Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.legal Subject: Re: RSA cryptographic algorithm patented? Message-ID: <5799@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Thu, 18-Jul-85 14:55:32 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.5799 Posted: Thu Jul 18 14:55:32 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 14:55:32 EDT References: <9028@ucbvax.ARPA>, <468@stc-b.stc.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 47 Doubtless the legal eagles will correct me if I blow this, but into the fray anyway... > 1 algorithms cannot be patented, hence the use of copyright > and/or trade secret law to protect software. The theoretical intent of patent law is to protect inventions, i.e. new and useful ways of doing things. At least some algorithms clearly ought to qualify. In reality, the situation is rather unclear. Scientific discoveries, i.e. laws of nature, definitely are not supposed to be patentable, and there is a problem of definition here: just what exactly are algorithms? In practice, you can probably patent an algorithm which is expressed as a hardware implementation (it's been done), and you might be able to use that patent to sue people who implement the same thing in software. I would guess that this is the situation for the RSA encryption scheme. One reason why copyright and/or trade secret law are the primary means for protection of software is that most pieces of software are not innovative enough to qualify as inventions. They are routine exercises of technical skill, rather than striking new inspirations. Another reason is that the murky situation regarding patents on algorithms has scared people off; trade secrets don't have that kind of legal confusion surrounding them. A third reason is that our patent system has been allowed to deteriorate to the point where it no longer provides much protection to inventors, and trade secrets are once again on the rise as the only effective protection method (patents were originally devised to make it possible to protect inventions *without* keeping them secret). > 2 software independently developed to perform a given function > is the property (copyright etc.) of the developer to use as > he sees fit, and it is only that based on someone else's > *CODE* which is open to legal attack. "But I did it myself, borrowing only his idea" is insufficient; it is the idea itself that is protected by patents, not the details of its expression. (Copyrights, on the other hand, protect form of expression rather than underlying concepts.) In fact, completely independent invention of the basic idea is not a defence against patent infringement either. Once the inventor has a patent on his invention, it is *his* *property* until the patent expires. Exclusively his. You are thinking of things like the Unix licence, which are based on trade-secret law; independent invention *is* a defence there. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry