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From: rab@well.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.crypt,comp.misc
Subject: Re: public key encryption and RSA patent status
Message-ID: <4023@well.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Sep-87 06:03:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.4023
Posted: Thu Sep 24 06:03:37 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 11:21:31 EDT
References: <1372@osiris.UUCP> <441@polyslo.UUCP> <686@sugar.UUCP> <8640@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: rab@well.UUCP (Bob Bickford)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 37
Keywords: RSA patent
Xref: utgpu sci.crypt:520 comp.misc:1154

In article <8640@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
+ >   Whether or not this rather ridiculous patent holds up in court...
+ 
+ Why is it ridiculous?  If one ignores the minutiae of US patent law for
+ the moment, RS&A clearly have produced an honest-to-God invention:  a
+ useful idea that is neither obvious nor in the domain of natural law.
+ (Nature may have supplied the properties of the integers, but using them
+ for encryption is strictly a human concept.)  They *should* be able to
+ patent it and have the patent hold up in court.  Now, it's not clear that
+ they *can* under current patent law, but that's another issue.  Is there
+ any reason for considering the idea "ridiculous" other than the
+ spoiled-brat desire to use their invention without paying royalties?

  All rudeness aside (the temptation is great.....), the point of the
ongoing discussion here has been precisely the fact that the patent would
appear to cover not just a single defineable invention but in fact an
entire class of possible inventions, discovered or otherwise.  It is on
this basis that I described the patent as "ridiculous".  Waiving (for
the sake of discussion) the question of whether anyone can in fact patent
an algorithm, and assuming (again, for the sake of discussion) that this
patent did in fact cover a specific algorithm, then I for one would feel
honor bound to respect it.  (Not, by the way, because of any silly law,
but because of my libertarian belief in the primacy of individual rights,
which include the right(s) to intellectual property.  But that's another
subject.)  However, this patent would appear to attempt to include any
and all such algorithms, discovered or not, and for that reason I find it
not deserving of the respect one would normally give toilet paper.
  By the way, I have noticed you several times use the phrase "spoiled brat"
when arguing on the net.  (Do you have children?)  This is known as an
'ad hominem' attack.  Don't bother; if we want to stoop to that sort of
thing we can all go into conventional politics.

-- 
  Robert Bickford                 {hplabs, ucbvax, lll-lcc, ptsfa}!well!rab
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