IETF: SIP soon to be useless due to patents

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

GregNews has this quote from a mailing list, which I hope is
accessible in some public archive.
 
  Subject: [Simple] SIP soon to be useless due to patents...

      Today, the USPTO published 8 patent applications which explicitly
  reference the Session Initiation Protocol. This means there are now 372
  pending patent applications that make specific reference to the "Session
  Initation Protocol".  New applications seem to be getting filed at the
  rate of 10 to 20 per week and the trend seems to be picking up... If
  you're working in the SIP space, you will be hearing alot about patents
  in the future...

      The result of all these patent applications may one day be a rash of
  issued patents that pin down the SIP technology in such detail that
  exploitation of the system will be virtually impossible. No matter how
  much people may support SIP today or wish it well, the fact that it is
  rapidly becoming encumbered by patents is a real problem that may
  severely limit its real utility. Clearly, what is happening is a "land
  rush" of patent filings by people who are attempting to exploit the fact
  that the SIP space is still a new one and trying to pin down what most
  would consider to be "obvious" ideas that, because the space is new,
  have little documented prior art to cover them.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608   
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
130,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/