[OpenID] IPR claims over OpenID 1.1

[Eric Norman]

On Jul 14, 2007, at 3:52 PM, Peter Williams wrote:

> Can any point to me threads of email where IPR claims, half-claims,  
> intimations of claims, gossip about claims, talk about claims or other  
> communications addressing any and all issues about possible legal  
> encumbrances on OpenID 1.1 are discussed, please?

How about the IPR Policy section of the OpenID Wiki?

    http://openid.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

> I'm going to predict that Microsoft legal and Microsoft Passport  
> service is going to play a very interesting legalistic role here,  
> since Passport been designed and operational for so long, uses the  
> flow pattern of what SAML folk would call sp-initiated webSSO, and  
> really only differs from OpenID 1.1 flow pattern (and SAML  
> sp-initiated SSO patterns) on the issue of whether assertion makers  
> shall be centralized or de-centralized.

I haven't actually seen the claims in any patents, but I'll ask anyway.
Has a patent really been issued where someone claims to have invented  
the
flow pattern itself?  It sure would seem to me that that fails the non-
obvious criteria, and probably the newness criteria too.  But as a lot
of folks would say, the patent office really doesn't have a clue about
what's obvious and what isn't in the software field.  And they were
recently told so (albeit in another field; accelerator pedals, yet!) by
the U.S. Supreme Court. So maybe there is such a claim.

Regardless, the distinction between centralized and de-centralized may
be enough to make it sufficiently different to be non-infringing (but
I still wouldn't say non-obvious).

>  From my early phase investigation work into OpenID, OpenID seems in  
> contrast to be starting out on the phase of a patent wars, associated  
> FUD campaigns expressed in behaviors such as offering developer  
> covenants, and the usual 2-3 year period of various forms of legal  
> fencing.

Indeed, the Blanket Reciprocity section certainly seems like a bunch of
macho talk, doesn't it?  I wonder, if it actually comes to that (a  
counter-
suit), what weapons the OpenID community thinks it has to fight with.
Someone else will be waving an issued patent in front of the judge; what
does the OpenID community have to wave in front of the judge?

Rant:  a lot of this IPR stuff is crap and just silly.  There seems to
be consensus that everyone wants to reach the goal of "an identity layer
for the Internet".  That seem like enough incentive right there to
advance the sciences and arts.  Why add the IPR stuff which may actually
hamper such advancemment?  If you still don't get my point, lookie here

http://ejnorman.blogspot.com/2007/05/intellectual-property-is- 
oxymoron.html

By the way; as long as I'm on the subject.  I do want to apologize to
David Recordon and others for taking Kaliya's poster about voting with
your feet a bit too literally and stomping out of the discussion at IIW
in May.  What I will say in public is that it wasn't anything personal
about David, and it wasn't even the particular topic being discussed.
It was the culmination of a lot of things that I had experienced and I
guess I just got too fed up.  So I'm sorry.

Eric Norman
http://ejnorman.blogspot.com