From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 01:09:34 +0800
To: dan@milliways.org (Dan Bailey)
Subject: Re: Elliptic curves, patent status?
Message-ID: <199511291651.IAA20813@blob.best.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 05:16 PM 11/28/95 -0400, Michael Smith wrote:
> > > I'm unclear about the patent status of elliptic curve 
> > > systems. Are they covered by the Diffie-Hellman patent? 
> > > That is, is the lnguage of this patent broad enough to 
> > > cover _all_ public-key systems, regardless of their 
> > > mathematical basis? 

On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 23:16:10 -0800 jamesd@echeque.com wrote:
> > No, but RSA will litigate you with the objective of
> > inflicting extravagant legal costs regardless.

At 08:13 AM 11/29/95 EST, Dan Bailey wrote:
> Does the patent create any headaches for elliptic curve research or
> publishing elliptic curve papers, or just for new products?

Patents do not prohibit research -- Yet.

Patent law continues to be extravagantly re interpreted from time to
time, in a way that continually increases the power of the patent
office and the power of the courts, but this creativity has not 
yet collided drastically with freedom of speech.

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