From: jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 94 09:31:51 PST
To: gnu@toad.com
Subject: Re: MIT/RSA license documents available
In-Reply-To: <9411210541.AA26450@toad.com>
Message-ID: <199411211732.JAA00841@netcom8.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


gnu@toad.com writes
> "This public federal court action filed by Cylink to invalidate the
> MIT patent has been very damaging to both RSA and the PKP partnership
> as a whole.[...]"

Whoopee!

In case there are some cypherpunks not familiar with the situation:


The people who founded public key cryptography took out patents
on various methods, patents that were entirely legitimate and
justified.

All of these various patents got together under a single 
partnership which then made the dubious claim to own
*all* methods of public key cryptography, even methods such
as the square root method which are substantially different
from those developed by the patent holders.

Those who make such a claim deserve to be afflicted
with a plague of locusts and lawyers.

-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we        James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.            jamesd@acm.org