Subject: Re: Concerns regarding Microsoft's Royalty Free Protocol License Agreement

From: Florian Weimer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 12:54:30 +0100

* Larry J. Blunk:

>    The fact that a significant number of protocols date from the early 
> 1980's, a time during which Microsoft had little patent activity, suggests
> that there is no reason to suspect that Microsoft has any patent rights
> to these early protocols (such as the TCP/IP v4 core
> protocols).

Keep in mind that even though the core protocols haven't changed that
much, actual TCP/IP deployments have drastically changed since the
early 80s.  Efficient packet forwarding algorithms (which are
necessary in Gigabit networks and beyond) are certainly subject to
patents today.

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