Net2phone Sues Skype

robyannetta writes "Net2phone is suing Skype for patent infringement, arguing Skype violated patent 6,108,704 for 'the exchange of IP addresses between processing units in order to establish a direct communications link between the devices via the Internet.'"

Proir art- ICQ

[AuMatar]

From the summary, ICQ seems like a perfect example of prior art- the central ICQ server farm had a list of hosts in a database, and their online status. When you sent a message to them, it get their IP and sent it on to you so you could create a direct connection.

Re:I'm Confused

[Spezzer]

The patent infringement I believe is that clients register their IP addresses with a database so other clients can learn of their 'online status' and associated IP address in order to communicate.

This seems quite similar to the 'tracker' functionality of BitTorrent, which is essentially the same thing. I imagine there exists some sort of prior art from the 80s, but I can't think of any at the moment...

Re:Proir art- ICQ

[Spezzer]

ICQ was created in 1996, and this patent was *filed* in 1995 and granted in 2000. Does this mean ICQ is still prior art?

Basically, does prior art have to be prior to the filing or the granting?

no it isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

This is basically a patent on STUN... this isn't good for VoIP if it is upheld.

Re:Obviousness

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Skype has to worry about this one. The patent was filed in 2000, and CuCme was using reflectors that did exactly that back in 96 (or was it 98?). Basically, there is so much prior art for that patent that the lawsuite will probably be tossed.

From the Patent:

[dlichterman]

Abstract
A point-to-point Internet protocol exchanges Internet Protocol (IP) addresses between processing units to establish a point-to-point communication link between the processing units through the Internet. A first point-to-point Internet protocol includes the steps of (a) storing in a database a respective IP address of a set of processing units that have an on-line status with respect to the Internet; (b) transmitting a query from a first processing unit to a connection server to determine the on-line status of a second processing unit; and (c) retrieving the IP address of the second unit from the database using the connection server, in response to the determination of a positive on-line status of the second processing unit, for establishing a point-to-point communication link between the first and second processing units through the Internet. A second point-to-point Internet protocol includes the steps of (a) transmitting an E-mail signal, including a first IP address, from a first processing unit; (b) processing the E-mail signal through the Internet to deliver the E-mail signal to a second processing unit; and (c) transmitting a second IP address to the first processing unit for establishing a point-to-point communication link between the first and second processing units through the Internet.

So......they Patented the internet????? http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fs rchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,108,704.PN.&OS=PN/6,1 08,704&RS=PN/6,108,704 [uspto.gov]

Re:It's brilliant!

[OlivierB]

What you are talking about (unknowingly) is called volatility trading. You can basically do this without borrowing any stock and with much less capital; simply execute this strategy with options (you will need to buy a combination of calls and puts and carefully chosen strikes for maximum leverage, but that's beyond the point of this post.).

FUD is a big volatility driver in the market.

Re:Proir art- ICQ

[AtrN]

The date of filing is the important thing wrt. establishing the "priority" of the patent.

What about DCC ?

[Vapula]

During IRC communications, you could ask for a DCC (DCC SEND, DCC CHAT) which is Direct Client to Client (P2P). DCC Requests include the IP address and the port to be used to establish the communication, either to send a file or to use a direct chat (without using the IRC server anymore)

Re:I'm Confused

[CrazedWalrus]

Does that mean net2phone's patent covers instant messaging software, SIP, IRC, and every other communication method that involves availability state and connection information being stored on the server? Hell, even POTS sorta implements this by knowing how to route your phone number ("address") and track your state ("busy").

Meh. PTO, I'll make this easy for you. This patent has "obvious" and "prior art" written all over it.

FTFPatent:


A point-to-point Internet protocol exchanges Internet Protocol (IP) addresses between processing units to establish a point-to-point communication link between the processing units through the Internet. A first point-to-point Internet protocol includes the steps of (a) storing in a database a respective IP address of a set of processing units that have an on-line status with respect to the Internet; (b) transmitting a query from a first processing unit to a connection server to determine the on-line status of a second processing unit; and (c) retrieving the IP address of the second unit from the database using the connection server, in response to the determination of a positive on-line status of the second processing unit, for establishing a point-to-point communication link between the first and second processing units through the Internet.


ICQ? Jabber? SIP? Napster? Bittorrent?


A second point-to-point Internet protocol includes the steps of (a) transmitting an E-mail signal, including a first IP address, from a first processing unit; (b) processing the E-mail signal through the Internet to deliver the E-mail signal to a second processing unit; and (c) transmitting a second IP address to the first processing unit for establishing a point-to-point communication link between the first and second processing units through the Internet.


Ok - I don't have time to read the whole patent, but WTF is an E-mail signal? Just the email address? So, the bright idea here is to use an obvious and invented wheel to resolve a peer's IP address, and to then send the e-mail address. fscking brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?

Damn. It doesn't take much to make a few million these days.

Presence Servers in VOIP, IM have Prior Art

[billstewart]

The summary of their patent lists two methods - the first one uses a presence server, and the second does something hokey with email. The claims in their patent list provide lots of gory detail, but are pretty difficult to read.

Many Instant Messaging protocols and the major standard VOIP protocols use presence servers to keep track of the users. When you want to call somebody, you check with the server to see if they're logged in (and optionally whether they're busy), get their IP address, and connect to them, or alternatively the server tells the destination client that you're going to call them or that you want them to call you. (There are other kinds of IM protocols that funnel all the messages through the central server, and some of the protocols support relay servers which let you connect directly within an administrative zone and go through the relay to get to other zones.)

H.323 [techabulary.com], dating back to 1996, is the most common VOIP standard, and it uses a presence server to communicate the IP address (and also UDP port number) of the endpoints. SIP is a newer protocol that everybody _says_ they're going to support, and many vendors have their own proprietary protocols (e.g. Cisco Skinny) that either predate H.323 or provide additional functions that it doesn't use, but basically almost everybody out there supports H.323 at least as a fallback. SIP's proxy servers make it a much more flexible protocol for the long run.

At least based on the summary and an initial reading of about half the claims section, their first method doesn't have any fundamentally new concepts. It might implement some of the standard concepts in novel ways, and perhaps that's what they're arguing, but at the level of the summary there nothing new there. Their second method says in the summary that they use email, and unless they mean something other than SMTP, it's a pretty crude mechanism to use for automated processing, but saying "email your IP address to the human at the other end so he can read it and call you" doesn't strike me as either novel or non-obvious to someone skilled in the trade.

Re:I'm Confused

[Grayraven]

Actually, ICQ supports direct connections. The server is only used if there's no way to send the message directly. Also, IRC DCC is direct.

Re:Presence Servers in VOIP, IM have Prior Art

[Cramer]

Funny you mention Cisco... they actually do use SIP these days. Skinny, while depreciated and "removed from IOS" long ago, is still present and functional in IOS 12.4.

W.r.t. STMP, Microsoft's "Remote Help" does exactly this. It'll email an XML attachment to the "helper" which tells the remote desktop client where to connect.

If you want prior art, look no further than FTP -- PORT and later PASV both communicate an IP address for "direct communication." (granted, there's no "database" involved.)

Check the date

[MemeRot]

This was filed in September of 1995. You'll need prior art from then or earlier to invalidate this, a protocol from 1996 is no help.

Prior art - EGP

[mdozturk]

Exterior Gateway Protocol http://tools.ietf.org/html/904/ [ietf.org] (1984)

The data is stored in a tree structure: you ask information about your siblings from your parent, just as you do in the net2phone patent.