Decius wrote:
Intellectual Property laws are again being abused to silence security research. Patents do not cover presentations of technical information. They are a matter of public record. You can look them up online. Patents cover products. This claim is totally frivolous and the company fronting it is, I presume, betting yet again that the victim doesn't have the economic resources to defend himself. The worst part is that they have the audacity to accuse the researcher of being irresponsible. These issues are well understood. What is irresponsible is the willful malpractice of law in the pursuit of a loophole around the first amendment.

I haven't read more than the headlines about this, but there is a possibility that HID is correct. Patents can cover processes as well as features. You are correct that whatever the process is should be available to the public through the patent process. However, the patent doesn't necessarily cover every detail of the process and there may be some proprietary steps that are purposefully omitted, even though the process itself is protected.

I agree that this whole system is ridiculous and has been abused to the hilt for the last decade. I strongly believe that information should be as close to free as you can possibly make it, and IP as it's currently handled is on the other end of the spectrum from this. If you really want to put the afterburners on innovation which is what drives the economy, then you want researchers and entrepreneurs to be able to use these building blocks to extend and recombine. The way things are practiced now is just an excuse to perpetuate corporate attorneys.