Re: Patent expiration

Someone has just pointed out to me that the basic PKP patents (D-H especially) expire relatively soon now (the D-H patent was issued in 1 980). Seems to me this is a strong motivation for the gov to get Clipper in place now; three years from now all the places that won't use PGP because of legal tangles will be able to use it free and clear! --Alan No. The basic patent on public key cryptography and the patent on Diffie-Hellman key exchange expire in 1997 (the former on April 28; the latter on August 18). PGP uses RSA, which is protected until September 19, 2000.