Subject: RE: DEPLOY: Microsoft Royalty Free Sender ID Patent License

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 11:21:58 -0700

> Valid point.  But the question is, will it just be applied to 
> the compiler or the compiled code.  As
> stated elsewhere, the license is now published, the scope of 
> the IPR is NOT.

The scope is precisely defined in the license as the intersection between
the patent claims and the necessary claims required to implement the
spec.

> > This is a very complex legal argument, calling it trivial shows a
> > distinct lack of comprehension.
> 
> Your bullying tactics are still not worthy of your 
> intelligence (or perhaps I misjudge that).

What is 'bullying' about answering an argument with facts. You asserted
that the argument was trivial. 

> The literal interpretation of my statement was, and still is, 
> the "difference" that YOU stated is
> "trivial and irrelevant", not the legal arguments themselves.

The difference between the patent and the realization of the patent
is the whole core of the legal arguments. 

> But it does not mean the copy is NOT encumbered, either.  And 
> you keep forgetting that the IPR is
> STILL UNSTATED!!!  All we have been given is the 
> (unacceptable) license, but not what the license
> covers!

Again, read the license, it is very clear that it covers the 
intersection between any patent claims owned by or granted to
Microsoft and those needed to implement Sender-ID.

---

From: Graham Murray <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 20:20:01 +0100

> Microsoft and those needed to implement Sender-ID.

But the intersection between an unknown and anything else is also an
unknown. As Microsoft have given very little information about "Patent
claims owned by or granted to Microsft". This seems like a very open
and vague. If the patent has already been applied for, then surely it
does no harm to state exactly what will be covered by that patent if
it is granted. Sender-ID is the amalgum of Microsoft's Caller-ID and
SPF-classic. 

This apparent reluctance of Microsoft to specify exactly what is (or
would be) covered by their potential IPR seems to me to just as
ridiculous as has happened (probably more than once) when an author
submitted a book to the UK security service for clearing under the
Official Secrets Act only to be told "You must change parts of the
book, but we cannot tell you which parts as that would let you know
what you have correctly deduced."

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:28:08 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hallam-Baker, Phillip [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 2:22 PM
> To: [email-masked]'; Hallam-Baker, Phillip; 'Mark
> Shewmaker'; 'IETF MARID List'
> Subject: RE: DEPLOY: Microsoft Royalty Free Sender ID Patent License
>
>

Specifically:

    Both Sender ID: Authenticating E-mail <draft-ietf-marid-core-03.txt>
and Purported Responsible Address in E-mail Messages
<draft-ietf-marid-pra-00.txt> in combination.

i.e. THE WHOLE THING.

In other words there is no line between what is, or is not covered by the IPR.  Because certainly
some of sender id CANNOT be covered by the IPR by IETF rules (if I understand them correctly)
because at least some of the sender id concepts were invented on the mailing list.

> that the argument was trivial.

Statements like "distinct lack of comprehension" is bullying because it is habitually cruel or
overbearing and its not a fact because it is neither known, nor demonstrated.

> is the whole core of the legal arguments.

And the lack of distinction is the problem.

> Microsoft and those needed to implement Sender-ID.

Again, the license is stated as "everything" despite at least some of the ideas in sender Id cannot
be part of the IPR because:
1)  The IPR occurred before sender id was formed (or has the IPR evolved to include new stuff)
2)  The IETF policy on ideas originally submitted via IETF  (do I need to cite this for you?)

Despite it is stated, it is not "very clear" at all.

Terry Fielder
Manager Software Development and Deployment
Great Gulf Homes / Ashton Woods Homes
[email-masked]
Fax: (416) 441-9085

---

From: Chip Mefford <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:45:55 -0400

Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:

| SNIP
|
| Again, read the license, it is very clear that it covers the
| intersection between any patent claims owned by or granted to
| Microsoft and those needed to implement Sender-ID.

Well, I have read it, and it is not clear to me at all.
There's that stickly little piece of language in
there; "Patent claims owned by or granted to Microsft", that
are not enumerated.

All the standard IANAL caveats, but I do know how to read, and I know
something about sentence structure. There are vague
areas in this license. Further, there are assurances about what actions
will be, or not be taken that are not spelled out exactly.

In short, it's a contract I wouldn't sign without knowing
exactly what kind of entity I was dealing with. In this particular
case, I say let the legal history be a guide.

Now that patents seem to almost never expire, and corporations
and are at least in theory immortal, a license such as
this could morph into almost anything, give the time, money
and legal talent.

No thanks.

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