Subject: Re: [idn] Alternative Solutions

From: Tan Tin Wee <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 19:47:30 -0700

Speaking personally, I  think these aspects of the patent discussed
below as being covered by WALID Patent already constitutes prior art,
which the APNG commissioned the IDNS project back in 1998,
and how the Patent Office could have issued the patent ... sigh...
>... and to set aside this patent as Dave Crocker pointed out or worse,
contest it, would be subject to the vagaries of the legal system in
US... more
sighs.
I don't understand the USPTO!

tw

"Sean X. Zhang" wrote:
>
> --- Kenneth Whistler <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > > First, let's make sure we all mean the same thing when we say
"ACE".
> > > When I say "ACE", I mean a reversible algorithmic mapping from
Unicode
> > > strings to LDH strings.
> > >
> > > What started this thread was the possibility that patents might
prevent
> > > us from using an ACE.
> >
> > Has it actually been determined that the WALID patent covers *all*
> > possible "reversible algorithmic mappings from Unicode strings
> > to LDH strings"? That seems like a stretch to me.
>
> What can be "actually determined" has already been commented upon by
John.
>
> [...]
>
> >
> > Or has WALID actually gotten a patent on a generic concept without
> > actually specifying a particular technique to accomplish it??
> >
> > --Ken
>
> He claimed only "a method". But it appears to be a very broad one.
>
> >From the US Patent Office's web site, www.uspto.gov, you can get the
> text of the 6,182,148 patent. Its claim 1 states (with [my comments]
> in square brackets):
>
>        1. A method of converting an internet international domain name
>           [that's an IDN] to an RFC1035 compliant format [or, an LDH
string],
>           where the international domain name includes non-English
characters
>           which are RFC1035 non-compliant, the method comprising
[i.e.,
>           requires at least the following]:
>               intercepting the international domain name, where the
>                    intercepting is transparent to the user
>                    [this appears to be the role of the "DNS proxy"
>                    discussed at http://www.apng.org/idns/];
>               transforming the international domain name to an RFC1035
>                    compliant domain name
>                    [convert the IDN to an LDH string in any way you
want,
>                    reversible or not; no, a particular technique is
not
>                    specified for this step, and yes, this step does
seem
>                    to correspond to a generic concept;
>                    following steps 1, 2, and part of step 3 discussed
at
>                    http://www.apng.org/idns/ might be one particular
>                    technique to accomplish this];
>              automatically generating a redirector string
>                    [this is probably the string "ar.i18n.net" referred
to
>                    in the "Detailed Description" section, in
association
>                    with Fig. 2 and numeral "130"; if so, that would
>                    correspond to "idns.apng.org" in the "Note" section
>                    on www.apng.org/idns and the appended string in
step 3,
>                    above]
>                 which includes information for resolving
>                    [cannot tell what information is required; maybe
simply
>                    another way of saying that the "redirector string"
cannot
>                    be arbitrary and must be something like the ones
above]
>                 the RFC1035 compliant domain name; and
>              appending the redirector string to the RFC1035 compliant
>                    do main [appears to be a typo; should be "domain"]
name
>                    [if above interpretation of "redirector string" is
>                    correct, this would be the second half of step 3,
above].
>
> If my understanding of the claim language, the technology and the
terminology
> is correct, then yes, he seems to have a patent covering the generic
concept
> of converting IDNs to LDH strings. In claim 1, nothing's said about
reversible
> algorithmic mappings, though it seems to be broad enough to cover the
concept.
> In particular, his claim 1 would seem to cover the method discussed at
> http://www.apng.org/idns/.
>
> Maybe someone could look at other claims or take a closer look at
claim 1 to
> see what kind of patent he has obtained?
>
> --
> Sean
>
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---

From: "Sean X. Zhang" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 21:16:07 -0700 (PDT)

Are you saying that the content of the APNG's idns webpage has not
changed since 1998?!

[...]
> I don't understand the USPTO!

Keith may have said it all.

--- Keith Moore <[email-masked]> wrote:
> in the IETF community it has been clear for many years that DNS was
> intended to be 8-bit clean, so for us the interpretation of RFC 1035
> is clear.  
> 
> the interpretation may not be so "clear" (or it may be "clear" in a 
> different way) to a court.  just like what is "obvious" to a person
> experienced in Internet applications protocols  (and which therfore
> should not be patentable) is not "obvious" to a patent examiner.
> 
...