Postini anti-spam patent could cause headaches

A patent granted to managed e-mail security company Postini could pose problems for the company's competitors and others in the managed e-mail services market, experts warn.

If enforced, the patent, which covers an e-mail "pre-processing service" could grant Postini legal ownership of a wide range of anti-spam and e-mail security methods. However, some industry experts doubt that the patent, filed in September 2000, will stand up to legal scrutiny.

Patent #6,650,890 was awarded to Postini by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in November 2003. The patent cites three inventors, including Postini cofounder and Vice President Scott Petry and former employee Gordon Irlam. The patent describes a variety of methods for providing messaging services in an e-mail network, according to the USPTO Web site.

Among other things, the patent covers the use of an "intermediate pre-processing service (in) the electronic message delivery path" that requires changing the "Domain Name Server entry... of the destination email server to contain an IP address of the intermediate pre-processing service."

Different methods of message "pre-processing" are addressed in the patent, including forwarding based on instructions stored in user profiles, forwarding parts of the e-mail message content, forwarding e-mail to wireless devices, junk e-mail filtering, and virus detection, according to the patent.

Companies like Postini, MessageLabs, MX Logic and Frontbridge Technologies intercept inbound e-mail on behalf of their customers, then filter out spam, viruses and other unsuitable messages before sending the remaining e-mail messages on to the customer e-mail server and the message's intended recipient.

The new U.S. patent declares such configurations Postini's intellectual property, said Steve Frank, a partner in the patent and intellectual property group of the law firm Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault in Boston.

"To the extent that (Postini's) competition is running preprocessing centers that intercept e-mail and does something to it, this patent has fairly broad coverage," Frank said.

Postini executives are studying the patent and considering ways to "maximize" its value to the company. In the meantime, customers and potential customers should have more confidence that the company's technology is built on a solid legal footing, said Shinya Akamine, president and CEO of Postini.

However, legal experts said that Postini's patent has telltale signs of weakness and may not stand up to legal challenges, should competitors decide to fight the patent award.

Postini's patent only cites other patents in the crucial "References" section that is used to establish the originality of the patented technology compared with prior inventions, also known as "prior art."

The lack of nonpatent sources of information often indicates loose background research by the patent owners prior to filing, said Frank and Greg Aharonian, publisher of the Internet Patent News Service and a critic of USPTO work on software patents.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.