[p2p-hackers] Altnet goes after p2p networks with obvious patent

[Ian Clarke]

http://p2pnet.net/story/3512

It seems that Altnet is finally going after file sharing networks with 
its laughably obvious patent on requesting files by a hash of the 
file's contents (fortunately Freenet's developers are predominantly 
European, and thus are largely immune to this).

IIRC this patent was filed in 1997.  I think it is very important that 
those attacked challenge this patent head-on, either by claiming it is 
invalid due to being obvious, or finding prior art.

I vaguely recall the last time I researched this that there was prior 
art from as early as 1990, I think it was Project Xanadu 
(http://xanadu.com/).

Can anyone provide specific pointers to good examples of prior art?  If 
Altnet succeeds in extorting any money out of these P2P companies it 
will only serve to encourage them to attack others.

Ian.

--
Founder, The Freenet Project	http://freenetproject.org/
CEO, Cematics Ltd				http://cematics.com/
Personal Blog					http://locut.us/~ian/blog/