

Microsoft patents lawful intercept on Skype - pastr
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&p=1&S1=20110153809&OS=20110153809&RS=20110153809

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johnohara
C'mon, you don't honestly believe in 2012 that a conversation held over public
networks using free software that embeds itself in every browser on your
machine, watches your searches, automatically talks to the mothership every
night, and keeps real-time track of your contacts, is actually private do you?

How do you think Free got to be worth so much?

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superuser2
By charging for Not Free services like multiuser video calling and providing
extremely competitive long distance calls on the PSTN.

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Maven911
I feel the need to state what is probably already obvious to the HN crowd:
Microsoft did not invent the idea of lawful interception. It is used in full
force for both fixed and mobile networks, and select government agencies can
call carriers to get records and do live wire tapping.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception>

Microsoft's premise is that the techniques used for VoIP are different then
traditional lawful interception, but I don't think anything described in the
patent is non-obvious. Nonetheless, they will probably get it awarded, as more
then 50% of patent applications do (forgot where I got the statistic from),
and even more when its from large tech corporations that have dedicated in-
house patent lawyers filing the patent applications.

When you think about it, the USPTO gets money from awarding patents and
collects yearly fees through the 20-year life of a patent, and the army of
patent examiners they have on staff do not come cheap (starting salaries range
from 52-79k), and for the most part they are self-funded and do not rely on
U.S. Congress money - so there is every incentive in the system for them to
award every patent applied for.

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WildUtah
Patent examiner salaries are 52-79k? In Washington, D.C., the most highly paid
metro area in the USA?

No wonder they can't manage to hire engineers who know any of the many
technologies that have been around for decades and still get repeatedly
patented every week. That's as bad as the continuing prohibition on admitting
computer engineers and software engineers to the patent bar while software
becomes an ever larger fraction of the case load.

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dogofthunder
Not to be confrontational, but where do you see that there is a "prohibition
on admitting computer engineers and software engineers" to the patent bar? I
have a CS degree, and work with plenty of others with software experience or
computer engineering/software degrees, all of whom are admitted to the patent
bar.

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WildUtah
Last I checked there was a list of eligible engineering degrees and software
engineering was not on the list.

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abcd_f
Skype and Microsoft aside - what is there to patent to begin with? They
effectively describe mangling the call setup to make the call go through a
recording agent. This is _obnoxiously_ trivial.

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redcircle
Someone found a way to bypass the PR dept to let you know that Microsoft's IM
networks support lawful intercept (and that company policy supports this).

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cynwoody
Yes, once this one is issued, Microsoft's competitors, both proprietary and
free will be proud to proclaim Microsoft has a patent on lack of security!

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dogofthunder
Extremely important to note: this is a patent application, not a patent. That
is to say, this has no legal effect, Microsoft cannot use the patent
application to sue anybody, etc. etc. Also, the claims (which are the heart of
any granted patent) are likely to change before this gets issued as an
enforceable patent.

standard disclaimer: this does post does not constitute legal advice.

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cynwoody
Patenting the man-in-the-middle attack ought to mark the end of software and
business method patents. It's (1) obvious, (2) been done, and (3) making hacks
patentable ought to be contrary to public policy.

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mellifluousmind
I don't think this patent was specifically targeting Skype. If you search for
the keyword Skype, it actually says that the method may or may not work for
VOIP applications.

Besides, the patent was filed back in 2009, long before Microsoft acquisition
in Skype.

