From: Andrew.Spring@ping.be (Andrew Spring)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:15:46 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Public Domain?
Message-ID: <v01510103acd15b8b72af@[193.74.216.47]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




>But the researchers backed out of the idea on the advice of our patent
>lawyers.  The reasoning goes like this:  Sending anything over the Internet
>is equivalent to placing it into the public domain, since the message can
>be viewed by other than the intended recipient.  So, proprietary
>information *even encrypted* will be rendered unpatentable if sent over the
>Internet.
>

You may want to send these guys back to do their homework.  For corporate
communications, crypto is not new.  Messages have been sent in cipher over
telegraph lines since the civil war.  Ask if a trade secret becomes exposed
(in the legal sense) if it is transmitted over telegraph lines in code.

I fail to see what the difference is between enciphering something in dots
and dashes and enciphering it in 1's and 0's.