----- Original Message -----
From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <pbaker(_at_)verisign(_dot_)com>
To: <spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 12:06 AM
Subject: RE: [spf-discuss] MEDIA: Is Microsoft Ready to Assert IP Rights
over the Internet?
IPv4 is over twenty years old. If MSFT is claiming patent rights in regard
to IPv4 then it seems unlikely that there can be very long before they
expire.
Friend, you haven't done patent law much.
1: If a patent is granted, it's valid until it is successfully challenged.
This lends enormous power to even inappropriately granted patents and can
be used to chilling effect against even legitimate competition using their
own vaguely similar patented or un-patentable technologies.
2: Even expensive patent lawyers are much less expensive than good
developers to invent really powerful new ideas for you. I know, I've spent
years doing medical and later computer industry R&D and had some fascinating
chats about it with the patent attorneys. Figure that one unscrupulous
patent lawyer can invent 20 questionable patents a year out of other, more
legitimate patents with dedicated work. Figure that one really intelligent
developer might come up with 5 decent patents, then run the numbers.
3: Patent examiniers are over-worked and not necessarily blazingly
intelligent. This means that they will grant patents to things for which
there is plenty of prior art: it is the patent applicant's job to find the
prior art, not the patent examiners, and duplicate or overlapping patents
are quite frequently granted.