[105666] in Cypherpunks
RE: Rivest Patent
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vin McLellan)
Wed Nov 18 14:54:42 1998
In-Reply-To: <896C7C3540C3D111AB9F00805FA78CE2013F859D@MSX11002>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 14:34:11 -0500
To: "Brown, R Ken" <brownrk1@texaco.com>
From: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net, cypherpunks@algebra.com, milly@mizar.usc.edu,
Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net>, dcsb@ai.mit.edu
Reply-To: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>
I conceed your point. Nicely reasoned. Thank you.
_Vin
At 12:12 PM -0500 11/18/98, Brown, R Ken wrote:
>The real point is surely that a patent for a device invented by someone
>with a basic knowledge of physics is used to protect the *invention*
>not the *knowledge*. They are not used to prevent anyone else inventing
>another device using the same basic knowledge of physics.
>
>Even if it is perfectly just for the RSA (or any other) patent "taken as
>a whole" to be used to protect "not merely a disembodied mathematical
>concept but rather a specific machine"; that *doesn''t* mean it is
>neccessarily just to use the patent to protect that "disembodied
>mathematical concept" when it is used in some other "specific machine".
>But software patents *are* used to try to stop people employing the same
>algorithms in other inventions. So, despite the ingenuous ruling of
>the court they *are* being used to try to control "disembodied
>mathematical concepts" - in other words ideas.
>
>I have no idea if Watt had a patent on the steam governor. But I bet he
>didn't try to take one out on Boyle's Law.
>
>
>Ken Brown
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