At 05:52 AM 12/11/2001 +0100, Anonymous wrote:
Lucky Green wrote:
Eugene wrote:
On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Lucky Green wrote:
--Lucky, waiting patiently for 2005.
Patent expiration date? Which one?
US Patent 4759063 "Blind Signature Systems" will expire on July 19, 2005. Given that this is a Tuesday and taking into account that whoever may own the patents at that time is not about to file a patent infringement suit on Monday, the last day the patent is valid, I hereby announce a patent expiration party at my place on Saturday, July 16 2005.
No need to wait so long for ecash implementations. Ben Laurie's Lucre software uses Wagner blinding, which is a non-signature based blinding system. The coin can only be verified by the bank, contrary to the definition of a digital signature, so the blind signature patent does not apply. Read more at http://anoncvs.aldigital.co.uk/lucre/.
No need to wait at all. There was never any serious reason to license the Chaum blinding patents upon which eCash rested. They applied only to the client and their use was or could be made invisible to the mint. Software patents, including Chaum's, are not enforceable in a number of western nations (e.g., Australia, South Africa and New Zealand). Therefore, the development and release of client software with user selectable blinding, with appropriate UI warnings regarding possible patent issues depending upon client jurisdiction, from these locales should not run afoul of international patent laws. steve