On Fri, 16 Jul 2004, Roy Badami wrote:
"william(at)elan" == william(at)elan net <william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net>
writes:
william(at)elan> I've kind of compromise idea for the "licensing
william(at)elan> issue". While we wait for Microsoft to respond on
william(at)elan> what exactly does their patent cover, I've strong
william(at)elan> feeling that the only thing it might potentially
william(at)elan> cover is algorithm to find which is the address
william(at)elan> to use for PRA from other mail headers.
I really hope that's not the case.
Lets wait until Microsoft comes up with explanation about patent claims,
but I really don't see that there is anything else left from callerid
that we're still using as part of MARID.
The algorithm described in the
original Microsoft Caller ID proposal is exactly the algorithm that I
(and I presume everyone else who's read the RFCs) has always mentally
applied when reading the message headers.
Mentally is one thing and documented as far as prior use is another.
If you can find cases of documented prior use of such algorithm before
publication of Caller-ID paper, that would basicly nullify Microsoft
patent as far it applies to MARID and it'll not be an issue any more.
At the same time, I'm not totally certain such thing as determining PRA
can be easily covered by patent at all - it all depends how they wrote the
patent but it maybe well be easy to dispute if its too broad and if its
very narrow coming up with similar algorithm with one of the headers
dropped (forwarded from for example) that would not be covered by patent
should not be hard.
---
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net