Here's the abstract: "A technique, specifically a method and apparatus that implements the method, which through a probabilistic classifier (370) and, for a given recipient, detects electronic mail (e-mail) messages, in an incoming message stream, which that recipient is likely to consider "junk". Specifically, the invention discriminates message content for that recipient, through a probabilistic classifier (e.g., a support vector machine) trained on prior content classifications. Through a resulting quantitative probability measure, i.e., an output confidence level, produced by the classifier for each message and subsequently compared against a predefined threshold, that message is classified as either, e.g., spam or legitimate mail, and, e.g., then stored in a corresponding folder (223, 227) for subsequent retrieval by and display to the recipient. Based on the probability measure, the message can alternatively be classified into one of a number of different folders, depicted in a pre-defined visually distinctive manner or simply discarded in its entirety. "
1. POPFile was not designed for the sorting of spam from legitimate mail it is a general email classification system.
2. I believe the patent to be invalid because of the ifile system being prior art. ifile dates back to at least 1996 while the patent has the date June 23, 1998 on it. The patent does not acknowledge ifile's existence. Evidence of ifile being prior art can be found in the ifile change log http://www.nongnu.org/ifile/ChangeLog and the original README (http://www.nongnu.org/ifile/old/README-0.1A) which shows the date: Released Sat Aug 3 20:49:01 EDT 1996
3. If Microsoft were to sue me and win I would be happy to pay them every penny that I have made from POPFile ($0.00) :-)
John.
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I am not from MS... I posted the message because I was working on a NN based spam filter for my company and we had to change it to a feedforward network due to this patent... We also tried a SVM, but BellLabs owns the patent to that one...
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I was wondering if what Popfile does could be turned into a Internet RFC. If it could then it would be nearly imposible for somebody in the future to patent it's technique. Since RFC information is public domain it couldn't be patented.
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Correct yourself, John. GPL != Public Domain. If POPFile is in the Public Domain, then you have given up all copyright protection to the program. (THat would mean Microsoft [or anyone else] could come along and take it, incorporate it into another product, and sell it commercially, and you would get nothing.
-Paul
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OK. IANAL so I'll assume that you are right about the definitions of these terms.
Here's the definitive statement: POPFile is released under the GPL. I don't care if Microsoft comes along, takes it, incorporates it in a product and sells it for $1000 as long as they follow the GPL. And I don't care about getting any money out of POPFile.
John.
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I had another thought about this patent issue... if Microsoft were to hit POPFile with the patent and win then I'd rewrite POPFile from scratch and post it on a web site outside of the US so that it was outside the reach of US IP law.
John.
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POPFile does a great job... but how does it not infringe on US Patent# 6,161,130 (held by Microsoft)?
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ft00&s1='Naive+Bayesian'&s2=spam&OS="Naive+Bayesian"+AND+spam&RS="Naive+Bayesian"+AND+spam
IANAL but...
Here's the abstract: "A technique, specifically a method and apparatus that implements the method, which through a probabilistic classifier (370) and, for a given recipient, detects electronic mail (e-mail) messages, in an incoming message stream, which that recipient is likely to consider "junk". Specifically, the invention discriminates message content for that recipient, through a probabilistic classifier (e.g., a support vector machine) trained on prior content classifications. Through a resulting quantitative probability measure, i.e., an output confidence level, produced by the classifier for each message and subsequently compared against a predefined threshold, that message is classified as either, e.g., spam or legitimate mail, and, e.g., then stored in a corresponding folder (223, 227) for subsequent retrieval by and display to the recipient. Based on the probability measure, the message can alternatively be classified into one of a number of different folders, depicted in a pre-defined visually distinctive manner or simply discarded in its entirety. "
1. POPFile was not designed for the sorting of spam from legitimate mail it is a general email classification system.
2. I believe the patent to be invalid because of the ifile system being prior art. ifile dates back to at least 1996 while the patent has the date June 23, 1998 on it. The patent does not acknowledge ifile's existence. Evidence of ifile being prior art can be found in the ifile change log http://www.nongnu.org/ifile/ChangeLog and the original README (http://www.nongnu.org/ifile/old/README-0.1A) which shows the date: Released Sat Aug 3 20:49:01 EDT 1996
3. If Microsoft were to sue me and win I would be happy to pay them every penny that I have made from POPFile ($0.00) :-)
John.
BTW. If Microsoft makes an attempt to enforce this patent against POPFile you *will* hear about it here and I will go to court to fight them.
John.
Thanks John, for easing my mind on this.
I envisioned getting completely dependent on POPFile (ok, well, I already am...), and then big ol' Microsoft stomping it out of existence :)
Even if they were to somehow enforce the patent, they couldn't remove Popfile from my computer. ;-)
Nah, they could't remove it from your computer ... at least until you start using their Palladium platform ...
I wonder if anyone has patented breathing yet? Imagine the royalties... say $0.000001/minute multiply that out per person on the planet heh....
Bill? Bill Gates is that you? Posting as 'nobody' again...? You had us all going there for a minute, especially John...
"nobody" you must be very smart to have had the initiative to go and search for the patent or do you have them all memorized?
I don't think Microsoft wants to be seen as taking on the 'little guy' any time soon, even if there are any bases for doing so.
I am very happy with this scrip that sorts out text by using Bayes Theorem...
This is as bad as the patent for the E-commerce model
You can <a href="http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatents.html">never be too careful</a>.
:P
I am not from MS... I posted the message because I was working on a NN based spam filter for my company and we had to change it to a feedforward network due to this patent... We also tried a SVM, but BellLabs owns the patent to that one...
So are you saying that Microsoft decided to enforce the patent against your company or did you just decide to change to avoid any problem?
The Microsoft patent also talks about SVMs.
John.
I was wondering if what Popfile does could be turned into a Internet RFC. If it could then it would be nearly imposible for somebody in the future to patent it's technique. Since RFC information is public domain it couldn't be patented.
POPFile is already in the public domain. It's available on this web site and is under the GPL.
I would like to write up the X-Text-Classification: header as an RFC. Any takers?
John.
Correct yourself, John. GPL != Public Domain. If POPFile is in the Public Domain, then you have given up all copyright protection to the program. (THat would mean Microsoft [or anyone else] could come along and take it, incorporate it into another product, and sell it commercially, and you would get nothing.
-Paul
OK. IANAL so I'll assume that you are right about the definitions of these terms.
Here's the definitive statement: POPFile is released under the GPL. I don't care if Microsoft comes along, takes it, incorporates it in a product and sells it for $1000 as long as they follow the GPL. And I don't care about getting any money out of POPFile.
John.
I had another thought about this patent issue... if Microsoft were to hit POPFile with the patent and win then I'd rewrite POPFile from scratch and post it on a web site outside of the US so that it was outside the reach of US IP law.
John.
We decided to change our implementation to avoid issues... MS never tried to enforce.
I will be at the SpamConference if you want more info...
Love to get more info at the SpamConference
John.