[121504] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Patents, IETF and Network Operators
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Shane Ronan)
Thu Jan 21 12:33:25 2010
From: Shane Ronan <sronan@fattoc.com>
To: Abhishek Verma <abhishekv.verma@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <ce8d90331001210735g1bc73f9et1f968675faef6959@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:32:44 -0500
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
The real question is why Patent something?
The reality is even if you patent any idea/feature, other vendors will
come out with a similar (although not patent infringing) version of
the same idea/feature. While you might get a short term jump on other
vendors, if the idea is really good, everyone else will catch up
quickly. Further, customers REALLY like inter-op, I know for one I
don't use protocols from vendors that aren't "standard"
On Jan 21, 2010, at 10:35 AM, Abhishek Verma wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Network Ops folks use the IETF standards for their operations. I see
> lot of nifty things coming out from the IETF stable and i was
> wondering why those dont get patented? Why bother releasing some
> really good idea to IETF (i.e. open standards bodies) when the vendor
> could have patented it. The network operators can still use it as long
> as they are using that vendor's equipment. I understand that interop
> can be an issue, since it will be a patented technology, but it will
> always work between the boxes from the same vendor. If so, then whats
> the issue?
>
> Is interop the only issue because of which most ideas get released
> into IETF? I guess interop is *an* issue since nobody wants a single
> vendor network.
>
> Thanks,
> Abhishek
>
