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Altnet Threatens P2P Companies Over File Hash Patents 201

Posted by CowboyNeal from the knuth-cited dept.
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."
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Altnet Threatens P2P Companies Over File Hash Patents More

Altnet Threatens P2P Companies Over File Hash Patents

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  • Next they'll be patenting making dumb patents.

  • 'Bogus patents' (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sebFlyte ( 844277 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:11AM (#11359862) Homepage Journal

    When it comes to software isn't this just tautology?

    • Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ized ( 764731 )
      I had to look this up :D

      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)

      by Negatyfus ( 602326 )
      Well, actually, that would be a pleonasm [wordexplorations.com], because 'bogus' and 'patent' aren't the same word type. :)

      Flame ahead :)

    • Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mumblestheclown ( 569987 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @07:03AM (#11360068)
      Tell that to somebody who has spent years developing a new algorithm for something like facial recognition. Explain to me again why a clever person who comes up with a novel algorithm (note: I said NOVEL - I am NOT denying that there are horrible abuses in the patent system, esp. wrt software - I am just countering your claim that software patents shouldn't exist at all) to produce something useful and novel shouldn't enjoy a temporary monopoly from the fruits of his labour and research just because his invention happens to be in software rather than being hydraulic or pneumatic?

      / incidentally, any "all patents must be abolished" responders need not bother. go visit economic history 101 instead.

      • Re:'Bogus patents' (Score:4, Insightful)

        by moderators_are_w*nke ( 571920 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @07:17AM (#11360118) Journal
        Software code is subject to copyright, physical inventions are not. Physical inventions therefore require patents, software code does not. Mark
      • There are situations in which software can be an actual invention, but they are vanishingly rare. With benefit so rare and abuse so common it may be that trade secrets are the only way to benefit and protect such inventors. Either that or institute some serious penalties against entities that abuse the patent system.

      • Good patents (Score:5, Interesting)

        by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @07:53AM (#11360303)
        Tell that to somebody who has spent years developing a new algorithm for something like facial recognition. Explain to me again why a clever person who comes up with a novel algorithm to produce something useful and novel shouldn't enjoy a temporary monopoly from the fruits of his labour and research just because his invention happens to be in software rather than being hydraulic or pneumatic?

        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?

        • I like where you are going with the list, but it needs significant refinement.

          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)

            by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @08:49AM (#11360688) Journal
            Picture how the world would have been if IBM patented the BIOS? Brother patented the Word Processor?

            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.
        • I'd love to see a list of top-ten "good software patents". In other words, patents that meet (at least) the following criteria:

          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

      • Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CarrionBird ( 589738 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @08:01AM (#11360339) Journal
        Software can and should be protected by copyright rather than patent. Perhaps if it's something truely novel, then I can see getting a patent for it. But that's not how the system is being used. Companies are patenting simple ideas rather than novel implementations.

        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.
        • 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.

          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!

          • But then your employer or whatever IP bought out your patents will eventually sue me because they have the patent on compression on a digital computer. Sure a patent could be written that was specfic enough to just cover your method, but it won't be.

          • Re:Copyright (Score:3, Interesting)

            by duffahtolla ( 535056 )
            Listen CLOSELY!

            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)

            by psyon1 ( 572136 )

            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)

        by _KiTA_ ( 241027 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @08:50AM (#11360699) Homepage
        Tell that to somebody who has spent years developing a new algorithm for something like facial recognition. Explain to me again why a clever person who comes up with a novel algorithm (note: I said NOVEL - I am NOT denying that there are horrible abuses in the patent system, esp. wrt software - I am just countering your claim that software patents shouldn't exist at all) to produce something useful and novel shouldn't enjoy a temporary monopoly from the fruits of his labour and research just because his invention happens to be in software rather than being hydraulic or pneumatic?
        The counter of course, is that you shouldn't be able to shut down ALL Facial Recognition innovation by patenting the idea of "using a computer to digitalize and analize a human face, therefore allowing the computer to pick that face from a database of other faces.". In the same way I can't patent a cog, a piston, or (wait for it) the wheel, you shouldn't be able to get a blanket patent on ANYTHING in software. Period. Specifics may or may not be ok -- But honestly, copyright handles "distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work". It does not grant you exclusive use of a mere idea.
      • > I am just countering your claim that software
        > 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
      • One should always look at laws - or in this case, state-sanctioned time-limited monopolies - not in light of what their potential benefit might be, but in light of its potential for abuse. Patents are most definately not something natural, they're a privilege given so as to make sure that inventors don't keep their inventions secret.

        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
      • Copyright is what protects you for that algorithm. For many years longer than patent will.

        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.
      • Explain to me... why a clever person who comes up with a novel algorithm... shouldn't enjoy a temporary monopoly

        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

  • "appears to be ... a hash table" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:13AM (#11359867) Journal
    But that hash table is patented. It's a hell of a fight to get around a government-granted monopoly.

    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.

  • p2p _companies_? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ine8181 ( 618938 )
    I did RTFA, and to be quite honest, I never knew that there were commercial p2p companies after the fall of Napster and co...

    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?
    • I use Steam :)

      I try not to, and have an itchy uncomfortable feeling after playing hl2, but I think thats more life mirroring art than anything else.
      • A better example would be World of Warcraft, since Steam does NOT use your upload bandwidth, except for

        Blizzard uses a customized BitTorrent client to download patches, instead of getting the patches right from Blizzard ... all you download is the BT client designed to only download that one specific file, and then it exits, runs the downloaded patch and then you've got the latest content.

        Smart usage of BT to distribute their patches... otherwise sending out a patch would be much more costly - think a few
        • Blizzard uses a customized BitTorrent client to download patches

          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.
    • Actually, it could be a great idea for project colloraboration. As long as it included some sort of version tracking, that is.

  • prior art (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zenst ( 558964 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:17AM (#11359886) Homepage Journal
    Any old databse basicly gets data and hashed it to generate an internal index key, ie not the real data but a unique identifyer to said data. Now given that and this approach was even taught in my days at school and were talking 20+ years ago. So just counter sue for extortion/intimidation/blackmailing and stuff these IP wannabe's. People who try to enforce silly patents are worse than organised crime, because the law dont see them for what they are; Well at least for now. Things change, just need bigger loo paper to handle it.

    • Re:prior art (Score:3, Funny)

      by hackstraw ( 262471 ) *

      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

  • What's a bogus patent? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by artifex2004 ( 766107 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:18AM (#11359889) Journal
    If it's not a real patent, wouldn't they get accused of fraud and fraud with the intent to extort, or whatever?

    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)

      by idiotnot ( 302133 ) <sean@757.org> on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:26AM (#11359927) Homepage Journal
      No, it's a real patent.

      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.
      • Yes, but could you not make the argument that it borders on impossible for anyone involved in computer programming to never have been taught about hash tables? Hell, I am an engineer and have only had a handful of programming classes, but we were at least taught a little about it. Given that so many p2p apps were around before altnet and many possibly built on pre=existing code, it would be pretty hard for them to argue: "Oh, we didn't know about any prior art, Sorry!" Given that hashtables exist in so

        • Re:What's a bogus patent? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by idiotnot ( 302133 ) <sean@757.org> on Friday January 14, 2005 @10:02AM (#11361482) Homepage Journal
          But, you have to remember that patent attorneys aren't programmers. They search through prior patents to see if this particular method has been patented. If it has, the application is rejected. If not, the application is granted. There really isn't a way for them to search for prior art easily, especially if it's a subject they, themselves, don't understand.

          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.
      • No, it's a real patent.

        Its also a real mistake to be patented.

  • What?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by EMIce ( 30092 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:18AM (#11359890) Homepage
    You need a special table to make hash?

    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)

      by EMIce ( 30092 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:20AM (#11359900) Homepage
      Well, that was suppose to be anonymous. Ahh well.

      • Re:What?! (Score:5, Funny)

        by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:25AM (#11359919)
        Well, that was suppose to be anonymous. Ahh well.

        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.
    • That's a pretty wasteful way of doing it. You should leave the alcohol + herb solution for a few days for optimal first run extraction, and repeat it at least twice on the plant material to obtain maximum extraction.

  • Hey dude, I don't get it... (Score:3, Funny)

    by KontinMonet ( 737319 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:20AM (#11359901) Homepage Journal
    ...isn't a hash table just something to stop your hash dropping on the floor? I know the USPTO has made some weird decisions, but still...

  • I don't see how the patent attaches..... (Score:5, Informative)

    by idiotnot ( 302133 ) <sean@757.org> on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:22AM (#11359906) Homepage Journal
    What, from my reading, the patented technology does, is find dupes, and reassign the "truename." to the dupes, whether remotely or locally.

    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...?
    • 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.

      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
      • Thank you. The thing about this, though, is it has some far-reaching consequences outside the p2p community....

        Think, for example, of pretty much any internet-based software distribution. cd /usr/pkgsrc/misc/screen; make install clean

        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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:29AM (#11359940)
    Yet more evidence that reporters are idiots.

    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.

    • So claim 1 probably has no chance of being enforced whatsoever.

      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).

    • Yes, but you only have to prove prior art on one claim to invalidate the entire patent, the reasoning being that if you want to make a patent you should ONLY include those claims that make your product unique. Patents cannot be partially valid. Either they are 100% valid, or 100% invalid.

  • If it's that obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Vo0k ( 760020 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:32AM (#11359953) Journal
    ...why patent it?
    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? ...while the lawsuit will be thrown out of court as soon as the P2P company will show: "We use MD5 which expired even before this patent was granted, and this patent covers exactly the same thing as MD5 only without technical details how to accomplish the task." And even if not, sooner or later some company WILL start a lawsuit, and once the obvious result makes the patent invalid, all companies that actually paid, may counter-sue for damages.

    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?

    • "while the lawsuit will be thrown out of court"

      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)

    by Gilesx ( 525831 ) * on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:33AM (#11359956)

    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)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:40AM (#11359980)
    I saw david Boies last night on Fox news talking about the fact that our justice system was broke. Even though he still didn't get it, he had to admit that it had serious problems. His scenario for effective jurisprudence was when large entities bought expensive lawyers or when poor people couldnt afford lawyers at all. He just didn't get the fact that large companies to wasting capitol on lawsuits is very bad for the whole economy and having poor people accepting rough justice is very bad for society.

    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)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:41AM (#11359986) Homepage Journal
    I started a thread on the P2P-Hackers mailing list abuot this, and a number of people have responded with examples of prior art and other relevant information. You can find the post that starts this thread here [zgp.org].

  • Somebody inform USPTO they violate law. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Vo0k ( 760020 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @06:45AM (#11360002) Journal
    Unique association of identification string ("the patent number") with the content of the patent is obviously patented under patent# 5,978,791 for which USPTO most obviously doesn't have patent rights. So most obviously they are in violation of a patent they have granted.

  • Tripwire is prior art (Score:4, Informative)

    by kindofblue ( 308225 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @07:01AM (#11360061)
    There are certainly hundreds of cases of prior art, and Tripwire [wikipedia.org] 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.
    • And according the Wikipedia article, MD5 [wikipedia.org] was invented in 1991.
    • You know, this is an excellent idea. If they opened up the review process to let anyone find instances of prior art, like you just did, we could stop a lot of these before they became patents. And then, if there was no instance of prior art, at least the patent and author would get more publicity, which is a good thing IMO

    • 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
  • Previously, Altnet sued RIAA over, IIRC, the same patent. previous story [slashdot.org]. Please read the comments of slashdotters on that story.

  • Well well (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ewe2 ( 47163 ) <ewetooNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday January 14, 2005 @07:30AM (#11360179) Homepage Journal

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is a common thing in US patent law. A patent in the US isn't really granted until it is upheld by a court. Often, one company will target a smaller, weaker company with a similar product for patent infringement on the hopes that they can beat the company in court, have their patent upheld thereby, and then go after bigger fish with requests for royalties.

    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
  • I am utterly certain this will be _the_ decisive blow in the great saga of MPAA/RIAA vs P2P. The P2P companies have nothing but the utmost respect for all Intellectual Property, Copyright in particular. I'm sure they revere and respect Patents equally and will hasten to ensure that they are free of all infringement immediately.
    • " I'm sure they revere and respect Patents equally and will hasten to ensure that they are free of all infringement immediately."

      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.

  • In data communications the CRC is a hash guaranteed to be unique over a specific number of bits. A CRC-16 is unique for files up to 2^16 bits in length

    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

  • Phil Karn wrote a program [ka9q.net] in 1993 that used MD5 hash colisions to find duplicate files. I know this is an obvious use because I had written a similar program in Perl around 1996. (I have not published it due to it being a giant race condition, not to mention the awful coding style.) I talked to Phil about it when I discovered he had written a similar program that predated mine by a few years.

    Anyone who understands file hashes and hash tables will think of using it for finding duplicate files. Especiall

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