Managing Rights Management

AT&T and SonicWall Digital Fingerprinting Patents

New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital fingerprinting. Assigned to AT&T, the first patent addresses techniques for sharing timed fingerprint location information. Assigned to SonicWall, the second patent addresses techniques for image based spam blocking.

Pulselocker and Konica Minolta DRM Patents

New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital rights management. Assigned to Pulselocker, the first patent addresses techniques for limiting access to data by process or computer function with stateless encryption. Assigned to Konica Minolta, the second patent addresses techniques for digital rights management for emails and attachments.

Google and Dell Fingerprinting Patents

New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital fingerprinting. Assigned to Google, the first patent addresses techniques for broadcast audience interaction and participation. Assigned to Dell Software, the second patent addresses techniques for image based spam blocking.

Intertrust and Konica Minolta DRM Patents

New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital rights management. Assigned to Intertrust, the first of today's patents addresses techniques for protecting electronic content from the time it is packaged through the time it is experienced by an end user. Assigned to Konica Minolta Laboratories, the second patent addresses techniques for rights management integrated with email transmission of documents.

Morega Systems and NL Systems DRM Patents

New patents are issued on Tuesdays by the USPTO. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital rights management. Assigned to Morega Systems, the first patent addresses a client device with application state tracking and methods for use. Assigned to NL Systems, the second patent addresses techniques for transmission of digital content via e-mail with point of use digital rights management.

Verizon and Konica Minolta DRM Patent Applications

New pending patent applications are published on Thursdays. Both of today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of digital rights management. Assigned to Verizon, the first application discloses techniques for video content protection. Assigned to Konica Minolta, the second application discloses a rights management system and method integrated with email transmission of documents.

Intertrust Watermarking and TiVo Fingerprinting Patent Applications

Thursdays the PTO publishes new pending patent applications. Today's Spotlight Applications concern digital watermarking and digital fingerprinting. Assigned to Intertrust, the first application discloses trusted and secure techniques for item delivery and execution. Assigned to TiVo, the second application discloses techniques for interpreting messages, user-defined alert conditions, voice commands and performing an action in response.

Intertrust and Seagate DRM Patents

Tuesdays the PTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents deal with aspects of digital rights management. Assigned to Intertrust, the first patent concerns trusted and secure techniques for item delivery and execution. Assigned to Seagate, the second patent concerns techniques for anchor-point based digital rights management that provides for a posted move of one or more digital rights between two devices.

Motorola and Intertrust DRM Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications deal with aspects of digital rights management. Assigned to Motorola, the first application discloses DRM techniques for differing domain-size restrictions. Assigned to Intertrust, the second application discloses trusted and secure techniques for item delivery and execution.

Digimarc Watermarking and InterTrust DRM Patents;

On Tuesdays the USPTO publishes newly issued patents. Today's Spotlight patents address various aspects of DRM and watermarking. Assigned to Digimarc, the first patent concerns techniques for digital watermarking with variable orientation and protocols. Assigned to Intertrust, the second patent is another divisional (same specification, different claims) of the "item delivery" patent (one of mine).

Colligo and InterTrust Fingerprinting and Watermarking Patent Applications

On Thursdays, the USPTO publishes new patent applications. Today's Spotlight applications address the use of watermarking and fingerprinting. Assigned to Colligo Networks, the first application discloses techniques for codeword-enhanced P2P authentication. The second application is another divisional (same specification, different claims) of the InterTrust trusted and secure item delivery (including e-mail) application (one of mine).

"Content Envy" and Net Neutrality

Writing in the Computer Business Review Online, Kevin Murphy has a thoughtful and useful overview of the flap created by AOL's desire to charge bulk email senders as a way of cutting down on spam. Murphy's article points to the "dearAOL" site and signature campaign which is sponsored by EFF, MoveOn.org, and others. I have signed the letter and urge others to do so for the reasons stated by the dearAOL campaign.

AOL's actions are another in a series of steps being taken by large telecom companies to monetize the transmission of content. Much more pernicious is the the recent attempt by Verizon and others to charge large content companies for the priority delivery of media content. Such policies are a fundamental shift from a basic assumption of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), namely the assumption of "net neutrality": no packets are inherently more privileged than any others.

Net neutrality was one reason why the open Internet has grown at such a prodigious rate. As William Gibson wrote a long time ago, "the street finds a use for things" and net neutrality was one of the fundamental reasons why the "street" found and continues to find a plethora of uses for the net.

Verizon and others are abrogating net neutrality because they have discovered that the ISP business is a commodity business with  low margins. They suffer from "content envy."  They want the higher margins that content providers typical get.

Congress should intervene. Please contact your Representative and Senators and to urge them to  fight back against Verizon and others suffering from content envy and to preserve net neutrality.

ESS Taceo Added To Email DRM List

Essential Security Software's Taceo email product has been added to the right hand sidebar list under Email, DRM enabled. Taceo is focused on the numerically large small business market. Taceo is principally an Outlook plugin that can protect files in Microsoft Office and PDF format.

Sendmail Expands Parternships

Sendmail has announced that it has expanded its Platform Partnership Program to include solutions from Authentica, eleven, Feith and ZANTAZ.  Snippets:

Authentica Announces Improvements

Authentica has announced improvements in its Secure Email and Active Rights Management products. Snippets:

Liquid Machines Announcement

Liquid Machines has announced the general availability of its Document Control 5.0 DRM  and 3.0 Email control that extends Microsoft's Rights Management Services (RMS) on Windows Server 2003.  Snippets: