Re: [VANILLA-LIST:3019] technical question

[Dave Ahn <ahn@vec.wfubmc.edu>]

On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 09:52:35AM -0500, Chawla, Jay wrote:

> I READ THE IRC SPEC (RFC 1459) AND IT MAKES NO MENTION OF 
> ANY AGGREGATION

I'm afraid I personally don't know much about the internals of IRC.
I'll defer to someone else who does.  You may wish to contact some IRC
developer teams and ask how their communication protocol is actually
implemented.

> YES, WE SPECIALIZE IN SERVING SMALL TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES.  ONE OF
> OUR CLIENTS, A COMPANY THAT HASN'T YET GONE PUBLIC, IS BEING SUED BY
> THE HOLDER OF THIS PATENT.  IF WE DON'T WIN, IT COULD BE VERY BAD NEWS.

Ouch.  Good luck!

> MY UNDERSTANDING FROM READING RFCs 821(SMTP) 1429 (LISTSERV DISTRIBUTE
> PROTOCOL)
> AND A COUPLE OF OTHERS, IS THAT MAIL TO A GROUP IS SENT SEPARATELY TO EACH
> SERVER THAT HAS MEMBERS IN THE GROUP.  ALSO, I COULDN'T
> FIND MENTION OF ANY AGGREGATED MESSAGE OR DIGEST MESSAGE IN
> THOSE DOCUMENTS.  COULD YOU PLEASE POINT ME TO A SOURCE
> THAT DESCRIBES THIS OR TELL ME WHAT I MISSED?  

Digest messages are enhanced functionality of some mailing list managers.
You should download and read the documentation and source for majordomo
from http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/.  In particular, you want to
look at the "digest" and "Doc/README.digest" files.  Interestingly enough,
the digest code was originally written by J Greely in 1992.  Similar
functionality exists in ezmail, listserv and others.

The mailing list analogy should help in contesting the patent, but Netrek
is far closer to what the patent describes.

> DAVE -- COULD YOU PLEASE MAIL IT TO ME AND/OR POINT ME TO A LINK TO IT?

I will send it to you in a separate email, but the ACM prohibits for-profit
use of this paper without their expressed permission.  If you use it to
support your case, you will need to contact ACM directly.  Here is the
link to the paper:
http://www.acm.org/pubs/citations/proceedings/ai/267658/p332-huber/

This document may not help much because it deals with AI funcionality of
Netrek practice robots.  However, it does provide a few dated references
and should help in establishing a timeline.

> THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU CAN ONLY
> PROVOKE AN INTERFERENCE WITH A PATENT THAT IS CURRENTLY
> BEING EXAMINED.  ONCE A PATENT IS GRANTED, YOU CANNOT PROVOKE
> AN INTERFERENCE.

Interesting...I didn't know that.

> UNFORTUNATELY, YOU CAN NO LONGER PATENT SOMETHING THAT YOU
> HAVE BEEN USING PUBLICLY FOR OVER A YEAR.

I didn't think the time limit was so small, but it does make sense.

Good luck,
Dave Ahn
-- 
Dave Ahn <ahn@vec.wfubmc.edu>        |  "When you were born, you cried and the
                                     |  world rejoiced.  Try to live your life
Virtual Endoscopy Center             |  so that when you die, you will rejoice
Wake Forest Univ. School of Medicine |  and the world will cry."  -1/2 jj^2