[ Thanks to Steven J.
Vaughan-Nichols for this link. ]
“Has Microsoft been trying to retroactively claim IP
(intellectual property) rights over many of the Internet’s basic
protocols? Larry J. Blunk, senior engineer for networking research
and development at Merit Network Inc., believes that might be the
case.“Blunk expressed these concerns about Microsoft’s Royalty Free
Protocol License Agreement in a recent note to the IETF’s
Intellectual Property Rights Working Group. Specifically, Blunk
suggested that Microsoft seemed to be claiming IP rights to many
vital Internet protocols. And by so doing, ‘Microsoft is injecting
a significant amount of unwarranted uncertainty and doubt regarding
non-Microsoft implementations of these protocols,’ Blunk
said…”