Gradient Enterprises sues Skype over US 7,669,207

TechCrunch reports Gradient Enterprises has sued Skype over US Patent 7,669,207 (inventor= Kristaps Johnson ), with first claim:

A method for detecting, reporting and responding to network node-level occurrences on a network-wide level, the method comprising:

providing a plurality of mobile agents, each of the mobile agents is hosted by one of a plurality of nodes in a network which each detect for one or more events;

designating one of the mobile agents hosted at one of the nodes as a controlling mobile agent;

designating another one of the mobile agents hosted at another one of the nodes as the controlling mobile agent when the one of the mobile agents previously designated as the controlling mobile agent is unavailable;

communicating network event information associated with an event detected at one or more of the nodes in the network to the controlling mobile agent; and

disseminating from the controlling mobile agent information describing the detected event to one or more other nodes.

Of Johnson:

I work privately and academically in computer science and mathematics, systems and theory: as a researcher for the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Univ. of Latvia, mainly in distributed theory and machine intelligence; for a small business, Gradient Inc, in security and distributed systems; and for the bsd.lv open source projects. On weekends, I work as a bouncer at a club in Riga.

See also Washington Post The Circuit: E-mail privacy, Expedia punishes American Airlines, Skype faces patent lawsuit which includes a rather unusual story about computer technician Leon Walker, currently charged under a state identity theft law for reading his wife's email, from which Walker learned his wife was having an affair with her ex-husband -- a man previously arrested for domestic violence. Walker then filed for emergency custody of his wife's young son.