Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 20:26:06 -0600 (CST)
From: Mark Spencer
To: Richard Stallman
Subject: Re: a thought on software patents.

> I don't know.  But I think that most software patents come from ideas
> that people have in the middle of developing programs, and certainly
> most software patents cover things that are not very profound.

I was following on bugtraq a hole regarding modems.  You know that if you
type "+++" then wait, you should get an "OK" at which you can then type
"ATH0" to hang up.  Well, some modems will disconnect if they have the
"+++" and "ATH0" immediately concatenated together, even without a delay.
As a result, you can embed that pattern in a ping packet and disconnect
about 50% of dialup users that have this bug.  

What a silly oversight I thought to myself.  How could so many companies
make such a silly mistake?  Doesn't even seem an easy bug to do.  Well, as
it turns out, it wasn't a bug, but intentional.  Why?  Because Hayes
*patented* the delay between the "+++" and the AT command.  Despite a
lawsuit by major vendors, they didn't break the patent, and many companies
were unwilling to license the "technology" (so surely it was a non-trival
license requirement).  As a result, they simply accepted the +++ ATH0 all
in a row to avoid breaking the patent.

Next time you need an example of how software patents are abused, and how
they hurt the consumer, I think this one might represent an excellent
example.

Mark