Re: [idn] WALID, Inc. IP Statement

[Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net>]

At 08:07 AM 4/28/2001, Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:
>a) Some people feel that the WALID patent in fact doesn't actually affect 
>IDNA, so if WALID attempts to enforce it, they will be rejected by the courts.
>
>b) Some people feel that most or all of the patent itself will be 
>overturned because of prior art, some of which is listed in the patent itself.


The idealist in me thoroughly supports such a line of thinking and choice.

The pragmatist in me has now had a couple of years doing some expert 
witness work, responding to infringement suits for patents that I feel were 
very, very poor.

The pragmatist learned that a minimal defense effort costs US$1-2M, and 
takes 1-2 years, and has highly unpredictable outcomes.  For EACH defendant.

I have asked some patent attorneys about having a group of companies band 
together and was told that that never works.  The participants ultimately 
individually choose short-term individual self-interest and the force of an 
organized group is lost.

I do not know enough about patent processes to know what it takes to get 
the US Patent Office to overturn an issued patent, but am under the 
impression it is nearly impossible.

The presence of a patent confuses the market place.  A path which relies on 
"disarming" the patent is sure to be very expensive and very slow.  That 
will ensure long-term confusion in the market place.  A builder of products 
is not going to want to build a product that has such confusing 
intellectual property encumbrances.

All of this makes for exactly the WRONG circumstance, especially given the 
urgency for an operational IDNS solution.

I believe that the intention behind patenting is entirely reasonable and 
appropriate.  Serious effort that produces truly creative and useful 
technologies should accrue special rights to the inventor.

However, the US patent process is thoroughly screwed up, both as a core 
concept and as a procedure.  The core concept is that the US patent office 
is competent to "validate" claims of creativity and utility.  The procedure 
is that they do the validation badly.  However this situation is not going 
to change anytime soon, so we need to work within the current reality.

That means either accepting a specification that is encumbered by the Walid 
patent, or finding a way around it.

The IETF has a reasonable base of experience with companies that take a 
truly constructive approach towards working with the IETF process.  We have 
enough experience to be able to tell when a situation is NOT developing in 
a truly constructive fashion.  In my opinion we are, unfortunately, in such 
a non-constructive situation, and my guess is that it will improve.

Hence:  If there is any practical choice that avoid the Walid patent, we 
should embrace it.  Quickly and strongly.

d/


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Dave Crocker   <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking   <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel: +1.408.246.8253;   fax: +1.408.273.6464