Overlay broad patent on IPv6?

Mel Beckman mel at beckman.org
Mon Jul 13 16:07:44 UTC 2015


Balder,

That may well be the subject of one of the other patents. Also, there is no requirement under US patent law to build a prototype. It just has to be possible for one "usually skilled in the art" to construct one from the content of the patent. Also, most patents are not for a complete system. They just describe the function of a single invention, possibly useful in a larger system. For example, consider the patent of a gravity escapement in a clock (No. 739,245. Pat. Sept 15, 1903. W. Willmann). The escapement is useless on its own, but has application in many mechanical clocks, including watches.  

So there's no requirement that the patent explain how IPv4 addresses are acquired by the client.

 -mel beckman

> On Jul 13, 2015, at 8:58 AM, Baldur Norddahl <baldur.norddahl at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Too bad it won't actually work. I type Slashdot.org in my browser. The web
> browser does DNS lookup. The CPE notices there is only an A record
> available and boots the IPv4 stack. However there is no way to push an IPv4
> configuration to my computer. DHCP is pull not push. Even if there was, the
> web browser would not be prepared for an IPv4 configuration to suddenly
> appear in the middle of a request.
> 
> I notice the patent application does not actually specify how this is
> supposed to work. It should not be possible to patent without building a
> prototype and indeed without even knowing how to build one. Then if someone
> later figures out the details, you somehow owe your soul to these guys that
> just did some handwaving.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Baldur
> Den 13/07/2015 17.33 skrev "Shane Ronan" <shane at ronan-online.com>:
> 
>> This is actually a good idea. Roll out an IPV6 only network and only pass
>> out an IPV4 address if it's needed based on actual traffic.
>>> On Jul 13, 2015 11:27 AM, "John Levine" <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> In article <CAP032TteiL3=k=
>>> vs-KEdGU276fWGXqn1J9jmORLq8sW4xPE-Wg at mail.gmail.com> you write:
>>>> http://www.google.com/patents/US20130254423
>>> 
>>> This is not a patent.  It is a patent application.  Most applications
>>> do not turn into patents, or at least not with all of the claims
>>> included.
>>> 
>>> If you look at the claims, which are what matter, this is for a rather
>>> specific hack in a broadband router which assigns a v4 address on the
>>> fly when a DNS lookup from behind the router returns a result that
>>> suggests that v4 traffic will happen, presumably by returning an A
>>> record.
>>> 
>>> I can't imagine how anyone would misread this as a patent on IPv6.
>>> 
>>> R's,
>>> John
>>> 
>> 



More information about the NANOG mailing list