P3P-Patent

[Johannes Ulbricht <Johannes_Ulbricht@csi.com>]

Also, ich denke es ist unter keinem Gesichtspunkt vertretbar, dass 
Standards wie P3P patentierbar sind. Da ist doch nix Technik bei, nur 
soziale Organisation.

IP-Newswire vom EU-Webserver: Patent Controversy and Privacy Protocols

The controversy over patent awards in the US continues, this time centred
on the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), developed under the
auspices of The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a voluntary group
dedicated to the setting of standards for the network. Intermind, one of
the participants in this technical solution to privacy concerns, was
recently granted a patent on a key part of the implementation, to the
chagrin of the W3C.

As such standards enjoy wide implementation, they potentially present
lucrative licensing revenue for a company with a proprietary holding.

The W3C have thus appealed to the network community to assist in the
search for prior art which could invalidate the patent. A precedent exists
in the successful opposition by Netscape/Mozilla to a Wang patent on
browser technologies last year; in an exhaustive search, hundreds of
examples of prior use were uncovered.

P3P is a protocol which allows communication between a user's browser and
a web-site, and can verify whether the site has a privacy policy
consistent with the user's preference, negotiating alternatives where
conflicts arise, and the customisation of transaction information on a
site specific basis. Noteworthy in this regard is the possibility to
tailor privacy practices to accommodate jurisdictional variations in legal
rules, such as those between the USA and the EU in connection with Data
Protection.

Related links:
Intermind Patent Background:
http://www.w3.org/1999/04/P3P-PatentBackground.html
Intermind Patent via esp@cenet:
http://dips-2.dips.org/dips/viewer?PN=US5862325&CY=ep&LG=en&DB=EPD
Wang v. Netscape: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/12161.html