Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ulysses.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!smb From: smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) Newsgroups: net.legal Subject: Re: RSA cryptographic algorithm patented? Message-ID: <1012@ulysses.UUCP> Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 07:45:34 EDT Article-I.D.: ulysses.1012 Posted: Tue Jul 16 07:45:34 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 20:36:46 EDT References: <9028@ucbvax.ARPA> <3154@cornell.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 11 > I'm no lawyer, but from my reading of general articles on patent law, > an algorithm is one of the things that specifically CAN'T be patented. > One can patent a gadget (that's how the Unibus was patented), but one > can't patent an idea unless it's "reduced to practice", i.e., implemented. > That would seem to mean that one could patent a box that encrypted data > using the RSA algorithm, but one couldn't patent the algorithm itself. > What's going on here? The patentability of algorithms is still an unsettled question. At least, that was the impression I got from the USENIX tutorial on intellectual property in Portland.