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I'm currently examining the following patent proposing the use of mail quota. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=mFrNAAAAEBAJ&dq=s... This patent is filed in 2000 and issued 10 years later ! In 2006 it was apparently extended to international. Does this mean the validity of the patent is 20 years starting from 2010, or is it from 2000 ? This is weird. Note that I'm in europe and don't know US patent particularities.


If email quota is patented, does that mean webmail providers like Gmail and Hotmail are no allowed to limit my email inbox size? :)


The quota is on the ongoing mail, not the storage. Many ISP are using this method to limit spams or virus propagation from their clients. I think google does it too.

But this is not original. On the net I found Freedom, initially published 23 nov 1999 which includes outgoing mail quotas (http://www.homeport.org/~adam/zeroknowledgewhitepapers/arch-...). For the initial date, check at the bottom.


I ment outgoing mail. I can't edit anymore. Sorry.




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