legal threats from DE Technologies re web commerce
James & Wells NZ Barristers and Solicitors (http://www.jaws.co.nz) are acting for DE Technologies ( http://www.detechnologies.com ) DE Technologies are described at http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=globetechnology/TGAM/NewsFullStory.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=WJFEAT&date=20021003 as "a tiny company in Montreal" and the patent as "a computer implemented process for carrying out an international commercial transaction." I hope this is not seen as off topic. I am at a loss to say whether this is an absurdity or a significant worry, but my firm has recently received a legal fax from James & Wells claiming we are infringing DE Technologies recently acquired NZ Patent. In what looks like a mass produced demand they appear to require that we "discuss" obtaining a license for three years for US $25,000 plus 1.15% of our and our customers' transactions, if we wish to continue hosting web sites that take international orders. The NZ version of the patent was obtained earlier this year. Curiously the target of their attention happens to be a website of ours that does not do actual orders itself but is just a portal, hence my guess that this is part of an broad initial salvo in an attempt to create the "pay up and avoid litigation" response. I want to make contact with other operations who have received a license and royalty demand under NZ Patent 505284 for large sums of money if they wish to continue using basic international web shopping practices. We can probably deflect the particular letter we have received, however if the barristers involved are keen to search out sites that do have some chance of coming under the patent then they should find a virtual cornucopia, as they traverse the sites of your customers and ours. Supposing they succeed in upholding their patent then their requirements would claim a significant percentage of overheads of net traders looking to continue having international ordering/transaction capabilities. Obviously I am sorely disappointed that the NZ Patent Office is granting patents of this kind, and am reviewing both political and legal options for raising this issue in the public eye. Alongside Microsoft's moves to patent .Net APIs we are of course, seeing some serious challenges to developer freedoms, and end user's integration choices, if the arena of intellectual patents is not balanced with concern for open standards in at least some of the world. Well that is off topic now I am sure... I am happy to set up a list for discussing this issue if anyone else is interested, let me know or point me to a pre-existing nz list on this matter. Oh and I'll let you know when I have a patent on the process of running an online charity auction to save ISPs sued by patent attorney's.. :) regards Robert -- Robert Hunt phone +64-3-3645888 Managing Director fax +64-3-3645828 Plain Communications roberth(a)plain.co.nz
Looks like the patent money grabbing has finally reached NZ. This has been going on for some time in the US, so I guess it was just a matter of time... The US Patent Office has enjoyed considerable criticism recently for the granting of erroneous patents, and prior art never seemed to concern them if it wasn't created in the US. By the looks of the DE Technologies site, they are claiming the right to licence ALL international commerce transactions, and that they are due royalties on every transaction. "It is the position of the founders that only BOEST technology should become the foundation cornerstone for any digital system that engages in global commerce and that the inventors should be able to enforce the protection of the system's capabilities and royalty/licensing fees via the patent laws of the United States Government." Clearly unacceptable. I wonder who slipped that through here.... Something for Juha to do an article on? I'd hate to see us having to jump through US legal hoops every time we develop a product Gordon Smith CCNA Network Operations Manager MoreNet Ltd PGP Fingerprint: 4B12 FBE4 784A 3294 6637 4587 AB6F C893 AB2C 952C
Perhaps this discussion and the one on the Crimes act could be moved to 'nzblog' - the NZ Barrackroom Lawyers Operators Group. It's not on topic for a technical group - it's a discussion on legal matters.
I thought it was more of a discussion on the operational impact of legal matters that do concern us. After all, if you stick your head in the sand, your ass is still sticking up in the air. The whole patent issue has become absurd. See http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=cache:W-uYKaq65-YJ:yro.slashdot.org/yro /03/02/12/200209.shtml%3Ftid%3D95%26tid%3D155+slashdot+patents&hl=en&ie= UTF-8 for a group that does affect most operators e.g. keyword searches The question is, how should we be protecting ourselves from costly frivilous lawsuits. Should InternetNZ be taking an active approach, with the backing of providers? Is a "safety in numbers" approach more beneficial? As for the Crimes Act, we'll be watching for a test case. I think we're all aware of the current lack of skilled people in the law enforcement area with respect to computer crime. Hopefully this will change for the better, but overseas, where such laws have been in place for a considerable period, there are still chronic shortages of skilled staff. Gordon Smith CCNA Network Operations Manager MoreNet Ltd PGP Fingerprint: 4B12 FBE4 784A 3294 6637 4587 AB6F C893 AB2C 952C
On Wed, 2003-07-09 at 15:24, Gordon Smith wrote:
I thought it was more of a discussion on the operational impact of legal matters that do concern us. After all, if you stick your head in the sand, your ass is still sticking up in the air.
I wasn't asking for people to stick their head in the sand but as Donald Neal pointed out in his recent mail, a bunch of technical people giving their pseudo legal opinions isn't a technical discussion and that's what this list is for. If people were asking about how to implement a technical solution which would automatically collect the revenue for these leeches that would be different. (:-) andy
I'd love to see a technical solution to collect revenue from these leeches :-) On a more on-topic issue (hopefully Michael Newbury is reading this...), isn't it about time that the main carriers started allowing BGP community tagging for the purpose of blackholing DDoS targets? Technically, this isn't difficult to do - see http://www.secsup.org/CustomerBlackHole/ which gives examples for both Cisco & Juniper. Allowing this would help ISPs to achieve a quicker resolution to the problem, without having to get hold of an upstream engineer to put such a block in place (and remove it later). We all end up winning - we get greater control of our networks, and the carriers don't have their engineers tied up on after-hours callouts because a customer is being DoS'd Cheers, Gordon
At 8:58 AM +1200 10/7/03, Gordon Smith wrote:
I'd love to see a technical solution to collect revenue from these leeches :-)
On a more on-topic issue (hopefully Michael Newbury is reading this...),
present...
isn't it about time that the main carriers started allowing BGP community tagging for the purpose of blackholing DDoS targets? Technically, this isn't difficult to do - see http://www.secsup.org/CustomerBlackHole/ which gives examples for both Cisco & Juniper.
Allowing this would help ISPs to achieve a quicker resolution to the problem, without having to get hold of an upstream engineer to put such a block in place (and remove it later). We all end up winning - we get greater control of our networks, and the carriers don't have their engineers tied up on after-hours callouts because a customer is being DoS'd
How effective is it in practice? Any statistics? It occurs to me that if you could spoof the BGP advert you would have a remarkably effective DoS :-) I'll look into it... -- Michael Newbery IP Architect TelstraClear Limited
On Thu, 10 Jul 2003, Michael Newbery wrote:
How effective is it in practice? Any statistics? It occurs to me that if you could spoof the BGP advert you would have a remarkably effective DoS :-)
MD5 auth is good, restricting the number of blackhole adverts that can be sent (if you're doing it to a centralised blackhole router) is another good limiter. Also, only allowing people to blackhole /24 -> /32 netblocks, rather than allowing them to cut off their entire network (because you just know that someone will) is probably beneficial. --David
On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 02:10:49PM +1200, Gordon Smith wrote:
Clearly unacceptable. I wonder who slipped that through here.... Something for Juha to do an article on? I'd hate to see us having to jump through US legal hoops every time we develop a product
Probably drifting into off-topic territory for the list, but acceptance of US IP standards - including much broader patent acceptance - will likely be one price for any free trade deals negotiated bilaterally with US. It will be interesting to see how this sort of thing pans out for the Aussies. -- Rodger Donaldson rodgerd(a)diaspora.gen.nz
Hi Robert and others Russell Holland from www.webfoot.co.nz and myself are currently just setting up a list serv and website for this. Both our companies have numerous clients involved in this. Domain is www.fightthepatent.co.nz and should be online later today. We all agree that banding together may be the best way to communicate and fight this, as many of the parties affected so far are small operations without resources to fight high court cases. We can also petition the govt together. Will post to this list once online and we can resume communications then. It is a serious threat to eCommerce in NZ as the patent is registered in this country, so the registering party therefore does have rights - even though the concept is absurd. Rgds Richard Shearer www.webfarm.co.nz www.freeparking.co.nz At 13:46 09-07-03, you wrote:
James & Wells NZ Barristers and Solicitors (http://www.jaws.co.nz) are acting for DE Technologies ( http://www.detechnologies.com )
DE Technologies are described at http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=globetechnology/TGAM/NewsFullStory.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=WJFEAT&date=20021003
as "a tiny company in Montreal" and the patent as "a computer implemented process for carrying out an international commercial transaction."
I hope this is not seen as off topic. I am at a loss to say whether this is an absurdity or a significant worry, but my firm has recently received a legal fax from James & Wells claiming we are infringing DE Technologies recently acquired NZ Patent.
In what looks like a mass produced demand they appear to require that we "discuss" obtaining a license for three years for US $25,000 plus 1.15% of our and our customers' transactions, if we wish to continue hosting web sites that take international orders.
The NZ version of the patent was obtained earlier this year. Curiously the target of their attention happens to be a website of ours that does not do actual orders itself but is just a portal, hence my guess that this is part of an broad initial salvo in an attempt to create the "pay up and avoid litigation" response.
I want to make contact with other operations who have received a license and royalty demand under NZ Patent 505284 for large sums of money if they wish to continue using basic international web shopping practices. We can probably deflect the particular letter we have received, however if the barristers involved are keen to search out sites that do have some chance of coming under the patent then they should find a virtual cornucopia, as they traverse the sites of your customers and ours. Supposing they succeed in upholding their patent then their requirements would claim a significant percentage of overheads of net traders looking to continue having international ordering/transaction capabilities.
Obviously I am sorely disappointed that the NZ Patent Office is granting patents of this kind, and am reviewing both political and legal options for raising this issue in the public eye. Alongside Microsoft's moves to patent .Net APIs we are of course, seeing some serious challenges to developer freedoms, and end user's integration choices, if the arena of intellectual patents is not balanced with concern for open standards in at least some of the world.
Well that is off topic now I am sure... I am happy to set up a list for discussing this issue if anyone else is interested, let me know or point me to a pre-existing nz list on this matter.
Oh and I'll let you know when I have a patent on the process of running an online charity auction to save ISPs sued by patent attorney's.. :)
regards Robert
-- Robert Hunt phone +64-3-3645888 Managing Director fax +64-3-3645828 Plain Communications roberth(a)plain.co.nz
_______________________________________________ Nznog mailing list Nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog
Regards Richard Shearer www.webfarm.co.nz www.freeparking.co.nz Tel: +64 6 7572881 Fax: +64 6 7572883
participants (7)
-
Andy Linton -
David Robb -
Gordon Smith -
Michael Newbery -
Richard Shearer -
Robert Hunt -
Rodger Donaldson