On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:02:10 -0700 "Lawrence Rosen" <lrosen@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 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 _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf