Jim Burnes wrote: | > http://jya.com/ellisdoc.htm | | Can patents be revoked due to prior art arguments? I think its a really bad precedent to revoking patents based on the basis of secret documents released after the fact. If you believe in patents, then having your work nullifiable by government claims is a bad idea. The work of DH and RSA was clearly original and non-obvious. Since the government grants software patents, DH and RSA are patentable. I'm not claiming that the Ellis paper is a hoax, but consider this scenario--Cypherpunks Alice and Bob bought the RSA patent in 1980. Incorporate a Cayman Islands company to sell the patent rights. Sells to millions of cypherpunks on a non discriminatory basis. They're getting ready for an IPO. Uncle Sam, who readlly dislikes Alice and Bob, releases a document showing prior art. The patent is thrown out, along with Alice & Bob's plans to retire. Allowing this sort of thing is clearly not in the interests of rule of law. No process of discovery could reasonably have expected to turn up these formerly classified documents. Alice, Bob, their investors, can not evaluate the value of their patents because Uncle Sam can destroy them with small forgeries. Feh! Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume