Subject: [multipathtcp] Patent about TCP and multiple connections

From: Dominik Kaspar <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:41:38 +0200

Hello,

It looks like MPTCP is already invented (or maybe I should learn how
to read patents). Does anybody understand the abstract?

"In a communication device (1) which realizes communication with data
distributed to a plurality of connections, a data division restoration
processing unit (1-2), when transmitting data, receives data from an
application processing unit (1-1), divides the data into an arbitrary
number of blocks, stores information for restoring the block to
original data within a TCP header and sends the data to a network
processing unit (1-3) by using an arbitrary number of TCP connections,
and when receiving data, refers to restoration information stored
within the TCP header with respect to data of the plurality of TCP
connections received from the network processing unit (1-3),
identifies a divisional block, combines the blocks to restore data as
of before division and sends the data to the application processing
unit (1-1)."

http://www.patents.com/Communication-device-communication-program-thereof/US20070071004/en-US/

Greetings,
Dominik

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From: marcelo bagnulo braun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:16:39 +0200

mmm, this patent date from 2007. and i guess there a significant amount 
of prior art on this area.
There is an internet draft describing this from Chrsitian Huitema dating 
from 1995.... (and i guess many others since then)

Dominik Kaspar escribió:
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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:52:53 +1300

I think there is clear water between striped TCPs (plural)
(which the patent appears to claim as a new invention) and multipath
TCP (singular).

Striped TCP is as old as the hills, anyway.
(Robert Grossman, A. Chien, T. Faber, J. Leigh and A. Falk,
Transport protocols for high performance: whither tcp?.
Communications of ACM, 46:42-49, 2003 for example).
I'm sure there will be quite a few patents to be found.

Regards
   Brian