From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 14:26:10 +0800
To: <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: When do patents expire on Rabin's public key scheme?
Message-ID: <199601280538.VAA01588@mailx.best.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


When do patents expire on Rabin's public key scheme?

RSA claims that the Diffie Helman patent, which expires on the 29th of
April, 1997, covers all public key cryptography.

ElGamal and Rabin are unpatented.

Schmeier says that ElGamal will be free of patent restrictions after that,
but he says nothing about Rabin.

Rabin's encryption and signatures take up the same amout of space as RSA
signatures, and encryption, but ElGamal takes up twice the space, thus Rabin
seems preferable to ElGamal.
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