[p2p-hackers] Altnet Patent

[Susheel Daswani]

Hey Folks,
I'm not sure how everyone is handling the Altnet patent threat, but in
my studies I've come across some salient points regarding patent
infringement:

"For an accused product to literally infringe a patent, EVERY element
contained in the patent claim must also be present in the accused
product or device.  If a claimed apparatus has five parts, or
'elements', and the allegedly infringing apparatus has only four of
those five, it does not literally infringe.  This is true even though
the defendant may have copied the four elements exactly, and
regardless of how significant or insignificant the missing element
is."
'Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age', 3rd Edition, page 230

This may already be known, but I thought I'd put it out there.
So everyone should analyse their hashing systems to see how they
compare to Altnet's patent elements.  If you don't do everything they
do, you can ignore their dinky letter :).  I'm going to analyse their
claims soon and compare to the systems I know.

Some more interesting information, which is probably obvious:
"[I]t does not matter [if] a defendant has ADDED several new elements
-- adding new features cannot help a defendant escape infringement."

Susheel