[ih] patents and public stewardship

[Vint Cerf]

GOSIP was Government OSI Profile

v


On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 3:35 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Looking at the world from the other end of the spectrum from the
> corporate/government...
>
> Today, if an engineer invents something, and wants to make some money
> from that invention or even give it away for general public benefit, how
> would you accomplish that?
>
>  From my admittedly anecdotal experience over about 2 years of patent
> battle, it seemed to me that the only way to participate in the patent
> system is to be a very large corporation, or at least an individual with
> deep pockets able to withstand the possible years or decades of battle
> in the system.
>
> In addition, it seemed that there was no individual or organization
> inside "the system" that had any incentive to ever resolve a patent
> dispute, except of course the litigants.  Patent lawyers, judges, PTO
> examiners, experts, legal clerks, corporate patent departments, et al
> have job security as long as the battles rage on.
>
> Getting back to internet history...
>
> I was surprised when I discovered the networking patent that DCEC had
> secured, and arranged for it to be freely usable by anyone. Then it
> occurred to me that perhaps their work was part of some larger plan.  It
> meshed in nicely with other events of the day (1980s).  For example,
> NIST had created a TCP testing program, DoD had changed its procurement
> policies to require TCP to be implemented in all its relevant purchases,
> ARPA had spent considerable funds creating implementations of TCP and
> making them freely available and, unlike OSI, making all the related
> documentation free for public use.   DCA had orchestrated a complex
> migration of its installed base from Arpanet (NCP) to Internet (TCP).
> Probably there were other such actions that I don't remember or never
> knew about at the time.
>
> Was all that effort across many different organizations planned and
> coordinated?
>
> Governments are good at making plans, generating documents, and
> establishing policies.  Back in the 80s, there was a significant US
> program called "GOSIP", which I think stood for "Government OSI Plan".
> It laid out the plan for conversion of the US government communications
> from a melange of technologies, including the 'TCP Experiment", into a
> new communications architecture based on OSI.
>
> That of course never happened.   TCP won.  But was there some "GIP", or
> "Government Internet Plan" that drove all of the decisions made within
> organizations such as ARPA, DoD, NIST, NSF, et al and acted as a "Plan
> B" to the GOSIP vision?  Or was all of that just coincidental decisions
> by various people inside parts of the US government?
>
> There's a lot of historical record of the development of technology -
> protocols etc., but I haven't stumbled across much concerning the
> "people behind the curtain" making the Internet happen.   For example,
> was the DCEC effort to secure patents on some Internet-related
> technology a result of some DoD directive?   Or was it just that someone
> (Ed Cain?  Bob Lyons?) that just decided it was a good idea and did it
> "under the radar"?
>
> Now that the Internet long ago grew beyond its role as a DoD Experiment,
> I wouldn't expect pieces of DoD (such as DCEC) to be responsible for
> "making the Internet happen".   It's a global and international task
> now.  But who inherited the role to make the Internet happen?
>
> Jack Haverty
>
>
> On 2/4/24 10:01, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> > Bob, the PTO supports non-profits like the National Science and
> Technology
> > Medals Foundation so at least some of that income is being re-injected
> into
> > worthy causes.
> >
> > v
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 12:47 PM Bob Purvy<bpurvy at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >
> >> Only one comment, which not everyone realizes:
> >>
> >> *" Santa Claus giving away free resources for public benefit, **
> >>
> >> The PTO runs at a huge profit, giving away (usually) worthless pieces of
> >> paper. It's not allowed to keep that money and use it to improve patent
> >> quality, hire more examiners, or do anything valuable. Instead, it just
> >> flows straight to the Treasury.
> >>
> >> This is 10+ year old information, so it's possible it's out of date.
> >>
> >> *Finally, another reminder: There's a bill in the Senate
> >> <
> https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/2140/text#:~:text=Introduced%20in%20Senate%20(06%2F22%2F2023)&text=To%20amend%20title%2035%2C%20United,eligibility%2C%20and%20for%20other%20purposes
> .>that
> >> would undo the modest progress that CLS Bank v. Alice made towards
> getting
> >> rid of software patents. Write your Senator and ask any Senate
> candidates
> >> to oppose it.*
> >>
> >> On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 9:12 AM John Gilmore via Internet-history <
> >> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The conflict of interest between public stewards of resources that
> >>> should be public, versus the private self-interest of the people
> >>> involved in that stewardship, is ancient and ongoing.  In the Internet
> >>> community it is visible everywhere, from the IETF vs. vendors, to ISOC
> >>> vs. foo.org users, to the ICANN's secretariat, lawyers, sinecure jobs,
> >>> and junkets.  As well as in people trying to tilt the patent and
> >>> copyright laws in courts and in Congress to favor themselves.  And in
> >>> the operation of the US Congress itself.  Google spends billions to
> >>> pitch itself so the public thinks of it as Santa Claus giving away free
> >>> resources for public benefit, while making tens of billions for itself.
> >>>
> >>> What was that quote about if you like sausage, don't look inside a
> >>> sausage factory?
> >>>
> >>> Tom Lehrer made great songs, and releasing them for the public domain
> in
> >>> his later life was a good move that will help his legacy stay alive
> >>> after he's gone.  The US copyright system used to do this automatically
> >>> after 28 years, back when it was structured to benefit the public.
> >>>
> >>> Vint Cerf via Internet-history<internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> wrote:
> >>>> Thanks Karl, that's helpful. I like your idea for ISOC - a service
> that
> >>>> they could be compensated for doing.
> >>> There are other places such as the Software Freedom Conservancy that
> >>> hold patents and copyrights for free software projects that don't have
> >>> their own nonprofit infrastructure.
> >>>
> >>> In general it's better to have dozens of such places.  If one place
> >>> accumulates a critical mass of valuable intellectual property, it will
> >>> end up attacked, perhaps sneakily, to obtain control of it and then use
> >>> that monopoly to make money unjustly.  If there are dozens, and one
> >>> becomes incompetent or self-interested, the whole world won't get
> >>> affected, just a little corner of it.
> >>>
> >>>>                                        As you know, ISOC has a
> challenge
> >>>> demonstrating the level of public support it has (the so-called IRS
> >>> Public
> >>>> Support Test) that requires it to show that at least 1/3 of its income
> >>>> comes from a broad range of public sources. They can only count a
> >>> fraction
> >>>> of the PIR income as "public".
> >>> The Internet Society used its pull with ICANN to get tens of millions
> of
> >>> dollars a year for doing nothing (by getting the monopoly on .org).
> >>> Various people have various opinions on whether that was a good thing.
> >>> (I was on the ISOC Board a bit before that, and like many nonprofits,
> >>> raising funding for ISOC was always a challenge, until then.)
> >>>
> >>> Hearing a complaint about how that large flow of money from overpriced
> >>> .org domains makes it hard for them to stay a legal nonprofit (*) would
> >>> be amusing, except for what happened in between.
> >>>
> >>> ISOC tried to sell that monopoly for a billion dollars to a
> >>> private-equity player (in concert with a couple of high-level people
> who
> >>> had bolted from the ICANN monopoly to make a killing for themselves).
> >>> The only credible plan to make back the billion for the investor was to
> >>> then jack up the prices of .org domains for every nonprofit in the
> >>> world.  It took a large effort, led by people with .org domains
> >>> (including EFF.org) who didn't want to suffer so ISOC could profit, to
> >>> derail that plan.  Ultimately, self-interest scrutiny by the California
> >>> attorney general's office that regulates nonprofits (including ICANN
> >>> itself) borked the deal.  See:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Registry#Proposed_sale_of_the_Public_Interest_Registry
> >>>
> >>> If I had valuable intellectual property to preserve for the freedom
> >>> and benefit of the Internet community, I would recommend choosing
> >>> its steward wisely, rather than defaulting to giving it to ISOC.
> >>>
> >>>          John
> >>>
> >>> PS: (*) I'm on the board of ARDC.net, a small nonprofit which got a
> >>> $100M windfall from the ham-radio 44/8.  We couldn't honestly claim at
> >>> that point that the public was our source of support.  We became a
> >>> private foundation rather than try to continue as a 501(c)(3) public
> >>> charity.  ISOC could do the same.  Or, ISOC could price .org domains
> >>> more cheaply, rather than raking off a big premium for its own
> >>> self-interest, at which point the money flow from PIR would lessen.
> >>> Once it was less than twice as much as what ISOC collects as general
> >>> public support, their public-charity status would be secure.  Wouldn't
> >>> that be a great outcome?
> >>> --
> >>> Internet-history mailing list
> >>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >>>
> >
>
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


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