[68093] in Cypherpunks
Re: Royalties
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark O. Aldrich)
Tue Oct 15 20:04:21 1996
My-From: maldrich@grci.com
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 19:32:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Mark O. Aldrich" <maldrich@grci.com>
To: pclow <pclow@pc.jaring.my>
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <32639BFA.503E@pc.jaring.my>
On Tue, 15 Oct 1996, pclow wrote:
> I understand from a previous post that if I were to
> commercialised PGP in a package, I have to pay some
> royalties(?) to the owners(?) of IDEA. My apologies to
> the list for repeating the question which is, who
> do I pay to and how much.
You cannot commercialize PGP whether you pay Ascom-Tech any royalties or
not. Phil Zimmermann grated an exclusive license to ViaCrypt, Inc. a
number of years ago to be the sole commercial version of PGP. In the mean
time, PGP Inc. was formed and has acquired ViaCrypt. Thus, PGP Inc. now
holds the exclusive license on commercial PGP products. Just by chance,
Phil Zimmermann is the CEO of PGP Inc.
If you bundle ViaCrypt/PGP's commercial offering into a "suite" of some
sort, you needn't worry about the license fee as ViaCrypt's stuff is not
covered by Ascom-Tech's license arrangement. You would, however, have to
get ViaCrypt's permission *and*, I think, if you were to ever get an
export capability to Europe, you'd then be liable for the license fee.
If you're just interested in packaging IDEA into something, you can
contact the owners at:
Ascom Tech LTD
Morgenstrasse 129
CH-3018 Bern
Switzerland
Phone: +41 31 999 42 63
Fax: +41 31 999 36 07
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