Re: IBM patents tunneling HTTP through another protocal

In a message dated 6/5/98 11:43:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
sean.mcdermott@fmr.com writes:

> > > hmm..
>  > >  Wouldnt a prior work be tunneling HTTP through SSL, as
>  > >  originated by Netscape ?
>  > >  This is how https works...
 
>  > Protocol tunnels have been used for at least twenty
>  > years.  Hard to believe IBM's develop is non-obvious
>  > to someone skilled in the art or that it constitutes a
>  > new combination of old ideas.
  
>  But the patent seems only to apply to:
>  "a method of increasing the performance"
  
>  Protocol tunnels for security/routing reasons wouldn't be
>  applicable here.
  
>  I guess tunnelling over SSL doesn't apply since there is
>  certainly no performance enhancement.
  
>  To prove a prior work you need to find an example of
>  tunnelling over a protocol which dynamically compresses??
>  Does AppleTalk compress?
  
>  Obviously there are other ways to increase the performance
>  other than compress - to use a different protocol than TCP/IP..

>  Anyway, is it true to say, if any performance improvements
>  are introduced *into* the HTTP standard, this patent doesn't
>  apply?

Tunneling IPX over IP being compressed onto a WAN like
sounds hardly different.  If I am not mistaken, Cisco brouters,
ACC brouters and <A HREF="http://members.aol.com/Telford001/">TTT's own VLAN
Router</A> have such capabilities.

Joachim Martillo

Received on Friday, 5 June 1998 09:16:13 UTC