Cointelegraph: Maidsafe founder seeks monopoly on distributed network system

It doesn’t really matter if she understands or not, but what spin it she can add to it.
It is like the Murphy’s law of journalism: if it can be misinterpreted, it will be misinterpreted.

It’s clear that Susanne did not have a great understanding patents or licensing and didn’t really want to take David’s points on board. Not everyone will agree with our strategy and that’s OK. I personally don’t see anything sinister in her presence, I suspect she is just trying to promote her own project and ideals.

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Very well said, Nick. Sinister is not a necessary ingredient. Thanks. That’s why you’re the boss! :wink:

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Logic’s our boss @fergish :wink:

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Hear hear

Site is called “cointelegraph,” sounds like one of their silly handles like a rif on COINTELPRO

co intel polygraph - cointelegraph

Its a condescension. You’ll be in some forum and there will be someone pushing illogical viewpoints trying to build consensus around betraying the public interest in order to shelter some for proft-it into doing the selfish or even self destructive thing because that’s what its end users supposedly want and that lobbyist type will have some nic like DragonRiderM so that other paid for players can easily see the score and collaborate.

It seems the the US stock market in particular needs loss leaders, and I’ve wondered if Gates and Welch and Jobs weren’t to an extent manufactured personalities to feed the guru worship that helps rally the market, the flip side of such personality creation would be vilification to fit the same meta narrative so its good to be very proactive. Another interpretation of this article might be that some people behind the scenes are whining because they see their swindles falling apart due to SAFE. This kind of smear article is a sign that SAFE is being taken seriously enough to scare some players.

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First to file makes defensive patents a necessity. If maidsafe don’t file them, someone else will and may then demand that maidsafe ceases delivery until an (impossible/costly) license is bought from them.

The system is farcical, but it is the current game which we must play. I am glad that maidsafe is not taking a risk on this one.

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Yes that is true, there is also the issue of a new tech with a load of inventions and having that at least reviewed, form that perspectives patents helped us to at least have the tech and any related tech dug up early on. So there is a lot to consider these days, patents like copyright have gone mad, but there probably needs to be something, unless we all just create very simple things. Crowdfunding changes a whole lot but still presenting a large proposition still requires some checking. We used patents and I spent nearly a year going around universities describing the system on whiteboards and at presentations and talks to professors and Phd students etc. Then of course the British computer Society Xmas lecture. So seeking professional critique and deep analysis was a driving force for me early on, otherwise professionals just scorn from afar.

So as well as defensive at least its something in terms of checking the designs and inventions. I am not saying the best, but the best we could get our hands on and I was prepared to go anywhere and speak to people who would be able to question us and would give us the 4 hours needed. Of course I must have done about 100 4 hour presentations each year for a very long time (several every week for many years and interestingly the 200ish smallish investors we have in MaidSafe 100% of them did invest, after seeing the presentation). So getting time was good for us and even technical people who came to evaluate the tech invested :slight_smile:

Professional VC’s however were completely rubbish, 50 min summary to describe an app for that mentality which fails for anything beyond and incremental advance in tech. It would have been good to get them to dive down and check the tech, but they are not built for that, they are for quick bucks and headlines :slight_smile:

Soon though patents and copyright will become irrelevant, I hope the sooner the better especially of they are used in an anti-competitive manner, which is the ‘monetisation’ of information that I detest so much. As you say though that is the game right now and we wont be caught with our pants down if we can help it. Its a terrible situation the world of IP is in right now, but we can only make it better and I am sure we will. Until then we will have the kevlar on whilst any bullets are flying.

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Bet you’re glad now that you didn’t interest any VCs.

The community is shaping up well, with most really tracking with and appreciating your vision of the project, and contributing our own, as well.

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@dirvine I love it when people present information with such a pure level of honesty and logic that any argument against it makes anything lacking those qualities immediately apparent. It is quite entertaining to watch. Funny like when my three year old creates these elaborate explanations to why I am wrong. The quick response alone of the editors/author amending the article speaks volumes to the power of truth.

Thank you for the years of careful planning and extensive effort to ensure a successful life of this movement. People don’t like change in general, but disrupting the core foundation of the status quo is going to evoke a visceral response for many. Your wise approach (Thoughtful, slow, selfless, cautious with reason and logic giving direction) is one I have been studying very close and I think anyone who has aspirations for developing their own disruptive innovation should consider the priceless education you and the MAIDSAFE team are providing. Thanks again!

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@chrisfostertv

Sorry, dont trust you Susanne…

Thanks for the background on Susanne, it’s useful to know, but I didn’t see anything wrong with her questions. In fact I think they are important to be asked, and answered.

David (@dirvine) tried repeatedly, and near the end I believe succeeded, but the Skype format - transmission delays and occasional corrupted audio - made this very difficult, with people frequently talking over each other as well as not waiting to listen properly to the responses/points.

Susanne seemed to realise David’s last couple of explanations did in fact address her concerns, whereas earlier I found it difficult to see myself. And this is why I think she asked to revisit this in a couple of weeks. I think that’s a good sign, and it did us all good to watch this and learn both why the patents are important and how to deal with what is a valid concern.

I agree it would be good to clarify this: the claims (as opposed to the text), the ownership, what can and can’t be done with the patents, what risks are real, and which are not etc. A shortish paper with a FAQ at the bottom should do it. Anyone want to have a go? If someone writes it, it would need much less of David’s time to tweak and reduce the need for 95 minute conference calls.

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Specifically
Description (called specification in the US and elsewhere)
A patent specification is a document describing the invention for which a patent is sought and setting out the scope of the protection of the patent.
Claims
The claims of a patent specification define the scope of protection of a patent granted by the patent. The claims describe the invention in a specific legal style, setting out the essential features of the invention in a manner to clearly define what will infringe the patent. Claims are often amended during prosecution to narrow or expand their scope.

There is a lot more to it, the recent, first to file is alarming in some ways. You can invent something, I see it and patent it, it’s mine now all mine and your up the creek and need to pay me. IT takes a while to get all the legalese and language sorted then it all changes per jurisdiction.

The bottom line, if somebody gets a patent on your invention or around it (the wheel thing I mentioned) then you are immediately screwed and cannot launch or you can never extend your design to include other stuff (as that is patented by somebody).

The thing is then the law can and will stop you trading or launching and anyone around you using it will also be in contravention of the law. That threat is probably enough to discourage rollout to anything but anarchists and incredibly motivated early adopters, but why risk that?

In terms of GPL and the differences with copyright and patents (the thing that was missed in the podcast) Note he does discuss the differences with software patents (OK in US not in UK or EU). Another important issues is we do not have software patents, we have patents on the inventions (self authentication etc. not how they are implemented) this is the umbrella protection I speak of. Also identifies some of the ‘submarine’ patents (hide them for ages then attack). This is where we win, we are granted in many patents covering a wide area (because nobody ever logged into a decentralised network before, so a brand new area and its covered, nobody gets in to attack users via patents). As I have said many times, the day we can destroy these then great, but we need to ensure we are well enough known to do that. This means the patents have been created no others can live in that space. But we may need to keep going like this until we defeat the whole patent thing.

Patent Debates (warning lots and lots of opinions, many US based, which is different from Europe significantly in patents in terms of what is an invention. In the US many ‘inventions’ have been software (banned in Europe) and also dna sequences (thankfully failed AFAIK), so from a US only perspective the debate is much more aligned with patents == complete evil and used only for evil). Disclaimer I have not watched all these vidoes

In terms of Dual license (make money from GPL, I think we have an idea :wink: ). This has been talked of in the forums

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I should say to be clear, that as we released code in GP3 and held the patent (now with foundation) we have effectively freely licensed it to the world (so no fee’s) and also it’s copyleft. The protections the patents we have offer is the beyond the current codebase and if we are continentally contributing then we are accepting GPL as well. So its a double protection. If others owned the patent (or licenses to the patents) and we did not have these then even the GPL code would be bust. This is why us doing GPL is good, it means there is zero doubt over the codebase and ability to use it. As the codebase extends (via GPL) the we creep closer towards the edges of the umbrella I speak of. Then we are all on our own in the patent mad world, but by then SAFE exists and we are all much much safer.

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In the US if you are first to invent something you can afterwards prove this, that you invented and then choose to file, while retaining many rights to what you did.

Though it is wildly different in Europe, @frabrunelle so well brought this to my attention not long ago.

So in the MaidSafe case, you must have filed first then built otherwise you’d get steamrolled by anyone and everyone. We’re so lucky that all is well.

Ought to think to this thread on coin telegraph :wink:

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Dallyshalla, thats not true anymore.

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Yes, though the patent is published on August 16, 2012 + continuation from 2007 :wink:

@kirkion

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Yip nearly all this was constructed and designed in 2007 so kinda hard to copy bitcoin :slight_smile: Anyway protections in place for what they are worth, if this was all we would be weak, the company structure and much more provides greater protection (foundation, pods, open communications, simplifying code to easily readable and all the work you guys do, lectures and all). We can show folks a great way to protect stuff and its all done with openness and complete transparency, not fancy presentations marketing and playing to the good stuff. Its warts and all openness that wins the day, hard, yes, worth it, absolutely.

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I’m speaking to another journalist from Coin Telegraph tomorrow, so we should have the opportunity to get our side across.

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The parallels may be limited but with Perlman part of it included attacking the IP in the press and then smearing the public persona. Part of this from what I could tell was claiming a shill had equivalent tech. Then a big media tech firm came along and bought the shill under less than transparent conditions. It was the media firm that was most threatened.

I see MaidSAFE as being like a good virus or fire that cant be put out. Once out they can spew as much IP FOB as they want, it wont stop it from spreading.

Well it fits that Susanne is a Transhumanist

She has done incredible things at such a tender age, I guess being based out of washington DC has afforded her the opportunity to

work as a contractor for the most powerful government I could find, the US Government.

She

spent nearly 7 years working as a contractor in various conflict zones, from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to Egypt and Libya — assisting with building and overthrowing governments
The civil war in Libya was quite a wake up call.

Yeah especially when they had a central bank in a laptop ready to rollout in hours.

I got into Transhumanism through Biohacking. I operated in a magnet in one of my fingers, to see what it would be like. I posted the photos of the operation on Facebook which got me a lot of attention from the Transhumanist community, so I started to look deeper into all things connected with Transhumanism, and really fell in love with the field. I guess being able to to control your destiny, through cryonics, downloading brains, modifying the body, etc is the ultimate frontier for liberty, once the violent global oligopoly on governance is gone. Immortality!

Ralph Merkle invented some of the core mathematics (Merkle trees) used in bitcoin and is a transhumanist who also has done a lot of work in nanotechnology.

Nice one Ralph