WSJ, Sept 19, 1995. Cylink Claims Right To Key Technology Involving Encryption Sunnyvale, Calif. - A Silicon Valley company asserted a legal claim to a key technology for protecting electronic commerce, following an arbitration ruling. Closely held Cylink Corp. said the ruling gave back to the company control over two key Stanford University patents regarding public-key encryption, a technique for scrambling data from theft or eavesdropping. A panel of three arbitrators, asked to settle a dispute between Cylink and RSA Data Security Inc., dissolved a five-year partnership between the two that pooled their encryption patents. RSA, a closely held company based in Redwood City, Calif., is the dominant supplier of encryption software, with users that include Microsoft Corp., Novell Inc., Netscape Communications Corp., Apple Computer Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. The arbitrators ruled that RSA hasn't had the right to sublicense the Stanford patents since 1990. Cylink said it would seek royalties from companies that have licensed software code from RSA and are redistributing it, arguing that they are infringing the Stanford patents. -----