Re: [idn] i-DNS.net Patent Filing

["Brian W. Spolarich" <briansp@walid.com>]

On Wed, 20 Sep 2000, James Seng wrote:

| i-DNS.net has filed for a patent which has been published by US WIPO
| wrt to multilingual domain names. A notice as below has been sent to
| the IETF secretariate as per RFC2026 rules last week. This is already
| been reflected on http://www.ietf.org/ipr.html.

  The PCT application for this is WO 00/50966, publication date
31.08.2000, which can be viewed at:
 
  http://pctgazette.wipo.int/cgi-bin/ifetch5?ENG+PCT-352000+2+1-REVERSE+0+0+1118+F-ENG-0+1+1+1+25+11000000+i%2ddns
  http://l2.espacenet.com/dips/bnsviewer?CY=ep&LG=en&DB=EPD&PN=WO0050966&ID=WO+++0050966A2+I+

  The latter URL provides access to the full text of the application in
PDF format.

  For those who might not be familiar with the patent process, the
publishing of the PCT application is an automatic part of the
international patent application process, and represents only disclosure
of the patent request, and not the actual issuance of a patent.  Patents
are only issued by actual countries, and it does not appear that a related
patent has yet been issued by the US PTO (in fact the US isn't even listed
as a designated state on the PCT application).

| The claims in the applied-for patent involve using and detecting
| multiple native encodings for IDN. Since the WG has not move towards
| that direction, no discussion, emails, I-Ds in the WG is related to
| the patent.

  As I read the application, there are essentially two sets of claims (and
arguably two separate patent applications):

  1.  Independent claims 1, 13, and 17 (and their dependent claims) are
all structured around the detection of the linguistic encoding type for a
digitally represented domain name.

  Claims 11-12 (dependent on claim 1) describe the ACE concept, which has
been discussed in significant detail in the WG.  However given the context
in which that claim is presented, I don't think it represents an attempt
to patent the ACE concept itself (I'm not a patent lawyer though).  In any
case, there is a significant amount of prior art on the ACE issue (e.g.
the 1997 Martin Duerst I-D) and I don't see how this could be claimed as
novel by the applicants.

  The lack of an international search report I also find interesting.  I
would be curious to see what prior art is referenced against this
application.

  2.  Independent claim 24 (and its dependent claims), which described "an
apparatus [...] capable of receiving a first DNS request including a
domain name in a non-DNS encoding type and transmitting a DNS request with
the domain name in a DNS encoding type that is compatible with the DNS
protocol [...]".

  I would argue that your description of your patent application and its
relationship to the activities of the working group is disingenuous at
best, and perhaps simply incorrect at worst. This patent application
describes the i-DNS proposed approach to the IDN problem, which is a
server-based proxy approach.  We've certainly discussed in the WG the
issue of where IDN should be done (application, resolver, recursive
server, authoritative server, etc.) and the issues surrounding transition
and deployment.

  In addition, I would argue that a co-chair of the working group can have
real influence over the direction of the discussion of that working group,
so to say that "the working group discussions do not anticipate our patent
application" is a complete oversimplification.

  I'm not trying to be attacking here, but I do feel that the patent as
described in the PCT application is quite relevant to the discussion at
hand.  I have to assume that you were aware of this pending application
sooner, given that you are named as a co-inventor.  My understanding of
the IETF rules is that one was obliged to disclose any pending or active
IP protection that was related to one's participation in the working
groups.  At best there seems to me to be a significant conflict of
interest here.  I'm also a little surprised by your participation in this
patent, given your recent comments to the list (Sun Aug 27) on why
"...Software Patent [sic] should just ***DIE***".

  It has been because of the IETF guidelines on IPR disclosure that my
organization (WALID, Inc.) has not participated more extensively in the
working group and its discussions until now.  We also have pending IP
protection, and have been obliged to not disclose our particular
technology publicly until our provisional protection has been issued.  We
will provide full disclosure to the IESG and the working group in the
coming weeks.

  -bws