Patents to be placed in PD
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This appeared on the IPSEC list (Hooray!). jwlowe@IBM followed up by announce the dedication of IBM's patent #5,148,479 to the public. Is this the apocalypse or something? Never have I seen such signs of rationality in companies of this size. - ------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) ------- From: Ashar.Aziz@eng.sun.com (Ashar Aziz) Newsgroups: hks.lists.ipsec Subject: SKIP patents will be in public domain Date: 5 Dec 1994 15:44:20 -0500 Lines: 17 Sender: root@bb.hks.net Message-ID: <9412051928.AA25371@miraj.Eng.Sun.COM> NNTP-Posting-Host: bb.hks.net I am happy to state that Sun management has asked me to make the following statement regarding the SKIP patents. 1. The SKIP patents (when they issue) will be placed in the public domain. Anyone may use it if they wish, with no rights or dues pertaining to Sun. There will be no need to license SKIP patent rights. 2. Sun Microsystems did this to help the industry make progress in the area of security. We view this as an indication of our willingness to promote open standards. I thank all of you who publicly commented on this issue, because your comments helped bring about this change in Sun's policy. Regards, Ashar. - ------- end ------- - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBLuQZaioZzwIn1bdtAQH/AAGAtvm78gyEj6C+kWfogHJjuMdr7MGW634Z 9n4cYfkPb6G0bmlzMv7Y0X7MAcLwuJk7 =Ux5s -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
"L. Todd Masco" says:
This appeared on the IPSEC list (Hooray!). jwlowe@IBM followed up by announce the dedication of IBM's patent #5,148,479 to the public.
Is this the apocalypse or something? Never have I seen such signs of rationality in companies of this size.
This was caused by tremendous pressure and by Sun being forced into a similar move earlier in the day. It was the feeling of many members of the IETF working group that the MKMP proposal from IBM could not be considered without the patents being fixed up. Similarly, it was the feeling of the group that SKIP from Sun was unacceptable without the patents being fixed. Sun announced low cost licenses which were still unacceptable. IBM announced free licences. Sun announced that the patents would be assigned to the public domain. IBM announced the same four hours later. Your faithful IETF correspondant... .pm
participants (2)
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L. Todd Masco -
Perry E. Metzger