[asterisk-users] Patent issues, what features we can't use?

[Mark Coccimiglio]

Zeeshan,
First off, if your fear of being sued is what stops you from doing 
business then get out of the industry or get over it.  Its a risk we all 
take everyday (not just in VoIP).  You build up a core of Insurance and 
"Defensive Patents" to protect yourself.  Risk is just part of doing 
business.  Elements of the Asterisk that are "clearly" incompatible with 
the Dual License model are not included in the regular distribution.  
You "may" find them as add-on modules or in Trunk (If it supports a free 
development/education license) but not as a part of the "regular 
distribution".

To address the real issue... In the USA in recent years companies have 
been granted "broadly worded" patents. People at the patent office are 
clerks and not engineers.  Plus, they have to deal with ALL INDUSTRY 
(e.g. Medical, Aviation, Computer Science, Earth Science, Early 
Childhood Development, Mining, Agriculture, Automotive, Maritime, 
Textile, Nuclear Physics, Beauticare, Electronics, Chemistry, Mechanics, 
Pharmaceutical, etc...etc...etc...)  not just Telecom.  It is quite 
literally impossible to understand enough about everything to make clear 
judgments as to what is truly patentable and what is not.  The patent 
office position is basically "Spell it out to us and let the courts 
figure out the rest."  While most "broadly worded" patents are 
unenforceable it still takes a legal process to get the patents 
dismissed as "too vague".   That process can be VERY costly for the 
person sued as well as the suer (sp).  For a large telecom is all just 
part of the cost of doing business.  Most smaller companies (e.g. us 
guys) are forced to settle because we haven't the millions of dollars 
needed to defend ourselves. 

Now that being said where does the g729 patent (and the like) fit in?  A 
patent like g729 is actually VERY specific about what it does and how to 
do it.  Sure its a "software patent" but there is little room in the 
wording about what it accomplishes, by what means and the limitations of 
the patent.  Plus the price is very reasonable at $10/channel 
(non-transcoding pass through requires no License).  Additionally, g729 
is not the only game in town when it comes to low-bandwidth codecs.  
(Personally I like to use g726-32 its lightweight and transcodes to/from 
uLaw easily...but I digress).  This varies from some other software 
patents for "One-Click-Checkout" or "Online Shopping Cart".  They are 
both patented and every challenge has been settled out of court, thus 
they still stand a viable patents.

Ultimately the question comes down to..."Do you want to stay home and 
hide or would you rather come out and play?"

Just my input,
Mark C.

Zeeshan Zakaria wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> As the Asterisk community is getting larger and larger, I was 
> wondering that the features which are provided in Asterisk and are 
> programmed by the open source community under GPL, or GUIs like 
> FreePBX which also come loaded with wonderful features and uses same 
> Asterisk, are they anywhere violating any patent laws? Most of the 
> features work the same way as Nortel, Avaya and other PBX systems. Is 
> there anyone who owns these features and will come one day to claim 
> his royalties?
>
> When I deploy an asterisk soultion for a customer, is there any 
> violation of any patent or copyright laws anywhere? Of if I use my own 
> Asterisk server to provide services to some customers, am I violating 
> any patent laws by not paying the royalties to some patent owners?
>
> I heard people saying that IVR technology is patented and google 
> search for patents also say so. But we all are using IVR for ourselves 
> and our customers without paying royalties to anyone. But when it 
> comes to using g729, all of a sudden royalty issue comes in.
>
> So what is right to use and what is not?
>
> -- 
> Zeeshan A Zakaria


-- 
As I slowly sip my coffee I feel my humanity start to slip back into me and realize what a foul beast humanity really is.