IETF deals Microsoft's e-mail proposal a setback

Those criticisms registered with MARID members, as well. In a message posted to an internal discussion list for the group, MARID co-chairman Andrew Newton wrote that the questions about Microsoft's unpublished patent claims in Sender ID could not be ignored and that the group would have to look at alternatives to the Microsoft algorithms for doing PRA checks.

Given the potentially broad coverage of Microsoft's intended patent claims, Newton also said that MARID should not waste time researching alternatives that might be covered by Microsoft's claims, leaving it to the courts to sort out what is and isn't Microsoft's property, he said.

In its statement, Microsoft said that the Sender ID framework has essentially been accepted, and that MARID's decision only means there will be "an alternative spoof checking mechanism to the proposed PRA check."

"While we would have preferred a single technical mechanism as the standard, we believe this proposal to allow multiple scopes in the protocol is a reasonable approach to provide additional choice and flexibility," Microsoft said in the statement.

Meng Weng Wong backs the IETF decision, saying the patent threat was too big an unknown to simply pass over.

"The IETF has to operate in the reality of today. Patents and the defense of patents are a reality and there's no way to get around that," Meng said.

However, with neither Microsoft nor the open source community likely to budge, the IETF is now caught between two ideologically opposed camps as it tries to find a technological fix for the spam epidemic, said Meng.

Meng said he warned Microsoft about the patent issue repeatedly in the last six months and that the company was aware of the potential conflict, but lacked a resolution.

"Microsoft is a business. The question is, whether what's good for Microsoft is good for the Internet," he said.

Still, Meng hopes that the dispute can be resolved.

"At end of day, we're on the same side and we're trying to solve the spam problem together. If we can't do that because people have shortsighted vision, then that would be a real tragedy," he said.