From: rishab@dxm.ernet.in
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 94 08:19:38 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: PK Partners suing each other!
Message-ID: <gate.FwTDRc1w165w@dxm.ernet.in>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


I've been off the list for a while, I hope I'm not repeating things.
The Internet patent news service has some interesting stuff on an internal
battle between PK Partners. The full text of the suits filed by Cylink and
RSADSI is 30k, so I'm not posting it here.

Rishab

---------------
....
    Other patents involved are held by the consortium Public Key Partners
(PKP) of Sunnyvale, California.  Well as it turns out, members of PKP are now
suing each other (isn't patenting fun :-).  One member, Cylink (Sunnyvale) is
suing another member, RSA Data Security (Redwood City, CA) over RSA's use of
some MIT technology (MIT also being a member of PKP, along with Stanford).
Cylink filed suit in June, and the squabble could lead to the break up of
PKP, which will either simplify or complicate the use of their technology in
the government's DSS digital signature standard.
....
    For many years, there has been an ongoing controversy in the cryptogrpahy
field dealing with patents.  At the heart of these matters is a patent awarded
to Diffie and Hellman while at Stanford, which along with a few other patents,
make up the portfolio for which PKP defends and is affecting US Government
activities with digital signature standards.

    Someone has filed a lawsuit challenging these patents, partly on the
grounds that Diffie and Hellman talked about their ideas in public before
they applied for the patents, and thereby forfeited their patent rights.

    What follows is a copy of the complaint as filed in court.  The complaint
is interesting as an example of such documents, as well as being good grounds
to have some or all of the patents overturned.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh             "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind!
rishab@dxm.ernet.in                   take stone from stone and wash them..."
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