From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:14:12 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: patent office and key recovery
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980129053039.00798ae0@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Steve Bellovin <smb@research.att.com> posted this to cryptography:
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Today's NY Times had an article on how the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office is gearing up for electronic filing of patent and trademark
applications
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/012698patents.html).  Since
patent applications here are confidential, filings must be encrypted.
And of course, one of the things holding up deployment -- of a system
where a government agency is the legitimate recipient of the message --
is the "need" for key recovery.

	"The agency wants to include a "key recovery" system in the
	software in case the encryption has to be broken."

The mind boggles.

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