Verizon has taken out a patent on the Internet. All of it.

[kpete]

Al Gore Can Rest Easy -- Verizon Claims the Internet
By Art Brodsky | bio

Ever since his maliciously maligned interview with CNN, Al Gore has been tagged with the "invented the Internet" punch line. He never said it, never claimed it, and in fact did push the Internet as a member of Congress for many years ahead of his time. No matter, the myth lives. Until now.

It seems Verizon has taken out a patent on the Internet. All of it.

We know this as a result of that court case in which Verizon is trying to sue competitor Vonage out of business. Vonage offers telephone service over Internet connections, and so takes customers away from Verizon. In tried-and-true form, Verizon filed suit and a silly District Court ruling (currently being appealed) awarded Verizon $58 million plus a piece of Vonage's revenues.

But the interesting part comes as part of the decision. Here are three claims upheld by the U.S. District Court, as quoted from the decision that could cost Vonage big time:

“6. A method as in claim 1, wherein the public packet data communication network is a packet switched network.

7. A method as in claim 6, wherein the packet switched network comprises a system of interlinked data networks using TCP/IP protocol.

8. A method as in claim 7, wherein the system of interlinked data networks comprises the Internet.”

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/specialguests/2007/apr/11/al_gore_can_rest_easy_verizon_claims_the_internet

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Well, then...

Their win against Vonage shouldn't stand up to scrutiny in appeal. On the prior art of Fidonet alone, this patent has little chance.

[hang a left]

2. Someone is going to have to explain this to me.

IAMAN and IMNAT and I don't understand this battle at all. In layman's terms please.

Thanks

[flying_monkeys]

3. I read that to mean the way of accessing the internet, not

the internet in its whole...


"8. A method as in claim 7, wherein the system of interlinked data networks comprises the Internet.”

[lapfog_1]

4. Funny, since the Arpanet and TCP/IP

and the domain name service (DNS) and all the rest was developed by researchers working for the federal government (either through contracts with private companies and/or contracts with universities).

Patents, if any, would go to guys like Vinton Cerf (who either works for AT&T now or Microsoft, I can't remember).
But since such work was developed on the tax payers dime, the inventions are in fact, public domain.

In any event, the early work on the concepts and the protocols was mostly complete by the 1970s, I suspect that patent protection is now expired.

[gristy]

5. It is impossible to tell from this article the scope of what is being claimed

Claim 6 is dependent on what "method" is claimed in claim 1. For all we know, claim 1 describes deep fat fryer that is hooked up to the internet by means of a "public packet data communication network", and claim 6 is simply refining further what is meant by that. Claims 7 and 8 are additional dependent claims of little interest. The key is what is in claim 1, and they don't tell us that here.

[Gregorian]

6. I'm afraid it already belongs to these two old ladies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgqEIp2YmtE&mode=related&search=

[hootinholler]

12. Thanks for that!

:rofl:

Edit to say The Tubes!

-Hoot

[blogslut]

7. Acacia Technologies is trying to do this with streaming content

They bought a bunch of patents and tried to bilk adult webmasters out of licensing fees. They picked us because we were, as they called us, "low hanging fruit". They wanted to win cases against us to set legal precidents so they could then go after anyone, and I mean anyone, that so much as links to a digital video.

http://www.eff.org/patent/wanted/patent.php?p=acacia

The Patent office is sorely in need of an overhaul.

[magellan]

8. British Telecom tried to do this with hyperlinks

Why This Link Patent Case Is Weak
Michelle Delio Email 02.12.02 | 2:00 AM

It may be a long time before British Telecom knows whether it lucked out or lost big in the legal sweepstakes. But even if it wins its court battle, experts said the British telephone company has already lost the war.

British Telecom (BT) had set out to prove in a U.S. federal court that it developed and holds a patent for the hyperlink technology now used to whisk Web surfers from one site to another.

Judge Colleen McMahon voiced numerous doubts over British Telecom's claims during Monday's preliminary hearing, but the case is far from settled. Legal experts said it's unlikely, but not impossible, that BT will prevail as the case wends its way through the legal system.

Even if BT wins, it's hard to see what the payoff would be. Programmers insist it would be a trivial task to code an entirely new way to link Web pages. And legal experts believe that BT will never be awarded any retroactive royalties on hyperlinks.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/02/50361

Note: BT did hold the patent, but lost the case.

[givemebackmycountry]

9. OK...and you know what?

I just masturbated.
I'M GOING TO PATENT THE ORGASM!

I'm gonna make money coming and going!

[Crabby Appleton]

10. Art Brodsky is citing a few lines of the patent,

in order to mislead people about what is claimed in the Verison patents, and no, Verison is not claiming a patent "on the Internet" in these patents.

All the patents in the Verizon v. Vonage case relate to VoIP methods, protocols, and devices, for example here is the rest of the "claims" (a section in a patent) the AB cut a few lines from:

Version Patent 8359880

This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 08/815,291 filed Mar. 11,1997.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Claims

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


We claim:

1. A method comprising:

registering a wireless telephone terminal in a localized wireless gateway system;
transmitting registration data identifying the gateway system from the localized wireless gateway system to a home location register database through a public packet data communication network; receiving a request from a calling computer coupled to the public packet data communication network for a call to the wireless telephone terminal;
in response to the request, accessing the home location register database and obtaining a packet data address for the localized wireless gateway system; using the address to set up a voice communication through the public packet data communication network and the localized wireless gateway system between the calling computer and the wireless telephone terminal.

2. A method as in claim 1, wherein the calling computer is a terminal computer having voice communication capabilities.

3. A method as in claim 1, wherein the calling computer is a packet service gateway computer, coupled between the public packet data communication network and a public switched telephone network, for providing two-way voice communications to and from at least one telephone via the public packet data communication network.

4. A method as in claim 1, wherein the registering step comprises registering the wireless telephone terminal with an access manager which controls communications through the localized wireless gateway system.

5. A method as in claim 4, wherein the transmitting step comprises transmitting the registration data from the access manager through the public packet data communication network to the home location register database.

6. A method as in claim 1, wherein the public packet data communication network is a packet switched network.

7. A method as in claim 6, wherein the packet switched network comprises a system of interlinked data networks using TCP/IP protocol.

8. A method as in claim 7, wherein the system of interlinked data networks comprises the Internet.

9. A method comprising:

transmitting a registration message from a wireless telephone terminal through a wireless gateway system to an access manager controlling wireless communication through the wireless gateway system; in response to the registration message, transmitting a verification request identifying the wireless telephone terminal and the wireless gateway system through a public packet data network to a home location register database;
if the wireless telephone is authorized service, transmitting a service verification response message through the public packet data network to the access manager; and
authorizing a service to the wireless telephone terminal through the wireless gateway system in response to the verification response message, wherein the authorized service comprises making telephone calls at least in part via the public packet data network.

10. A method comprising:

transmitting a registration message from a wireless telephone terminal through a wireless gateway system to an access manager controlling wireless communication through the wireless gateway system; in response to the registration message, transmitting a verification request identifying the wireless telephone terminal and the wireless gateway system through a public packet data network to a home location register database;
if the wireless telephone is authorized service, transmitting a service verification response message through the public packet data network to the access manager; and
authorizing a service to the wireless telephone terminal through the wireless gateway system in response to the verification response message, wherein the authorized service comprises receiving telephone calls at least in part via the public packet data network.

11. A method as in claim 10, further comprising:

storing identification of the wireless gateway system in the home location register database; and using said identification to route telephone calls through the public packet data network and the wireless gateway system to the wireless telephone terminal.

12. A method as in claim 9, wherein the public packet data communication network is a packet switched network.

13. A method as in claim 12, wherein the packet switched network comprises a system of interlinked data networks using TCP/IP protocol.

14. A method as in claim 13, wherein the system of interlinked data networks comprises the Internet.

[hootinholler]

11. My suspicion is that Claim 1 refers to VOIP

I wish people would report with the intent to transmit some knowledge. He doesn't link to the decision, nor does he quote Claim 1, which the other claims are dependent on. The article is cherry-picking, and disappoints me somewhat. TPM is better than that I thought.

DARPA would hold the patents on TCP/IP, if they are patentable, or they have placed it in the public domain.

Verizon's claim is most likely for Voice Over IP, which is just sending audio packets instead of text, which, I don't think it actually deserves a patent, but I don't work for the PTO. If they figured out a way to transmit goldfish over IP, then I'd say that was patentable.

-Hoot

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. Anywhere in the world that there is a telephone line, there will be some sort of "internet"

The cat is out of the bag. That ship has sailed. You can't un-ring a bell. I can build an internet server from parts bought at Fry's for less than 1k.

Take my phone line. I'll figure out a way to use my cell phone to connect my server to the phone system.

Try and stop me. Try and regulate me. Not possible unless you overhaul THE ENTIRE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM that the world uses today.

Who gives a shit about Vonage?

[Crabby Appleton]

14. Listed below are the VoIP patents owned by Verison

that the courts ruled vonage infringed upon:

6104711
6282574
6359880

you can look them up here:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm


Art Brodsky, the author of the original piece left out the the parts that actually give the patents meaning, Verison has not claimed a patent on "the Internet", the original piece is complete BS.