[p2p-hackers] network coding put to practical p2p content dist. use

[Jim McCoy]

On Jun 16, 2005, at 3:47 PM, Justin Cormack wrote:
>
> From the patent point of view, which were you thinking of? Do you  
> think it would be covered by the digital fountain patents (I havent  
> looked at their patents just the papers so I am not sure how they  
> are written).

While any useful erasure coding system would eventually run into the  
DF patents, I think Greg was referring to the oblique mention of a  
potential patent on the data verification process.  The problem with  
using rateless erasure codes in this case is that it becomes hard to  
verify the pieces that are being distributed, the only public (non- 
patented IIRC) method has a high computational cost.  The paper  
references a faster, simpler, and conveniently not disclosed method  
which I believe is what is going to end up in someone's IP portfolio...

Jim