[133] in Cypherpunks
Re: A legal way to use RSA!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)
Sat May 1 17:37:34 1993
To: William Oldacre <76114.2307@CompuServe.COM>
Cc: <cypherpunks@toad.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of 01 May 93 14:00:40 -0400.
Date: Sat, 01 May 93 17:23:34 EDT
From: Derek Atkins <warlord@Athena.MIT.EDU>
> Once in court, it will make the newspapers. A private company
> profiteering from something the taxpayers paid for
Uhh, I hate to inform you, but this was discussed back in the Congress
in the 1960's. It was decided, then, that patents COULD be obtained
fromm research done using gov't funding. Therefore, this is nothing
new. In fact, I doubt a paper would even touch this "scoop"...
As to whether or no I agree with this, well, thats a different topic.
(I happen to believe that patents on algorithms are stupid, but that's
besides the point). In other words, there was nothing illegal in the
RSA patent, even if there was gov't funding....
-derek
