On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:02:10 -0700
"Lawrence Rosen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Eric Burger wrote:
> > I specifically applied for patents underlying the technology behind
> > RFC 4722/RFC 5022 and RFC 4730 specifically to prevent third
> > parties, who are not part of the IETF process, from extracting
> > royalties from someone who implements MSCML or KPML.
>
> That was a waste of your time and money. Publication of those
> inventions by you, at zero cost to you and others, would have been
> sufficient to prevent someone else from trying to patent them. Next
> time, get good advice from a patent lawyer on how to achieve your
> goals without paying for a patent.
>
You're obviously right in theory on this point. I wonder whether
you're right in practice. We've all seen far too many really bad
patents issued, ones where prior art is legion. The (U.S.) patent
office seems to do a far better job of searching its own databases than
it does the technical literature.
I know there are many philosophical reasons why many people oppose
software patents. But for others, there are very practical reasons:
there are too many bad patents issued. I think we can all agree that
stopping bad patents is a worthwhile goal, even if for some it's just
an intermediate goal.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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