Indeed. In one group their was a little troll who filed a patent on the entire standard. They then extorted stock which probably fetched a seven figure sum when a company using the specification launched their IPO. Given the sorry fact that the bar to granting a patent in the US is very low, the bigger problem in my view is that it is difficult to get any 'clever' idea into a spec since even if the proposer is acting in good faith there is resistance to anything that might be too good an idea. On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 12:21 AM, Fred Baker <fred@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Jul 25, 2010, at 6:07 AM, John R. Levine wrote: > >> The ability of users to sign up from throwaway accounts doesn't seem to have been a big problem in practice, but it does make it hard to claim that the lists are free of submarine patent trolls. > > A person's identity and their behavior are two different things. I would presume that every IETF working group or BOF list has at least one person on it who is lurking in the discussion for the purpose of filing a frivolous lawsuit later. Not sure how we can prevent that. > > http://www.ipinc.net/IPv4.GIF > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > -- Website: http://hallambaker.com/ _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
