On Saturday 19 March 2005 09:45, Bruce Lilly wrote:
And has been in the sendmail code in the form of the
checkcompat() function since at least version 5.61, in the
early '90s. That function takes sender and recipient information
and returns a binary result. It's not a big secret: sendmail
source has been widely available for decades.
...and has an equivalent ruleset to allow for configuration of this by the
administrator. Of course check_compat was tested after the DATA command, but
it is an obvious improvement to test it before the DATA command (and it is
obvious within the meaning used by courts for patent law, which generally
requires that a person skilled in the art could not possibly avoid knowing
that the outcome and technique were useful).
Even if it weren't, it was possible to do the same thing in the check_rcpt
rule set by reintroducing the envelope from value in a substitution rule
there. Doing it in the check_rcpt rule set meant the error was sent in
response to the RCPT command.
A person skilled in SMTP server configuration for the purpose of blocking
could not have avoided knowing that this outcome and technique were both
possible and useful. Skilled means more than just having pasted in a formula
found on a web page - in the case of Sendmail it means being able to write a
sendmail.cf rule set from scratch.
Of course in software patent defence litigation, having the right expert
witness is key. It isn't enough for the expert to be a software expert - they
also effectively have to be a lawyer. They need not only to be able to say
something is obvious, they need to be able to convince the judge (or, where
applicable, the jury - although that's easier than convincing a judge in most
cases) of that fact. Among the things they have to convince the judge of is
that they understand the concept of obviousness under patent law, then they
have to be able to express the degree of obviousness so that it fits within
that concept.
Reading through software patent cases can be quite discouraging for somebody
who does have all the relevant pieces of knowledge, because this disconnect
between the software experts and the judges is blindingly apparent.
--
Troy Rollo
asrg(_at_)troy(_dot_)rollo(_dot_)name Executive Director, iCAUCE
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