more unfriendly behavior by Mailblocks

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Ray Everett-Church <ray () everett org>
Reply-To: ray () everett org
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2003 15:25:08 -0800
To: dave () farber net, declan () well com
Subject: more unfriendly behavior by Mailblocks

(For IP and Politech)

And the hits keep on coming...

=========

Spam foe needs filter of himself
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5565843.htm
By Mike Langberg
Mercury News

Phil Goldman, a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur and co-founder of
WebTV, wants to become a leader in the war against spam, but he's begun
by attacking his coalition partners rather than the enemy.

Last year, Goldman purchased a questionable patent that he claims gives
his new company -- Mailblocks of Los Altos -- exclusive rights to an
established anti-spam strategy called challenge/response.

He's sued three anti-spam companies and is making demands that would, in
effect, put at least one of them out of business. Talks are under way
with more companies, which could also face suits if they don't agree to
Mailblocks' demands.

This is not how the system is supposed to work.

Anti-spam companies should be devoting all their resources to stopping
the oceans of unwanted messages that threaten to drown everyone who uses
electronic mail, not diverting thousands of dollars to defend themselves
against unnecessary lawsuits.

The story begins last summer when Goldman had a great idea: Stop spam by
erecting a barrier. If you send me an e-mail and I've never corresponded
with you before, you get an automated reply that says something like,
``Click here to verify that you're a real person and your original
message will be delivered.''

Spammers often use fake return addresses, and rarely bother to check for
replies when they use real addresses, so the technique -- called
challenge/response -- is almost 100 percent effective in blocking spam.

Goldman, who's worked at Apple Computer and General Magic, struck it
rich when he and two partners started WebTV, then sold the unprofitable
start-up to Microsoft in 1997 for a staggering $425 million.

After working at Microsoft for several years, Goldman -- a software
developer who has authored 19 patents and has 30 more pending -- struck
out on his own and thought of challenge/response. He prepared a patent
application without realizing companies were already selling
challenge/response anti-spam software.

When Goldman finally made a search, he discovered two U.S. relevant
patents: No. 6,199,102 by Christopher Alan Cobb, filed in August 1997
and granted in March 2001; and No. 6,112,227 by Jeffrey Nelson Heiner,
filed in August 1998 and granted in August 2000.

Goldman bought Cobb's patent -- the more important of the two, because
it was filed first -- last summer. ``I paid him a lot of money,''
Goldman said Friday. ``It's one of the largest expenses that we (at
Mailblocks) have.''

Heiner got acquired in total: He now works for Mailblocks and has
assigned rights for his patent to the company.

In October, Mailblocks sent vague, non-threatening letters to other
anti-spam companies that use challenge/response.

Stretching the bounds of legal etiquette, Mailblocks then filed suit in
January against three companies without first giving them any further
written warning: DigiPortal Software of Sanford, Fla., which operates a
service called ChoiceMail; MailFrontier of Palo Alto, which offers
Matador; and Spam Arrest of Seattle.

All of this happened before Mailblock signed up its first customer; the
company didn't open for business until March 24.

The suits against DigiPortal and MailFrontier are on hold, apparently
because negotiations are under way, but Mailblocks is seeking a
preliminary injunction against Spam Arrest and the two parties are
scheduled to submit written arguments next week.

Spam Arrest isn't a corporate giant; the company has only five
employees. It started selling challenge/response anti-spam software in
May, weeks before the light bulb went off in Goldman's head.

``He's not helping the cause of stopping unsolicited commercial
e-mail,'' said Derek A. Newman, a Seattle lawyer representing Spam
Arrest. ``He's just looking to make a buck.''

Newman promises to ``kill those patents.'' The concept of
challenge/response, he insists, was around long before Cobb's 1997
patent application -- grounds for a judge to declare the patent invalid.

Goldman says he's willing to license the Cobb and Heiner patents on
reasonable terms. But, when pressed, he admits he won't license to any
company that wants to offer challenge/response directly to consumers, as
Spam Arrest does.

I don't claim to be an expert on patent law, so I don't know if
Goldman's patents are technically defensible. But I hope they are ruled
invalid.

The patent system was created to reward individual inventors for their
inspiration, not to give Silicon Valley millionaires a club to pound on
small competitors. Goldman is within his legal rights to do what he's
doing, but that doesn't make his actions ethical or appropriate.

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