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

[Jim McCoy]

FWIW, at Electric Communities we were using hashes for identifying 
objects within a distributed network by early 1995 or so.  It was for 
identifying endpoints (object instances) and communication peers within 
the network as well as determine uniqueness of an object (and the 
lineage probably ties back to Xanadu as well...waaaay too many 
ex-Xanadu people at that company...)  Hits claims 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 
15 and 17 of the 1997 claim by Altnet.

Jim

On Jan 11, 2005, at 11:17 AM, Ian Clarke wrote:

> 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.