ietf-asrg
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Re: [Asrg] US Spam patents: Partial list

2003-06-13 18:57:36
On Fri, Jun 13, 2003 at 11:49:59AM -0400, Bob Wyman wrote

      They may be claiming patents on all C/R systems, but they
can't claim all C/R related patents... MailBlocks may have basic
patents that might claim some essential element of all C/R systems,
but there are still many non-essential elements that their patents
don't cover.

  Just how broad are these C/R ("Challenge/Response") patents anyways?
As a university student approximately 30 years ago, I spent a couple of
summers in the Canadian Armed Forces Militia (i.e. reserves), as a
summer job.  One item we learned was... wait for it...
challenge/response to let the "good guys" in and keep the "bad guys"
out.  I'm sure that any military college will have manuals detailing
how it's done.  This is an ancient military practice, and I don't see
why computer software doing it versus a soldier on patrol doing it is
sufficiently different to rule it out as "prior art".

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes(_at_)waltdnes(_dot_)org>
Email users are divided into two classes;
1) Those who have effective spam-blocking
2) Those who wish they did
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