[Spambayes] concerns over MS patents

[Joe]

Has anyone looked at Microsoft's two patents on probabilistic filtering?  I'm stunned that these two patents would be approved.  If I'm reading them correctly, they give MS a lock on ALL probabilistic email filtering.  (Which would include SpamBayes, PopFile, K9, and dozens of other email filters.)



Sorry about the length:



http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,192,360.WKU.&OS=PN/6,192,360&RS=PN/6,192,360



and



http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,161,130.WKU.&OS=PN/6,161,130&RS=PN/6,161,130



Has MS "bought" the whole spam-filtering playing field?