Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
On Mon, Sep 06, 2004 at 09:32:39PM -0400,
Yakov Shafranovich <research(_at_)solidmatrix(_dot_)com> wrote
a message of 49 lines which said:
Now if all of this is stated in the RFC directly, what exactly is
the IPR that is being claimed here? This seems to me explicit in the
RFC itself.
We all agree that the patent claim from Microsoft is almost certainly
obvious / frivolous / invalid. Almost all software patents
are. Microsoft is not known for interesting contributions to computer
science, only for massive patent filing (see
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,775,781.WKU.&OS=PN/6,775,781&RS=PN/6,775,781
which basically patents every program like sudo or calife).
But it does not solve the issue: should we take the risk? Should we
move to the standards track with such a threat, which will probably
deter many people?
In the past there have been at least two cases where a WG moved ahead
with the standard and disregarded the IPR claims as frivilious: IDN and
Walid patent, and IPSec and UUNet's patent. Therefore, one optionl could
be to consider the IPR claims as meanigless, especially in light of
prior art, and move on.
Of course, that only works if deployment is not hindered. Based on the
Apache and Debian statements, as well as others, it may be too late for
that.
Yakov