Re: Thinking outside the box - send envelope first

On March 17, 2013 at 18:52 [email protected] (John Levine) wrote:
 > In article <[email protected]> you write:
 > >
 > >I don't think "there could be a patent issue with that" is a
 > >reasonable counter-argument.
 > 
 > How about "the patent holder has a history of aggressively suing
 > anyone who they think violates their patent"?

Only interesting if one intends to violate their patent.

I don't think anyone has suggested:

   We could mitigate the spam problem by violating the XYZ patent!

And unless they do I don't think pointing out that patent violations
could incur legal action is particularly interesting.

Suggesting we beat the crap out of spammers would also attract the
interest of legal authority. Doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea
tho probably more difficult to obtain informed consent in that case.

This reminds a little of the earlier days of the web when I ran a site
which had a bunch of copyrighted material, music, photos, etc, the
topic was Rock & Roll.

I had written permission to use every bit of that material. I even
said as much on the site. Some of the copyright owners were materially
involved in the site.

Didn't stop the steady stream of random people with no interest in the
said copyrights informing me of the SERIOUSNESS of my alleged
"copyright violations" and demanding I respond to them with PROOF lest
they think of me as a CRIMINAL!

Possibly suggesting one might need to work with the owner of the XYZ
patent on that approach as a point of information might be useful,
without the legal drama.

And of course IETF's guidelines regarding patents and RFCs could be
reviewed or maybe better incorporated by reference.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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