China backs off on WAPI standard

Grok Headline matches for China backs off on WAPI standard

China backs off of WAPI proposal.

China backs off of WAPI proposal. 04/21/2004 11:55 PM
EE Times: China backs off of WAPI proposal. I doubt WAPI has any technical advantage over 802.11i, so why standardize it?

China agrees to drop WAPI standard

China agrees to drop WAPI standard 04/22/2004 07:57 AM
The government of China has agreed to suspend indefinitely its proposed proprietary national standard for wireless LANs after objections from the U.S. government and IT vendors, U.S. and Chinese officials announced Wednesday.

U.S. Pressures China Over WAPI

U.S. Pressures China Over WAPI 03/06/2004 01:49 AM
Three big wigs in the Bush administration sent a letter to China's deputy prime ministers urging them to back off the plan to ban Wi-Fi gear that doesn't include a Chinese-made proprietary encryption standard: The letter came from Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick. Last year the Chinese government released its proprietary standard, known as WAPI, to a group of Chinese companies and said that any foreign company that wanted to sell Wi-Fi gear in China would have to work with those companies to include WAPI in the products. Foreign companies fear sharing their intellectual property with Chinese competitors and would prefer to use standard gear around the world to realize cost savings. This article points to Britain and the United States as nations that have set technical standards in a similar way but I'm hard pressed to come up with examples. Some U.S. cell carriers built networks based on CDMA, a standard created by Qualcomm, instead of the worldwide GSM standard but that choice was in no way dictated by the government and of course some other carriers here opted instead for GSM. European governments have dictated that operators there use GSM but GSM is a worldwide standard--there's no nation that insisted on a proprietary tweak to it within its borders. The story points to analysts who say that in requiring WAPI China is trying to take its turn as a standard-setter. But forcing companies to do something isn't the way standards are set. They're set by consensus among industry leaders and companies follow them by choice. In other news of pressure to the Chinese government over WAPI, Pat Gelsinger, the CTO of Intel, plans to meet with Chinese officials to talk about the requirement. Clearly the requirement would affect Intel which would have to alter its Centrio chips, for example, to accommodate for WAPI in order to sell products to the Chinese market....

China Drops WAPI Requirement

China Drops WAPI Requirement 04/21/2004 09:15 PM
China shelves its proprietary Wi-Fi security plan: It's good news for all chipmakers that China has apparently rescinded its June 1 deadline for all Wi-Fi equipment to include a Chinese proprietary security standard only available for inclusion by Chinese companies. This would have exposed international intellectual property to companies most interested in competing with those firms, and would have caused a fragmented world market. Richard Shim broke this story at News.com earlier today, and has an updated version will full details now. The deal came about in Washington, DC, as a result of joint trade talks with China. Neither story mentions that Chinese actions in regard to WAPI and related issues put it in conflict with its membership in the World Trade Organization, a group they had lobbied to join for some years and to which they were accepted with the backing of the U.S....

Despite shelving WAPI, China stands firm
on chip tax

Despite shelving WAPI, China stands firm
on chip tax 04/22/2004 09:21 AM
The fuss over China's plans to implement a national standard for wireless LANs (WLANs) came to a quiet end Wednesday during bilateral trade talks between U.S. and Chinese officials in Washington, D.C. But the outcome of the talks was far from being a complete victory for the U.S. side, which had raised several areas of concern.

China agrees to drop WAPI wireless sec
spec

China agrees to drop WAPI wireless sec
spec 04/22/2004 05:16 AM
First fruit of trade talks

Red Hat flagship backs Linux standard

Red Hat flagship backs Linux standard 12/11/2003 12:07 PM
ZDNet UK Dec 11 2003 10:44AM ET

Wi-Fi group backs brawnier security
standard

Wi-Fi group backs brawnier security
standard 09/01/2004 08:37 PM
CNET News.com Sep 2 2004 0:02AM GMT

Chirac backs China on Taiwan

Chirac backs China on Taiwan 01/27/2004 12:11 AM
French President Jacques Chirac backs visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao in his latest quarrel with Taiwan.

China implements new Wi-Fi security
standard

China implements new Wi-Fi security
standard 12/03/2003 02:57 AM
CNET Asia Dec 3 2003 1:46AM ET

China eyes EVD standard to replace DVDs

China eyes EVD standard to replace DVDs 11/19/2003 12:31 AM
Techfocus Nov 19 2003 0:05AM ET

China Releases Own WLAN Security
Standard

China Releases Own WLAN Security
Standard 12/10/2003 12:41 PM

Bluetooth pitched as national standard
for China

Bluetooth pitched as national standard
for China 03/22/2005 05:04 PM
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has made the core specifications of the Bluetooth short-range wireless networking technology available to a research institute overseen by China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) in a bid to have the technology made a national standard in China.

China ready to deploy own 3G mobile
phone standard

China ready to deploy own 3G mobile
phone standard 06/23/2004 11:37 PM
China Post Jun 24 2004 3:16AM GMT

China expected to announce national
Bluetooth standard soon

China expected to announce national
Bluetooth standard soon 03/19/2005 03:02 AM
Interfax Information Agency Mar 18 2005 3:31PM GMT

Report: China to deploy own
next-generation mobile phone standard

Report: China to deploy own
next-generation mobile phone standard 06/23/2004 11:07 AM
CNEWS Jun 23 2004 3:54PM GMT

Korea-China-Japan Reinforce Cooperation
in Next Generation Standard for Mobile
Communications

Korea-China-Japan Reinforce Cooperation
in Next Generation Standard for Mobile
Communications 03/25/2005 05:16 AM
Telecoms Korea Mar 25 2005 7:28AM GMT

Report: China ready to deploy own
next-generation mobile phone standard in
2005

Report: China ready to deploy own
next-generation mobile phone standard in
2005 06/22/2004 11:32 PM
San Francisco Chronicle Jun 23 2004 3:54AM GMT

Atheros on WAPI, 802.11n

Atheros on WAPI, 802.11n 02/01/2005 09:12 PM
Atheros talks about WAPI, 802.11N, and standards: Atheros recently announced that they would be the Wi-Fi chip supplier for Lenovo, the Chinese firm that plans to take over IBM's personal computer division. While that takeover may be temporarily held up due to politicking, it's still likely to go through, and gives Atheros a foothold in a new market. But this relationship reminded me of the WAPI (WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure) debate last year in which China was about to require this proprietary and closed security standard in all domestically sold Wi-Fi adapters and equipment. After high-level intervention by the U.S. government, China backed off from the requirement. My objections to WAPI stemmed from its closed nature: many in the encryption world believe that closed crypto is made to be broken because it cannot be tested in a robust fashion. It's also extremely easy to provide back doors, which can be used for government monitoring as well as being themselves weak points of entry. The U.S. government wanted explicit backdoors in encryption in the 1990s; there's no reason China wouldn't want that right now. I had the chance to speak to Atheros's Sheung Li, their product line manager, about both the WAPI standard and the progress in Task Group N (802.11n), the high throughput standard underway at IEEE as a successor to 802.11g. The interview appears after the jump....

WLAN vendors gain back-door WAPI support

WLAN vendors gain back-door WAPI support 04/21/2004 04:57 AM
In through Taiwan

Linux Standard Base 2.0 promises a
common runtime standard

Linux Standard Base 2.0 promises a
common runtime standard 12/22/2004 01:44 AM
The Free Standards Group's (FSG) Linux Standard Base specification is an attempt to prevent the Linux marketplace from fragmenting by specifying a runtime environment where applications compiled for different distros can run install and run seamlessly.

W3C Supports the URI Standard and IRI
Proposed Standard

W3C Supports the URI Standard and IRI
Proposed Standard 02/01/2005 08:54 PM
2005-01-26: W3C is pleased to announce its support for two publications that are important for Web addressing and increase the international reach of the Web. The documents are coordinated efforts of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and W3C. Read the press release. (News archive)

China Mobile And China UnionPay Launch
Wireless Banking

China Mobile And China UnionPay Launch
Wireless Banking 03/28/2005 01:29 AM
ChinaTechNews.com Mar 28 2005 5:54AM GMT

China Expert Technology awarded $10m
e-government contract in China

China Expert Technology awarded $10m
e-government contract in China 03/19/2005 02:27 AM
Computer Business Review Mar 18 2005 5:40AM GMT

China agrees to take neutral position on
3G standards at China-U.S. JCCT

China agrees to take neutral position on
3G standards at China-U.S. JCCT 04/22/2004 10:45 PM
Interfax Information Agency Apr 23 2004 2:25AM GMT

"China (yes, that China) won't support
the UN resolution on US international
legal immunity because it would look as
if they were condoning our war crimes in
Iraq. Sorta makes you proud to be an
american, don't it?"

"China (yes, that China) won't support
the UN resolution on US international
legal immunity because it would look as
if they were condoning our war crimes in
Iraq. Sorta makes you proud to be an
american, don't it?" 06/19/2004 04:26 PM

CHINA: China issues more internet
regulations

CHINA: China issues more internet
regulations 06/22/2004 01:09 AM
Asia Media Jun 22 2004 5:14AM GMT

CHINA: Web users want China to clarify
subversion law

CHINA: Web users want China to clarify
subversion law 02/12/2004 10:16 PM
Asia Media Feb 13 2004 3:02AM GMT

Made-in-China played in China

Made-in-China played in China 12/17/2003 10:38 PM
CNET Asia Dec 17 2003 9:50PM ET

College backs off Wi-Fi ban

College backs off Wi-Fi ban 09/16/2004 04:51 PM
Tensions ease at the University of Texas at Dallas when administrators reverse restrictions on Wi-Fi use.

50 to go in Damovo cut backs

50 to go in Damovo cut backs 01/25/2004 10:53 PM
The Scotsman Jan 26 2004 2:40AM GMT

HP backs new 32/64-bit Xeons

HP backs new 32/64-bit Xeons 02/19/2004 12:45 PM
vnunet.com Feb 19 2004 5:19PM GMT

BMC backs SuSE, mostly

BMC backs SuSE, mostly 10/31/2003 06:05 AM
ZDNet UK Oct 31 2003 5:50AM ET

Belkin backs down

Belkin backs down 11/11/2003 10:25 AM
Looks like Belkin is backing down from their inane decision to offer an "upgrade" for their wireless routers that reprograms them so that every eight hours users' web browsers are automatically redirected to some webpage advertising a Belkin product. Read...

SCO Backs Off GPL Claims

SCO Backs Off GPL Claims 04/29/2004 05:53 PM
In its legal arguments against IBM, SCO is no longer maintaining that the GPL is unconstitutional. Analysts say the company has decided that pushing that claim could hurt its case in the end.

Lindows Backs Out of IPO

Lindows Backs Out of IPO 08/18/2004 08:50 PM
Fresh out of its $20 million settlement with Microsoft, the company says it "won't be forced into a cut-rate IPO by a fickle stock market." Instead, it plans to wait until conditions improve.

Court backs AMD

Court backs AMD 06/21/2004 10:13 PM
USA Today Jun 22 2004 2:49AM GMT

Eriksson backs Owen

Eriksson backs Owen 06/18/2004 10:20 PM
England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson throws his full support behind Michael Owen.

St. Petersburg Backs Out on Wi-Fi Plans

St. Petersburg Backs Out on Wi-Fi Plans 12/15/2003 02:08 PM
The Florida city had planned to launch a Wi-Fi network covering down town on New Year's Eve but decided to put off the project: The nonprofit group that had planned to build the network suddenly got concerned about not being able to financially support it....
Grok Description matches for China backs off on WAPI standard
GrokA matches for China backs off on WAPI standard

Software patents are bad for coders like
literary patents would be for writers

Software patents are bad for coders like
literary patents would be for writers 06/22/2005 01:49 AM
Cory Doctorow: Richard Stallman, creator of the Free Software movement, has written a tremendous essay for the Guardian on the risks of software patents. Richard undertakes a gedankenexperiment about "literary patents" and the impact they would have had on Victor Hugo as he sat down to pen Les Miserables.

Now consider this hypothetical literary patent: Claim 1: a communication process that represents, in the mind of a reader, the concept of a character who has been in jail for a long time and subsequently changes his name...

These patents would all cover the story of one character in a novel. They overlap, but they do not precisely duplicate each other, so they could all be valid simultaneously - all the patent holders could have sued Victor Hugo. Any one of them could have prohibited publication of Les Misérables.

You might think these ideas are so simple that no patent office would have issued them. We programmers are often amazed by the simplicity of the ideas that real software patents cover - for instance, the European Patent Office has issued a patent on the progress bar, and one on accepting payment via credit cards. These would be laughable if they were not so dangerous.

Link (Thanks, Phil and Eloisa!)

Munich OSS switch to go ahead, patents
or no patents

Munich OSS switch to go ahead, patents
or no patents 08/12/2004 09:52 AM
Merely paused for thought, says mayor

Where Do They Come Up With These
Patents?

Where Do They Come Up With These
Patents? 01/16/2004 01:03 PM
Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a day go by without one of these silly patent cases where a "company" (usually consisting of one or two lawyers) gets a patent on something that shouldn't be patentable, doesn't do anything with the patent, and then sues companies that are doing something similar? How is it possibly a "patentable" idea to take the domain name john.smith.name and assign the user an email address john@smith.name? Why is that something that should be patented? Apparently, though, it is patentable, and because of that, Network Solutions and Register.com are being sued. Of course, it's Global Name Registry that runs the .name registry - so it's not entirely clear as to why the suit is focused on the other two players (except, of course, that they probably have a lot more money). I'm curious if someone can explain to me how this patent (and the resulting lawsuit) encourages "innovation"?

We Need More Patents?

We Need More Patents? 01/05/2004 01:44 PM
When I was an undergrad, Lester Thurow's book Head to Head had just come out and was incredibly popular. I was forced to read it for three different classes. In it, he talks about the forces of globalization and how the US, Japan, and Europe (mainly Germany) would compete for world economic supremacy in the nineties. It's been a decade since I last read the book, but what I remember from it was that he was a big fan of government intervention in industry and believed that Germany was clearly poised to beat the US throughout the nineties. Of course, that didn't happen. Now, Thurow is back and saying that the world needs more patents and stronger patent enforcement - but that governments should buy up all those patents. In other words, more big government incentives. It didn't work a decade ago, and I don't see why it should work now either. In the interview linked above, he says that without copyright enforcement there would be no music. Of course, that's not true. First of all, there was music before there was copyright protection for it. More importantly, though, it assumes that there simply can't be any business model for music or intellectual property that doesn't involve copyright protection. That's very uncreative. There are other business models (some of which we've discussed before) and forcing everyone to adopt an obsolete one is only going to hinder, not help, innovation.

IBM gives away 500 patents

IBM gives away 500 patents 02/01/2005 09:47 PM

In a bold move in the field of intellectual property , IBM announced the donation of 500 patents .

(thanks to Jamie Carroll )

Bad Patents

Bad Patents 06/12/2004 09:38 PM

I can't decide whether the EFF's "Patent Busting" project is too clever by half. Will it really do any good? The big problem in patents isn't that bad ones can be overturned -- especially given how difficult and expensive it can be to do so. The problem is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and its abysmally lousy record for issuing lousy patents. Until someone -- namely Congress -- tackles the issue of patent quality, getting lousy ones overturned is only working at the margins of a much bigger mess.

NO MORE PATENTS

NO MORE PATENTS 04/23/2004 01:26 AM

JPEG Hits New Patent-Infringement Snag. Forgent Networks slaps 31 companies with lawsuits alleging patent infringement over compression technology it claims is core to the JPEG image standard. [eWEEK Technology News]

STOP THE MADNESS!  I say anybody who tries to enforce patents on open standards should be shot or put in jail.  Well maybe only shot in the arm or leg - but definitely hurt!

A Tale of Two Patents

A Tale of Two Patents 05/19/2004 07:23 PM
InternetNews.com-1 hour agoGoogle's Gmail could be a huge moneymaker for the search leader. But someone else may have thought of it first. Google got gobs ...

Apple Going Mad On UI Patents

Apple Going Mad On UI Patents 05/14/2004 01:47 PM

Perens on Patents

Perens on Patents 01/23/2004 02:20 PM

All Encompassing Patents

All Encompassing Patents 01/26/2004 12:40 PM

Patents and the Penguin

Patents and the Penguin 05/11/2004 09:16 AM

Patents and Linux

Patents and Linux 08/05/2004 05:30 PM
The wires are full of news around Linux and Patents, with OSRM claiming that Linux infringes lots of ’em, and IBM promising not to litigate ’em. Well, I go way back on this issue; herewith a software patent war story, flavored with the usual cynicism...

Patents are obviously patented

Patents are obviously patented 02/10/2004 02:55 AM
In a surprise move, the US Patent Office has granted a patent which patents the patent office itself!

Hehe. Actually, the patent is meant to patent the concept of "digital ownership", i.e. the idea that you can "own" things in online multiplayer games. The patent is just so broad that it covers pretty much any database, including the patent database.

This is another example on how the USPTO has just thrown its hands up in the air and basically says "accept them all and let courts sort them out." This is an example on so many countless things that have gone wrong with the system I can't even be bothered to enumerate them anymore... Let me just begin with the notion that the idea of ownership could be patented at all, and end up with how big companies can use this to trounce upon the smaller ones, and you can imagine the rant between those yourself.

Pressing Patents

Pressing Patents 04/13/2004 08:32 AM
There are at least 30 more unsettled patent cases involving Microsoft. At the same time, Microsoft is building up a hefty patent arsenal of its own.

No EU Software Patents

No EU Software Patents 12/17/2004 06:33 PM

Munich, Germany (23 November 2004). The three most famous European authors of open-source software have issued an appeal against software patents on NoSoftwarePatents.com. Linus Torvalds (Linux), Michael Widenius (MySQL) and Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) urge the EU Council, which will convene later in the week, not to adopt a draft directive on software patents that they consider "deceptive, dangerous, and democratically illegitimate". They also call on the Internet community to express solidarity by placing NoSoftwarePatents.com links and banners on many Web sites.

It would be nice if someone with some serious design credentials would knock up some more aesthetically pleasing banners.

EFF: Let's Bust Bad Patents

EFF: Let's Bust Bad Patents 04/20/2004 09:57 AM
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created The Patent Busting Project, working with organizations such as the Public Patent Foundation, the Internet Archive and the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse to reduce the harm to innovation and free expression that bad patents represent.

10 Internet patents that are going DOWN

10 Internet patents that are going DOWN 07/01/2004 03:34 AM
EFF has picked its list of ten dumb-and-bustable Internet patents after a public competition, and we're saddling up to gather invalidating prior art we can submit to the US Patent and Trademark Office to have them struck down:

1. Acacia Technologies' digital media transmission patent, which the company defines as covering "the transmission and receipt of digital content via the Internet, cable, satellite and other means." The EFF is worried that Acacia, which has already sued several large communications companies, is unfairly targeting small audio- and video-streaming websites.

2. Clear Channel's Instant Live patent, which covers technology used to produce instant recordings of live concerts. The media giant recently bought the patent and is now going after artists who choose to give fans CDs of their shows.

3. Acceris Communication's voice over IP technology patent. Schultz said Acceris is targeting smaller VOIP players. "They're sending (the) patents to investors," said Schultz, "trying to intimidate the investors."

Link

More Microsoft Patents

More Microsoft Patents 09/05/2004 12:48 PM

Patents as WMD's

Patents as WMD's 02/05/2005 09:30 PM
From Good Morning Silicon Valley: During a panel discussion at the OSDL Linux Summit, Linux founder Linus Torvalds; Brian Behlendorf, a co-founder of the Apache Web server software; and Mitch Kapor, chairman of the Mozilla Foundation and the Open Source Applications Foundation, spoke out against software patents. "Are software patents...

Software Patents Out, For Now

Software Patents Out, For Now 02/05/2005 09:46 PM
Patent legislation is one step further away from being passed in the European Union today. The Legal "Affairs Committee (JURI) said that the commission should re-submit the controversial directive. The Computer Implemented Inventions Directive" failed to receive backing from the government's elected MEP's.

The <a href="http://www.ffii.org/index.orig.en.html">FFII</a& gt;, a EU pressure group, described the decision as "a powerful statement from MEPs that the current Council text, and the logjam of concern it has caused, is simply not a sustainable way forward." FFII board member Jonas Maebe went on to say "The Commissioner can jumpstart the constructive dialogue by submitting a new and more balanced proposal to the European Parliament this time. By taking into account the countless new facts that have surfaced since the start of this procedure in 2002, the Commission has a great opportunity to reinvigorate the Lisbon strategy."

Poland had previously blocked the directive from coming in to being. It's opposed by groups who want to keep the EU free of copyrights on software, something common to the USA. They argue that rather than helping businesses protect their intellectual property, they act to stifle innovation. Supporters of the directive argue that EU legislation on copyrights is out dated and needs bringing into line with the US system.

The road ahead is un-clear; the commission has a variety of options that it can pursue. The most likely outcome with be a re-evaluation in a few months time. Critics of the directive say the extra time will allow countries more debate over the issue and give them another chance to fully assess its implications.

View: Previous coverage | FFII

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China backs off on WAPI standard

The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: wapi; patents