Excuse this top posting.
A reminder.
1. The purpose of the Abstract of a U.S. patent is to provide search terms.
It has no other value.
2. The scope of the patent is determined by the Claims as interpreted by the
Specification and, possibly, by the prosecution history.
3. Patent applications that are published before they are examined (and
allowed) have the same value as a publicly available published article.
There is no more reason to get excited about such applications than there is
about contributions to this mailing list. (This is in response to a later
posting.)
Jed Margolin
Not a patent attorney but then, I'm not charging you $350/hour either
=============================
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Wyman" <bob@wyman.us>
To: <asrg@ietf.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 11:56 AM
Subject: RE: [Asrg] US Spam patents: Partial list
> Another Spam patent... This one covers a system for charging people who
> send mail but are not on a whitelist of previously approved senders.
> See: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6587550
>
> United States Patent 6,587,550 Council , et al. July 1, 2003
>
> METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENABLING A FEE TO BE CHARGED TO A PARTY
> INITIATING AN ELECTRONIC MAIL COMMUNICATION WHEN THE PARTY IS NOT ON AN
> AUTHORIZATION LIST ASSOCIATED WITH THE PARTY TO WHOM THE COMMUNICATION
> IS DIRECTED
>
> Abstract
> A method and apparatus for determining whether a party sending an email
> communication is on a list of parties authorized by the intended
> receiving party. If the sending party is not on the list of authorized
> parties, an electronic billing agreement is emailed to the sending party
> indicating a fee that will be charged to the sending party in return for
> the message being provided to the intended receiving party. Preferably,
> the present invention is implemented with Internet communications and
> utilizes a security protocol to enable the electronic transaction to be
> transacted in a secure manner.
>
> Inventors: Council;
> Michael O. (186 Hurt Dr., Cordele, GA 31015);
> Santos; Daniel J. (3525 Roswell Rd., #721, Atlanta, GA 30305)
> Appl. No.: 783340
> Filed: February 14, 2001
>
>
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> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg
>
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