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From: asw@rlvd.UUCP (Antony Williams)
Newsgroups: net.crypt
Subject: Re: Response from R of RSA Re: patent
Message-ID: <732@rlvd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 11:39:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlvd.732
Posted: Thu Aug 22 11:39:02 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Aug-85 00:40:36 EDT
References: <1975@ukma.UUCP> <718@vortex.UUCP> <4776@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Reply-To: asw@rlvd.UUCP (Antony Williams)
Organization: Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, Atlas Buildings, U.K.
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Xpath: warwick ubu

In article <4776@mit-eddie.UUCP> rivest%mc@mit-eddie.UUCP (Ronald L. Rivest) writes:
>Yes, the RSA cryptosystem is patented, by MIT.  The U.S. patent number is
>4,405,829.  To my knowledge there are no foreign patents.  If you read the
				       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	. . .
>MIT has granted an exclusive sublicense on the patent to a new company
>called "RSA Security, Inc.".  This company was founded by the inventors
>of the RSA cryptosystem (myself, Adi Shamir, and Len Adleman).  The objective

and yet:
In article <9028@ucbvax.ARPA> phr@ucbvax.ARPA (Paul Rubin) writes:
>The following letter appeared in the July, 1985 issue of BYTE magazine.
>  ...  The letter:
>
>  ...  Charles Kluepfel described an
>  implementation of the RSA Public Key algorithm and the BASIC code required.
>  Unfortunately, he did not reference that this RSA Public Key Cryptosystem
>  was patented by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983
>  (U.S. Patent 4,405,829).  The worldwide exclusive license to this patent
				 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>  was then purchased from MIT by RSA Security Inc., a company founded by
>  the inventors of the RSA algorithm to develop this technology.

Can someone clarify this discrepancy?  Do RS&A have worldwide exclusive rights
to exploit a US patent in countries where the technique is not patented?
What would that mean?
	Tony Williams
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