Subject: seeking advice on "Arrangement for reaching IPv4 public network nodes by a node in a IPv4 private network via an IPv6 access network"

From: "Pascal Thubert (pthubert)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 14:34:01 +0100

Hi:

We just got that patent issued about one of the possible mechanisms to
implement a carrier grade NAT.

Our patent is pretty much equivalent to tunneling to the carrier NAT
over IPv6 though it does/undoes NAT-PT instead of tunneling so we do not
have to define tunnels in the first place.

In our patent, the home gateway has a proverbial /96 prefix that it
prepends to the IPv4 private address to form the IPv6 address of the
node. This is an automatic (stateless) operation that we (used to?)
support in IOS and the transport/payload is not modified. The Carrier
grade NAT undoes the NATPT, extracts that IPv4 private address and then
acts as a standard IPv4 NAT, though it saves the /96 prefix in the NAT
states to reconstruct the IPv6 address on the way back. You moght see
that as a NAT_PT +NAT operation back to back.

Benefits for cisco are:
- Easier of implementation on the gw (no tunnel, stateless operation)
- Easier of implementation on the Carrier NAT (no tunnel, mostly
NAT+NAT_PT back to back)

Since carrier class NATs seem pretty hot at the moment, the advice I'm
seeking is:
- should we draft that to the IETF?
- if not should we mention our IPR against an existing draft?

Thanks,

Pascal

>-----Original Message-----
>From: patent-administrators(mailer list)
>Sent: mardi 4 novembre 2008 14:14
>To: Patrick Wetterwald (pwetterw); Pascal Thubert (pthubert)
>Cc: Laurie Mintz (lamintz)
>Subject: [CPOL 443213] "Arrangement for reaching IPv4 public network
nodes by a node in a IPv4
>private network via an IPv6 access network": has issued as US Patent
No. 7,443,880
>
>Congratulations!
>
>US Patent # 7,443,880 entitled 'Arrangement for reaching IPv4 public
network
>nodes by a node in a IPv4 private network via an IPv6 access network'
was
>issued on 28-Oct-2008.  Thank you for your support of Cisco's patent
program.
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From: "Erik Kline" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 01:35:26 -0800

Are the terms sufficiently broad that you might consider that it
(somehow) covers, say, dual-stack lite?  If so, I'd think at least an
IPR is in order.

(note: I've only taken a cursory glance at a USPTO diagram while very
sleepy so perhaps the comment is irrelevant)