Re: [Patents] P2P Storm Clouds Brewing

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

Gregory Aharonian wrote:
>  
> >-------- Original Message -------- 
> >Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 05:01:19 -0800 (PST) 
> >From: Bill Lance <rrotifer@yahoo.com  
> >
> >MS intends to kill effective P2P technologies with paetnts.  Their plan
> >is to develop a portfolio of related patents, then use them in courts
> >to attack any P2P developments outside of their control.
> 
> Any proof of this strateggy?  There already have been hundreds of P2P
> patents issued to a variety of companies, many of the patents dating
> back to the 1980s (P2P is an old technology, despite the fantasies of
> some).  While Microsoft has been getting a few such patents, so is
> everyone else (including a fair number of "open source" companies).
> On the other hand, if you have some data, how about sharing it with
> the rest of us?


Not sure about this analysis, and the grounds for the
conjecture aren't laid out, but a noteworthy consideration
nevertheless.  I think Microsoft can rationally choose to do
this sort of thing not to kill P2P, but to establish
precedent for content control in a P2P context -- which
translates into a steady toll stream to sell to the content
control interests.  Yesterday, they got the W3C to publish a
standard for XML digital signatures.

. . . None of which really needs supporting data, as it's
all pretty straightforward.  How about asking the DotGNUers
what they think?


Seth Johnson