From: Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 22:45:51 +0800
To: vicente@certisign.com.br
Subject: Re: UK spooks invent RSA, DH in 1973
In-Reply-To: <34999229.15CD6AB5@certisign.com.br>
Message-ID: <199712181435.JAA13916@homeport.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




While this does prevent making things up out of whole cloth, it does
not address the possibility that the hash has been broken by the
agency, nor the possibility that documents will be selectively
released by the agency to hurt certain parties.

None of this addresses the real flaw, which is the inability to value
your patent if theres a chance that a party will remove the secrecy in
whihc they invented it, and thus nullify your patent.

The whole prior art argument is that you could reasonably have heard
about this other thing, or that the patent office could have found it,
and thus your patent should not have been granted.

If the patent office had examiners with clearence who checked patents
agianst various government claims and denied the patent on the ground
that there exists prior, classified art, that would be vaugely fine;
it would be a predictable risk as the patent is pending.

Adam


Vicente Silveira wrote:
| Adam Shostack wrote:
| > Jim Burnes wrote:
| > | >      http://jya.com/ellisdoc.htm
| > |
| > | Can patents be revoked due to prior art arguments?
| > 
| >         I think its a really bad precedent to revoking patents based
| > on the basis of secret documents released after the fact.  If you
| > believe in patents, then having your work nullifiable by government
| > claims is a bad idea.
| > ...
| 
| Maybe in the future this could be possible ... Let's say that
| NSA does hashes of all their scientific papers and timestamp
| them with some third party recognized company. This way NSA would
| be able to prove that they had an original idea even if they claim
| this only after someone else has reinvented it. 



-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume