From: Eric Hughes <hughes@soda.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sun, 2 May 93 22:42:37 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: PATENT: A LEGAL way---maybe!
In-Reply-To: <930503040243_76114.2307_BHA51-1@CompuServe.COM>
Message-ID: <9305030539.AA03966@soda.berkeley.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


William Oldacre persists in believing that personal use of a patent is
permissible.  It's not legal, but if they don't know, they don't sue.
The differences between legality, the cost-effectiveness of a lawsuit,
and finding out in the first place are significant here.  We want the
protecting of legality, if we can get it.

>CypherPunks has something that Public Key Partners doesn't.  An 
>organization of motivated people who can devote hundreds of person 
>hours to putting the RSA patent under a microscope.  

I'm really glad for this observation.  One, however, must derate our
person-hours some because we aren't lawyers.  The basic idea, though,
is entirely accurate.

>Allowing patents on ordinary mathematics was 
>mistake that has to be rectified. 

It has been rectified.  RSA is not a mathematical patent.  It is the
embodiment of some mathematical routines into a machine which is used
for a particular purpose and has certain security properties.

> (Diffie-Helman-Merkle?) 

I got that one wrong.  It's the Hellman-Merkle patent.  I just posted
the actual numbers.

Eric