises a very good point. While Cisco has acknowledged [cisco.com] other use of open source code in the past, I've wondered if there was a use of the same source or maybe just shared libraries that caused vulnerabilities in openssh to affect the IOS, and the same with openssl. Cisco developers
Oh goody. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to be very pro-cisco, but with the recent "Self protecting networks" ads that are misleading at best, and the backdoor snafu, I don't see how I could reccomend to anyone that they're worth the cost.
Re:Oh goody. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all about the phbs (Score:5, Interesting)
Such crap. It's like those blatantly false microsoft ads where they show microsoft office as a wonderful beautiful thing. I've worked with office for years, and the only time I danced through my office with a newly printed office document involved a printer incompatibility, a long project, and way too much coffee.
Show me an ad that says, "Hey this works okay most of the time," or "this router can detect and contain unusual network activity, so viri spread slower" and that's a product that I can trust. Promising pie in the sky only works for idiots.
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been my experience that the idiots are the ones making the purchasing decisions, hence the nature of the advertising.
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:4, Interesting)
My mother is just like this. I can tell her something over and over and over again, and it means nothing to her. But if she hears the same thing from a random, poorly-informed stranger, it's a proven fact.
It's sad that they know enough to hire skilled people, and then choose to listen to simplistic (though slick) advertising instead.
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:5, Funny)
Now you know how she felt when you were growing up.
:)
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:5, Insightful)
- Product A -- Claims to be 73% good.
- Product B -- Claims to be 96% good.
- Product C -- Claims to be 99.999% good.
- Product D -- Claims to be 100% good.
Being skeptical, you would probably pick product A has having truthful ads. Product B, you might think, has really good real-world performance. Product C is just marketing hype, and product D is impossible in the real world.But if you see a big brand name (Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, etc.) on product C, you might say "Well, it isn't 100%, and they are a good company. Maybe it's the truth. Of course, claiming to be Product C happens, and that's where the trap is.
It might be that you are looking at Microsoft statement claiming "5 nines" of 99.999% uptime [dell.com] (that's down for 5 minutes each year). Or Sun claiming the same 99.999% [com.com]. Or Cingular Wireless claiming 99.999% reliable networks [cingular.com], excluding several days of downtime [merit.edu] that they must not factor into their percentage. Maybe it's that 99.999% pure copper speaker cable [audiovisualonline.co.uk] you were looking for. (For the chemists, here's a site where you can buy over a dozen other '99.999% pure metal' wires [eurotitan.co.uk].) Lots of people get caught into that.
In some cases it really is justified. If I were a chemist, maybe having iridium wire that is only 99.9% pure might cause problems, and those extra 9's might be significant. But that usually isn't the case for most marketing.
But I don't think it's just a PHB issue, it's a problem of 'I really want the best, and I only want to spend 5 minutes to find out which one that is'.
frob
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:4, Insightful)
IAAC. Most reagents are indeed rated rather precisely with respect to their purity. For example, "spectroscopic" grade toluene is different than "hplc" grade toluene, and they're both different from "reagant" grade toluene. (These are so-called "customary" names for different purity grades. It can be a little confusing even to practitioners, so typically something will be labeled like "Reagent Grade (95%) Foo.")
Those extra 9s frequently are important. For a plain synthesis reaction, 95% may be ok (you may just want to make some of product X to prove that it can be made, so if you have some miniscule fraction of an isomer of X due to that 5% similarly-reactive reagent impurity, it's not such a big deal). But if you're doing a really precise analysis (say ppt range), you don't want any peaks from chemically similar impurities crowding into the spectral range you're looking at.
But yeah, outside of the actual practice of science, most anything above 99% is speculative horseshit dreamed up by a marketer. _Proving_ that something is that pure is an expensive and time-consuming prospect.
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it should be against the trade descriptions act (UK), but it'd probably be ok.
For those who don't realise normal full fat milk is 4% fat - hence 96% non-fat. Skimmed is c.1% fat, semi-skimmed is 1%-2%, iirc.
I think 96% fat-free should have 4% of the fat of 'normal' full fat, not be full fat milk.
Deceptive advertising at it's most obnoxious?
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a product I would trust. Routers should do one thing, and that's routing. Firewalls should be the devices that implement policies, not routers.
It's the same premise as buggy, hole-ridden software. A good 30% of 'features' in software don't need to be there, but they are, and they introduce problems. Take Norton Systemworks (2002)
The same goes for Cisco
Re:It's all about the phbs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh goody. (Score:3, Interesting)
Similarly, it is possible to protect entirely against some types of attacks and reduce the damage of others, even when the
Re:Oh goody. (Score:4, Interesting)
A car suddenly deciding it isn't willing to listen to your inputs is just scary.
Because in any condition in which the computer takes control, the driver won't know what the hell happened, and the computer might not have all the information.
Now if it picks me up, drives me to my destination, and goes away to refuel itsself and hang out with other cars, it is perfectly allowed to retain control at all times. =)
(And I wouldn't trust *that* unless it was on a track with guaranteed physical distance between vehicles.)
Re:Oh goody. (Score:3, Interesting)
We do get the bosses' kids from time to time, but we use Macs
Protecting the network from humans on the inside (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh goody. (Score:2, Informative)
Sure. (Score:2)
But I bet users are still going to be doing stupid things. You can't beat stupidity, and by claiming that, in fact, they have, they lose my vote big time.
Cisco products may have a place in a comprehensive security solution, but they're trying to claim they ARE a comprehensive security solution, and they're not.
Re:Oh goody. (Score:3, Funny)
I know my Cisco router is self protecting, everytime it gets more than a few requests at a time it shuts down all network traffic, requiring a reboot. At first I thought it was those damn bastards at /., but then i realized it was a feature!
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:i'm starting to agree (Score:2)
Re:i'm starting to agree (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:i'm starting to agree (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't disagree with the problems IP laws in the U.S. as mentioned by the parent of your post, but your post is implying something different.
Some IETF and patent background... (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically, the IETF has been neutral about using patents in the Standards process, and its position is summed up best in the charter of the IPR Working Group (http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ipr-charter.htm l [ietf.org]):
Last year, there was an attempt to make the IETF change their policy, but it failed miserably (http://news.com.com/2100-1013-996351.html?tag=fd_ top [com.com]).
So you can have more secure communications, but only if you pay Cisco.
Bastards.
Re:Some IETF and patent background... (Score:2)
Admittedly, they might charge, but it doesn't say that they will. This is not new, and it might not even be news. Corporations have been doing this for a while. Look through the IETF IPR archives and y
Re:Some IETF and patent background... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the second time in six months OpenBSD has seriously one-upped Cisco and its patents. :-) They even wrote a song [openbsd.org] about the first!
Re:Some IETF and patent background... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Some IETF and patent background... (Score:4, Interesting)
According to some messages on the list, Cisco was one of the worst affected by the recently announced set of TCP vulnerabilities, and OpenBSD had only minimal exposure in the first place.
It strikes me that this may be PR ploy on Cisco's part to cover up for their past mistakes by appearing to rush to the rescue with a patent pending solution. They'll even graciously let others use them in exchange for cross-licensing. After all, if it's pending a patent, those Cisco guys must be really on the ball
Personally, I trust the OpenBSD project a great deal more than Cisco when it comes to security. I mean, OpenBSD wasn't even vulnerable to the no-workaround backdoor password issue!
Luckily in that case, locking a user account had a considerable amount of prior art.
This could set a REALLY bad precedent... (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason is that this is basically a patch to a protocol. The TCP protocol itself was a novel invention. But most patches to protocols, or to code to fix a particular problem, are fairly obvious to someone skilled in the requisite arts. Generally, the nature of the bug is what determines the solution, and often the solution is obvious to someone who is familiar with the protocol (or code) and the problem in question.
If this gets through then you can expect a lot of patents to be filed on patches to many things, including open source projects. And that means that unless the code is protected by something like the GPL (which requires a patent license grant as a condition of redistribution), the projects (and those who maintain and use them) will be vulnerable to patent infringement suits.
This is going to get nasty. But I think most of us who have been keeping track of this nonsense already know that.
Re:This could set a REALLY bad precedent... (Score:5, Insightful)
So don't adopt these as a standard (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So don't adopt these as a standard (Score:2)
Re:So don't adopt these as a standard (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess we'd have to trust them as to the meaning of reasonable or reciprocity eh? (Does reasonable mean "just don't fsck with us and we won't fsck with you" or is i
What is.... (Score:2, Funny)
Is that a cross between excitement and excrement?
Limited use if proprietary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Limited use if proprietary (Score:2)
SSL, VPN, IPv6. They've all been around for a long time. Sure SSL is used quite a bit, but it's definitely not used the majority of the time. We've seen stats on the WiFi expos where you can pick off hundreds of POP passwords thanks to plaintext connections. It will be a long time (if ever) before this is even close to mainstream.
Re:Limited use if proprietary (Score:2)
Ci...SCO ? (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenBSD (Score:4, Informative)
Firewall Failover with CARP and pfsync (Score:3, Informative)
CARP
The Common Address Redundancy Protocol manages failover at the intersection of Layers 2 and 3 in the OSI Model (link layer and IP layer). Each CARP group has a virtual MAC (link lay
hmmmmm.... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know if I'm for it or against it now...
Robert Barr? (Score:4, Funny)
(If you don't get the joke, go check the openBSD website.)
Solution: (Score:3, Interesting)
Prices (Score:2)
And in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And in other news... (Score:2)
It just didn't get as popular as IP for some reason.
Re:And in other news... (Score:2)
Great timing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great timing (Score:2)
New Protocol (Score:4, Funny)
Re:New Protocol (Score:3, Funny)
Must use apple talk.
That would be fun.
Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:4, Interesting)
That sounds like to me that Cisco will not be charging a whole lot for this license, it will probably be one of those $1 license deals where once you have it, you have it in perpetuity.
If Cisco don't apply for a patent, someone else WILL and those barstards might end up charging so much for the method that it never becomes a standard.
I don't think Cisco's intent is to make the standard too expensive for it to become an actual standard in use.
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:2, Insightful)
And what, exactly, do you base the "probably" on? I see it as distinctly more probable that Cisco, being a dominant player, will implement what would otherwise be a discarded solution, and smaller vendors will be basically forced to follow suit. They will, of course, have to line up to pay the Cisco tax, and that internet t
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:2)
In many ways, Cisco is being a good citizen by saying, you can reliably go ahead and implement t
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:3, Informative)
In all likelyhood you very well may be right. I don't know what Cisco thinks the market for licences to their patch happens to be, so neither of us are likely to be "correct" in our valuation.
-Rusty
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:5, Informative)
Hi Nathan There is no patent and there is no standard, so it's a bit premature.
But if a patent does issue and a standard is approved, this is our policy
Cisco will not assert any patents owned or controlled by Cisco against any party for making, using, selling, importing or offering for sale a product that implements IETF RFCXXXX, provided, however that: Cisco retains the right to assert its patents (including the right to claim past royalties) against any party that asserts a patent it owns or controls (either directly or indirectly) against Cisco or any of Cisco's affiliates or successors in title; and Cisco retains the right to assert its patents against any product or portion thereof that is not necessary for compliance with RFC XXXX.
Royalty bearing licenses will also be available as an option.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Robert Barr
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:5, Interesting)
I got a response back from Robert, my stuff is in bold, his is the reply below:
> If I read this correctly (IANAL, obviously) the Linux Kernel project
> could go right ahead and use the methods that Cisco has applied patents
> for, however at any time after a Patent has been issued (IF it is
> issued - and I think its a fair bet its going to happen, the USPO seems
> to rubber stamp anything out of tech companies these days) Cisco could
> demand that the Linux Kernel project pay them whatever.
Not at all. That's not what it says, or what I mean to say. It says that
nobody has to pay anything, or even ask for a license, unless they want to
assert patents against Cisco. You don't read it that way?
Well, I'm not quite mollified by this. So I sent the following:
Okay, I get that point now, but is there anything stopping Cisco from asserting its patents just for the hell of it?
You say that Cisco will only assert its patent against someone who tries to assert a patent against Cisco, but what is stopping Cisco from just doing it anyway?
ie, the methods are integrated into the Linux Kernel TCP/IP stack and gain wide acceptance, and Cisco then sees value in trying to claim that all users of Linux need to pay Cisco a licensing fee of $200 per CPU to use the proprietary, patented methods included in Linux.
I know its far-fetched, but 3 years ago, anyone saying that SCO would try to claim ownership of Linux would be laughed at.
What agreement can open source projects enter into with Cisco to ensure that the above is legally impossible?
Lastly, the GPL states:
"Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all."
So, for any GPL software use Cisco's methods, Cisco will need to provide a guarantee that under the GPL, any future patent for these methods will be free for use by that GPL software.
Just taking your word for it that Cisco won't assert it's patent in the future isn't good enough
Now, I'll happily grant that my analysis if probably flawed, but I think I'm on the right track here
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:5, Informative)
On May 12, 2004, at 12:46 PM, Robert Barr wrote:
> Okay, I get that point now, but is there anything stopping Cisco from
> asserting its patents just for the hell of it?
Yes, my written statement above would stop us. I can turn it into a contract if that is necessary, but I don't think it is. Anybody who relies on that statement is protected, but I guess they should consult their own lawyer.
> You say that Cisco will only assert its patent against someone who
> tries to assert a patent against Cisco, but what is stopping
> Cisco from just doing it anyway?
see above.
> ie, the methods are integrated into the Linux Kernel TCP/IP stack and
> gain wide acceptance, and Cisco then sees value in trying to claim that
> all users of Linux need to pay Cisco a licensing fee of $200 per CPU to
> use the proprietary, patented methods included in Linux.
>
> I know its far-fetched, but 3 years ago, anyone saying that SCO would
> try to claim ownership of Linux would be laughed at.
SCO never made a statement like I did
> What agreement can open source projects enter into with Cisco to ensure
> that the above is legally impossible?
I'll execute an agreement with those terms if necessary
> Lastly, the GPL states:
>
> "Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
> patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
> program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
> program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
> patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at
> all."
Prof Eben Moglen says this about GPL, I think it applie
"Section 7 prohibits distribution under GPL if you cannot fulfill the requirements of the license because of other conditions *imposed* on you by, among other things, a judgment of patent infringement, interim measures short of judgment, such as a preliminary injunction, or contractual limitations such as non-disclosure agreements or patent licenses. But you are not unable to distribute under GPL unless those requirements have been *imposed*. Until a particular party distributing GPL'd code has either accepted a license whose requirements are incompatible with GPL or has been ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction to do or refrain from doing in a fashion incompatible with GPL, there is no direct conflict with the requirements of the license, and no requirement to refrain from distribution. With regard to patents, in particular, no one *ever* has an obligation to refrain from making, using or selling technology that *may* practice patent claims solely because someone somewhere has taken a patent, claims to have a patent, or even publishes a license. Only the demand that you in particular take a license or cease infringing triggers theoretical liability under US patent law. Whether there can be liability for damages for the period before such notification is another question, legitimately of importance to those who commercially distribute free software, but not ordinarily of significance to those who develop only, or who distribute non-commercially.
Moreover, patents are not global, only local. To say that we cannot *develop* under GPL because a patent exists in country X, and a license has been published there to which those making, using, or selling in country X *might* be asked to subscribe would go much too far. That situation certainly does not prevent development elsewhere, and distribution under GPL can certainly proceed."
***
> So, for any GPL software use Cisco's methods, Cisco will need to
> provide a guarantee that under the GPL, any future patent for these
> methods will be free for use by that GPL software.
>
> Just taking your word for it that Cisco won't assert it's patent in the
> future isn't goo
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty fair mutual-assistance type thing.
Almost. You forgot the bit that says:
* If the someone uses the Cisco patent in a product that does not comply with the IETF standard, Cisco may make them pay royalties.
As mentioned by some other posters, this proviso makes it impossible to use the patented technology in GPL'd code.
Actually, the "you can't sue Cisco for infringement of your patent if you're using our patent" probably also makes this "license" GPL-incompatible, even though it does seem like a
Re:Did ANYONE RTFA??? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet was built off of the same philosophy as OSS. It's a bunch of people putting their heads together and throwing their ideas in the ring to make things better for all involved. What if all of these people clutched their ideas to their chest and said "This is MY piece and you have to pay me to use it"?
It doesn't matter whether or not Cisco would charge a small license fee for this new implementation. They are running against the philosophy that built the Internet in the first place. Standards must be open and free for the widest possible adaptation or you are looking at vendor lock-in ala Microsoft. In other words, to hell with Cisco.
I did RTFA and it looks like this is a proposed draft - It has not been ratified. Cisco is saying that if it is they've got the patents. What they're going to do with it I'd rather not find out. I'm willing to bet that most vendors won't follow the new recommendation to escape potential fees/lawsuits and instead go with another implemenation...Possibly their own. And that can't be a good thing.
Ambivalent about this (Score:2)
Yay to Cisco for being honest and telling people about it from the get-go.
Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
There's really nothing to be upset about. From the article:
Basically, the implementation that Cisco is trying to patent is also flawed. OpenBSD's implementation contains better fixes. Who cares if Cisco tries to patent a flawed fix that no one will end up using? Let them waste their money. Let's face it, this move is upsetting on principal but there's really nothing to see here ... move along.
Right, that's it! (Score:3, Funny)
The prophets have spoken.
Cisco turning into junk, as is linksys. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not affiliated with any of the above companies. I just thought I'd mention that linksys is junk and owned by cisco. So maybe it's a family trait.
No more early access for Cisco (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW: one poster said "don't get excited, they'll do a reasonable and non-discriminitory license". That's nice, but it is useless for GPL software (unless they release an implementation under the GPL) and a trap for BSD licensed software (you can end up with code that says you can use it but you can't because of the patent).
NOT AN IETF RECOMMENDATION (Score:3, Informative)
It is just an Internet-Draft (ID), that has been submitted for IETF approval. The IETF haven't reviewed it yet, nor taken a position on whether it should be a standard or not.
I could submit a ID for a protocol for standing on my head. That doesn't mean it is an IETF recommendation or that it will be.
With all the FUD being expressed by people who don't know much (anything?) about the IETF and its processes, maybe the next higher level after RTFA should be GAFC (Get A F**king Clue).
More from Theo and Company (Score:4, Informative)
QUOTE
What's very amusing is reading section 5 of the draft, wherein the author distributes credit to a number of parties. If Cisco were to file a patent at this point and not include those parties (including other companies), the patent validity would be at risk by reason of excluding a contributor. If Cisco does include all of those other companies in the patent, then all of them must also present the IETF with relevant IPR statements.
Frankly, this is yet another PR blunder by Cisco. If they had simply said nothing or formally put their contribution into the public domain, they wouldn't look so egregiously greedy.
ENDQUOTE
From the 10EAST archive [theaimsgroup.com], as quoted in kerneltrap...Theo has some choice comments about the US Patent System and the IETF, too.
IOW, yet again, Cisco trying to cash in on Open Source, in order to desperately prop up their miserable recent record of development, innovation and security, as well as theft from the Open Source Community, in order to keep their stock price up and keep from being listed on F'd Co., where they belong.
I have a solution. Seriously. (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe on the other hand (well, the PCT) has no grace period. Once the invention is disclosed, your rights are out the window. Adopting a policy like this would make it much harder for companies to troll newsgroups/web/discussion boards, get ideas, and file an application based on an implementation. It's not a total solution, but it would be a good start.
As someone that was trying to invalidate an obvious patent filed on date X for a client, let me tell you that finding stuff on the web published over 1 year beforehand was a bitch. Plenty of stuff in the 6 month range, but the web wasn't full blown back in mid 90's like it is now...
-truth
There may be method to this madness (Score:4, Informative)
"It makes more business sense to assume that, despite the fact that we do not copy other company's products, and despite the fact that we do not derive solutions to problems from the patent literature, we will be accused of patent infringement. The only practical response to this problem of unintentional and sometimes unavoidable patent infringement is to file hundreds of patents each year ourselves, so that we can have something to bring to the table in cross-licensing negotiations. In other words, the only rational response to the large number of patents in our field is to contribute to it."
He goes on to make some very interesting arguments saying...
"The patent system does not exist to protect the rights of inventors, or any particular interest group. It doesn't exist to protect what we now call "intellectual property", as if it were protectable for its own sake. The patent system exists to protect the progress of science and the useful arts. If the patent system fails to do that in certain areas, then the costs and negative effects of the patent monopoly cannot be justified. Where the patent system enables true innovation, true progress, where it enables companies to bring new products to consumers in circumstances where they otherwise would not do it, or where it disseminates knowledge that others need and want, then it's working."
So, Cisco appears to be doing this as a matter to protect their own ability to use this fix, not to prevent other from using it. That would seem to fit with his explanation posted earlier...
"That's not what it says, or what I mean to say. It says that nobody has to pay anything, or even ask for a license, unless they want to assert patents against Cisco."
You can read Mr. Barr's full statement before the FTC online (ironically enough) at
Freedom for a Free Information Infrastucture [ffii.org]
Re:Before anyone spouts off at the mouth (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
After talking to the likes of Radia Perlman (who is extremely cool fwiw) I have extreme reservations that business model aka software patents do any good for society at all. I wonder where the state of networking would be now if spanning-tree had been patented and we had to wait 17 years before anybody was willing to implement it. I wonder where we could be if a mind like Ms. Perlman's could work on certain areas which really interest her (PKI for one iirc) except it isn't worth walking through a minefield of worthless patents. If HTTP had been patented do we you think we'd be using it or would we be using Gopher? Huh. Cisco has patents related to VRRP so the OpenBSD team develops an alternative and improves on the concept by adding in cryptography and increasing reliability.
And just remember this. For all the success stories you talk about - if it harms society, if it inhibits the arts and sciences - what the government gives it can taketh away. The Wright brothers didn't get to keep their patents.
Re:VRRP Patent .. Not So (Score:3, Informative)
You also need to reread that comment you linked to as it doesn't say what you are implying. Quote:
Re:Before anyone spouts off at the mouth (Score:3, Interesting)
>Exactly!!! It took so much time and money to come up with some of the major advances in yester-years that they needed the patent restriction timing to help get back some of the cost they stuck into R&D.
One can argue the inverse.. it takes so little time now for something to be reverse engineered and then commoditized that the patent affords the inventor(and investors) the opportunity to recoup r&d and costs to bring to market and th
Patents are pretty much worthless... (Score:3, Interesting)
WRONG! (Score:2)
Re:That's simply not true (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes they were - the NRDC (later to become BTG) had a monopoly on the exploitation of publically funded research from its inception.
Patenting things (hovercraft, interferon, CVT, etc.) is entirely different from patenting processes/software - the first can be justified, the second is a can of worms best left unopened.
I think you're trolling, anyway.
Re:That's simply not true (Score:2)
I have a suspicion that many people who talk about patents here do not have a strong background in computing or history or science or mathematics or the arts, copyright law and patent law or philosophy or indeed any discipline whatsoever that might enable them to think rationally and logically long
Re:Before anyone spouts off at the mouth (Score:2, Insightful)
Translation: (Score:2)
Let's translate this:
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. Yes, it sucks that maybe other vendors (or open source developers) can't use this obvious idea for a while. (period) Impediments to progress are the price we just have to pay.
Re:Translation: (Score:2)
The OpenBSD guys claim they have had something better for a long time and have asked the IETF to use it instead. I wouldn't hold your breath though.
Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, there's some stupid precident where something like 5 notes were supposedly "subconciously copied." I remember that, from the way they decided things, someone calculated that there were only 5,000 some odd different types of music that would be legally recognized under that precident.
Therefore, if you simply make a CD with each variation (and to comply with other wacky precidents and laws, make it a "dramatic" work--e.g. put some kind of story in there with your music, as well as mixing up the order so as to make your creation more creative than a mere listing of all the possible note combinations), and file a copyright on it.
Voila, you've copyrighted all the music. But you probably don't dare distribute any of it, lest you infringe on every pre-existing work, so you play SCO. Manage to get in the media with some wacky press release (Slashdot would be a good target), and spout off about how you intend to use this to stifle musical innovation "because it's clearly not profitable."
Ramble on a bit about how the industry knows what is best for us--"only unoriginal crap sells! so long as they're just rehashing their old works, we feel that they're not deriving anything from ours, and we simply want the music producers to make money, something you cannot do unless you force-feed the public unoriginal music." Thus you're never under obligation to actually sue anyone, though you can make a show of menacing anyone whose music might be original, telling them that it doesn't seem to derive enough from all their old records, so they must have stolen it from you...
Yes, I realize that this is incredibly contorted logic (I must have been reading too many SCO stories here...), but the upshot of it is that you would be using such a copyright registration to (at least attempt) to stifle innovation.
Now then, as for patents? It's harder to find an example of a bottleneck, as above, and these will cost you over $1,000 each in filing fees alone. Still, you seem to be able to patent the most rediculous things. You could always file some nonsense like "n-click shopping, for n greater than one" (note that you can make "shopping" into any other activity, though you might get hillarious results like "3-click bowling") or just "___ over the internet"
I can even imagine being bored enough to write an "absurd patent generator" in Perl, if I could just think of more such patterns to feed into it
Of course, if you really did invent something wonderful, and you could patent up all the possible ways of using it (so that others couldn't just tweak it and get around your patent), you could always just publicize it and say that you have absolutely no intention of ever letting anyone use your invention until the patent expires. If it was software, you might then make it available via your website for *only* those people where your patent doesn't apply...
Re:Before anyone spouts off at the mouth (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me that once this vulnerability was discovered, the fix was obvious. There was no innovation in this case.
Re:Before anyone spouts off at the mouth (Score:5, Informative)
Well, programming is a feild of math. All software is a mathematical function. The only thing a computer can do is calculations.
You can hook a computer up to a speaker that produces sound, you can invent and patent that speaker, but the computer itself can only do math calculations.
Math is not an invention. Software is not an invention. You can't patent addition, you can't patent calculus, and you can't patent the math that is software MP3 calculations.
The US screwed up a case where the court upheld a patent doing a calculus integral to decide how long to cook rubber during manufacturing. You simply integrate heat over time. Simple math, if you are familiar with calculus. It was the ordinary rubber manufacturing process, they just "invented" an equation to decide how long to run the heat. That one bad ruling opened the door to software patents. The US patent office took that lousy ruling and threw the door wide open for patents on math.
Of course they don't directly let you say you're patenting math. Word the application one way and it gets rejected, word the exact same claims a different way and it gets approved. Software patent attorneys admit it's all about using "the magic words". You're patenting the process of doing some calculationon on some hardware. Ordinary PC hardware.
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Re:not more patents (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, maybe.
What if we were to limit the total number of patents?
The obvious result would be a new market in selling patent slots. You would have to *know* that you could make your investment back before applying because the patent itself would cost so much.
It would decrease the number of frivilous patents filed, but the small inventor would be at a disadvantage.
What do you think, would it be a positive, negative, or a push?