Hannu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Just wondering... www.zoemail.net uses keyed address system that is > somehow similar to tmda keyed address system. Their web page claims > the system is patented by AT&T. > > Take your pick: > 1. Their patent is illegal, tmda existed before patent > 2. tmda uses their patented system > 3. the systems are enought different, no conflict.
I'm no lawyer, so I can't comment on the illegality of this, but I can say that what they offer is nearly identical to TMDA's concept of a "sender" style tagged address, and TMDA was doing it well before they were. In fact, TMDA borrowed this concept in 2001 from Thomas Erskine's "TMS" program, which was publicly available in 1998. They don't provide any information on the patent that I could find, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that this goes back to John Ioannidis of AT&T Research who claimed that he invented the idea of temporary e-mail addresses last January. We discussed this last year. See http://mla.libertine.org/tmda-users/2003-01/msg00029.html Ioannidis was aware of TMDA before he published his paper, but proceeded with his claims (and it looks like a patent too) anyway. As you can see, I Cc:'d him on this message, but he never responded. _____________________________________________ tmda-users mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://tmda.net/lists/listinfo/tmda-users
