[Asterisk-Dev] VoIP SPAM, what's next ?

[Scott Stingel]

As I recall, proving prior art requires more than "witnesses" that say you
talked about something at a certain time.

At my (former) company, at the strong suggestion of our patent attorney, we
maintained a written patent notebook, where we detailed in writing every
idea that we thought might be unique and possibly patentable.  Each entry
was signed at the time of creation by the "inventor" and 2 witnesses.  This
formality generally will help you if you later want to contest a patent,
under the prior art argument.

Another argument to contest a patent is that you can show that your idea has
been commercially implemented and sold to a customer, and you can clearly
document the dates.

But really, patents are a legal cat-and-mouse game, and you should have deep
pockets to play.

Regards
Scott 


Scott M. Stingel
President,
Emerging Voice Technology, Inc.
Palo Alto California & London England
www.evtmedia.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-dev-admin at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-dev-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of
matt.riddell at sineapps.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 12:47 PM
To: asterisk-dev at lists.digium.com
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Dev] VoIP SPAM, what's next ?

On 10 Aug 2004 at 13:54, Bill Moran wrote:

> > Gang,
> > 
> > Do anyone have a clue on how they do this ??
> > 
> > "QOVIA FILES PATENTS FOR VOICE SPAM BLOCKING TECHNOLOGY"
> > http://www.qovia.com/company/news/06.28.2004_voip_spam_patent_app_fi
> > nal.htm
> 
> Ohh !!
> 
> If they actually think they're going to get a patent, I have prior 
> art!
> 
> I've been talking about spam filtering over VoIP for months!  I could 
> easily produce half a dozen witnesses who have discussed this with me 
> this year.
> 
> Is it worth raising a stink to get the patent blocked?

It's always worth raising a stink to get a patent blocked.  There shouldn't
be software patents.

It removes competition.

<RANT>
Say for example that (disconnected from the world) down here in New Zealand
I came up with a slightly better way of doing VOIP spam protection, yet it
does some things the same way as the patent.  
Having the patent enforced would mean that I could not deliver my solution
(regardless of whether it is better or worse) without a breach of patent
laws.  So if you are sure that the QOVIA blocker is the one and only spam
blocker of that type and that it will fulfil all your needs in the area,
sure let them go with it.  If on the other hand you want the software
environment we work in to become more professional, more streamlined and
more stable, allow choice in software by doing absolutely everything within
your powers to block this and all other software patents.
</RANT>

Kind regards,

Matt Riddell

P.S. I have ++ patented and so any occurrences of it in your software will
cost $0.03 per occurrence, per released copy of software (btw, doesn't
matter if it's GPL, you still have to pay me)
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