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From: b-davis@utah-cs.UUCP (Brad Davis)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: RSA cryptographic algorithm patented?
Message-ID: <3407@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 14:45:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: utah-cs.3407
Posted: Tue Jul 16 14:45:06 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 06:14:52 EDT
References: <9028@ucbvax.ARPA> <3154@cornell.UUCP>
Reply-To: b-davis@utah-cs.UUCP (Brad Davis)
Organization: University of Utah VCIS Group
Lines: 20
Summary: 

In article <3154@cornell.UUCP> hal@gvax.UUCP (Hal Perkins) writes:
>from net.crypt:
>>  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.
>>  
>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.

I'm no lawyer either but a patent attorney told me that algorithms are
not patentable.  In fact only firmware that is tightly bound to patentable
hardware will even be considered.  I think that RSA PKC is a hardware 
device with some scare tactics to stifle competition.
-- 

			Brad Davis
			{ihnp4, decvax, seismo}!utah-cs!b-davis
			b-davis@utah-cs.ARPA