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From: newton2@topaz.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: encryption with public keys
Message-ID: <2050@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 24-Dec-86 15:46:13 EST
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Posted: Wed Dec 24 15:46:13 1986
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Summary: RSA patent held by MIT

Well, I've dealt, as a developer of devices using PKC, with RSA Data Security,
have negotiated (but not consummated) licensing agreements with them, and
have invesitigated the roots of their patent claims. "The" patent is
held by MIT, licensed to RSA Data Security, which offers sublicenses. I'd
say it's at best murky just what MIT owns, and vastly more obscure what
RSA Data Security is entitled to license to third parties. I have the documents
around somewhere, but anyone seriously interested in exploitation of RSA
should, I suppose, get in touch with RSA Data Security. However, I ofer
my own experience to this extent: after *many* meetings with officers of the
company, I came away more puzzled and suspicious (in ways too numerous, and
some too subtle, to make explicit here) about just what they were about than
I *ever* was in dealing with the friendly boy scouts of NSA. And as to
help in implementing the system (they make a show of the fact that Ron Rivest
and Len Adelman are supposedly hands-on principals of the company), well,
let's just say I came to doubt there'd be any. Ditto for "certification" by
R, S or A.

Just to be fair (!), I guess I should mention that the company with which 
*I* was associated deliquesced before my uncomfortable feelings about
RSA Data Security could be confirmed.

Anyway, the original posting to sci.crypt concerned someone writing and
publishing a public domain RSA package- you sure don't need a lawyer to
do *that*. Patents reserve the right to make, use and sell artifacts
which are narrowly and explicitly defined in the claims of the patent.
Research and the disclosure of the fruits thereof are not among the 
prescribed activities, as far as I can tell. Making, using or selling such
a program seems quite distinct from developing (i.e., inventing) it. A
patent, even a valid and strong one (a minority) doesn't confer the right
to make every other thinker curl up and die.

Doug Maisel
56 Panoramic Way
Berkeley, CA 94704

(415) 848-4257