Subject: [Enum] Social ENUM / Patents and Intellectual Property

From: Eric Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:56:19 -0700

Dear ENUM Group,

In reference to draft-goix-appsawg-enum-sn-service-00.txt I have to 
raise my hand and ask to slow down.  My apologies first in case this 
rubs people the wrong way, I do not want to be a party pooper, but I do 
feel that this is my party.  Our intellectual property re: Social ENUM 
date to 2008 and we specifically did not publish to the IETF and have 
done the traditional patent protection around this tech.  Interestingly 
the latest draft is spot on --  which really begs the question as from 
what I understood, you can't protect an open standard and therefore we 
did not do so.  I don't mind sharing but the specific mechanisms 
described in the draft are in direct conflict with our IP.   We even 
built the server and have it in operation and are moving into trial with 
a major operator.    Specifically the use of any type of "sn" style 
records in ENUM / E164 and other lookup type db's would be in direct 
violation of our IP.

---

From: Duane <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:39:27 +1000

On 04/03/12 14:56, Eric Stone wrote:
> rubs people the wrong way, I do not want to be a party pooper, but I 
> do feel that this is my party.  Our intellectual property re: Social 
> ENUM date to 2008 and we specifically did not publish to the IETF and 
> have done the traditional patent protection around this tech.  
> Interestingly the latest draft is spot on --  which really begs the 
> question as from what I understood, you can't protect an open standard 
> and therefore we did not do so.  I don't mind sharing but the specific 
> mechanisms described in the draft are in direct conflict with our IP. 
>   We even built the server and have it in operation and are moving 
> into trial with a major operator.    Specifically the use of any type 
> of "sn" style records in ENUM / E164 and other lookup type db's would 
> be in direct violation of our IP.

e164.org was publishing IM and other social network information via DNS 
at least as far back as December 2006, I'd have to check the mailing 
list archive for specific dates.

And before it gets pointed out, no we didn't use SN, but that seems an 
incremental and/or novel change over what we are doing.

---

From: Lawrence Conroy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 09:00:47 +0100

Hi Duane, Eric, folks,

 Hi Duane ... You too :).

----
All I'll say on this (apart from the exclusively personal "good luck") is -- There are many ways of doing this, and in many places in DNS.

Do you think Telnic might have thought of the kinds of info that people could want to publish **before** we went for the .tel CCTLD in 2004?
(and yes, there was an attempt in the earlier 2000 round, but that time the ITU stamped on all things vaguely related to telephony).
LJ was the coming star at that point -- how times change.

For some more RW examples ..
See <http://social.henri.tel> or dig social.henri.tel for NAPTR
(henri.tel is not a web site, it points at a proxy that digs and presents the content in a web response)

or dig instant-messaging.henri.tel for NAPTR, or ...

[Re. avoiding the standard process -- I feel your pain.
When we finally got around to registering IM, the blatantly obvious way to do this was overtaken by the cultish pres and im Enumservices, which sure convinced me that just doing it was easier than arguing. The real world intruded we have ugly NAPTRs in .tel; sigh]

BTW, speaking of different ways of doing this, see the ENUM FOAF stuff from 2006 for example.

SN records can be taken much further, but the privacy concerns are ridiculous, so it only works (with sane privacy) with proper encryption.
That's hard in DNS (unless one uses something like <http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-timms-encrypt-naptr-01>, and publishes data for one's friends only, of course).
----

all the best,
  Lawrence

On 3 Apr 2012, at 06:39, Duane wrote:
>> In reference to draft-goix-appsawg-enum-sn-service-00.txt I have to raise my hand and ask to slow down.  My apologies first in case this rubs people the wrong way, I do not want to be a party pooper, but I do feel that this is my party.  Our intellectual property re: Social ENUM date to 2008 and we specifically did not publish to the IETF and have done the traditional patent protection around this tech.  Interestingly the latest draft is spot on --  which really begs the question as from what I understood, you can't protect an open standard and therefore we did not do so.  I don't mind sharing but the specific mechanisms described in the draft are in direct conflict with our IP.   We even built the server and have it in operation and are moving into trial with a major operator.    Specifically the use of any type of "sn" style records in ENUM / E164 and other lookup type db's would be in direct violation of our IP.
> 
> e164.org was publishing IM and other social network information via DNS at least as far back as December 2006, I'd have to check the mailing list archive for specific dates.
> 
> And before it gets pointed out, no we didn't use SN, but that seems an incremental and/or novel change over what we are doing.

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 09:51:57 -0400

The original ENUM usage btw was in 1993 in RFC 1530. 

If someone has a intellectual property claim then it has to be posted in the
usual manner outlined in RFC 3979.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Lawrence Conroy
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2012 4:01 AM
To: Duane
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [Enum] Social ENUM / Patents and Intellectual Property

Hi Duane, Eric, folks,

 Hi Duane ... You too :).

----
All I'll say on this (apart from the exclusively personal "good luck") is --
There are many ways of doing this, and in many places in DNS.

Do you think Telnic might have thought of the kinds of info that people
could want to publish **before** we went for the .tel CCTLD in 2004?
(and yes, there was an attempt in the earlier 2000 round, but that time the
ITU stamped on all things vaguely related to telephony).
LJ was the coming star at that point -- how times change.

For some more RW examples ..
See <http://social.henri.tel> or dig social.henri.tel for NAPTR (henri.tel
is not a web site, it points at a proxy that digs and presents the content
in a web response)

[Re. avoiding the standard process -- I feel your pain.
When we finally got around to registering IM, the blatantly obvious way to
do this was overtaken by the cultish pres and im Enumservices, which sure
convinced me that just doing it was easier than arguing. The real world
intruded we have ugly NAPTRs in .tel; sigh]

BTW, speaking of different ways of doing this, see the ENUM FOAF stuff from
2006 for example.

SN records can be taken much further, but the privacy concerns are
ridiculous, so it only works (with sane privacy) with proper encryption.
That's hard in DNS (unless one uses something like
<http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-timms-encrypt-naptr-01>, and publishes
data for one's friends only, of course).
----

all the best,
  Lawrence

On 3 Apr 2012, at 06:39, Duane wrote:
>> In reference to draft-goix-appsawg-enum-sn-service-00.txt I have to raise
my hand and ask to slow down.  My apologies first in case this rubs people
the wrong way, I do not want to be a party pooper, but I do feel that this
is my party.  Our intellectual property re: Social ENUM date to 2008 and we
specifically did not publish to the IETF and have done the traditional
patent protection around this tech.  Interestingly the latest draft is spot
on --  which really begs the question as from what I understood, you can't
protect an open standard and therefore we did not do so.  I don't mind
sharing but the specific mechanisms described in the draft are in direct
conflict with our IP.   We even built the server and have it in operation
and are moving into trial with a major operator.    Specifically the use of
any type of "sn" style records in ENUM / E164 and other lookup type db's
would be in direct violation of our IP.
> 
> e164.org was publishing IM and other social network information via DNS at
least as far back as December 2006, I'd have to check the mailing list
archive for specific dates.

_______________________________________________
enum mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/enum

---

From: "Worley, Dale R (Dale)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 11:00:16 -0400

> From: Eric Stone [[email-masked]]
> 
> In reference to draft-goix-appsawg-enum-sn-service-00.txt
> [...]
> Our intellectual property re: Social ENUM date to 2008 and we
> patent protection around this tech.
> [...]
> I don't mind sharing but the specific mechanisms described in the
> draft are in direct conflict with our IP.

Care to tell us the patent or patent application numbers?

It would also be seen as a sign of good faith if you filed IPR
disclosures (https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/new-specific/)
referencing your patents and draft-goix-appsawg-enum-sn-service-00.

Dale