At 05:16 PM 11/28/95 -0400, Michael Smith wrote:

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I'm unclear about the patent status of elliptic curve systems. Are they covered by the Diffie-Hellman patent? That is, is the lnguage of this patent broad enough to cover _all_ public-key systems, regardless of their mathematical basis?

On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 23:16:10 -0800 jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

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No, but RSA will litigate you with the objective of inflicting extravagant legal costs regardless.

At 08:13 AM 11/29/95 EST, Dan Bailey wrote:

Does the patent create any headaches for elliptic curve research or publishing elliptic curve papers, or just for new products?

Patents do not prohibit research -- Yet. Patent law continues to be extravagantly re interpreted from time to time, in a way that continually increases the power of the patent office and the power of the courts, but this creativity has not yet collided drastically with freedom of speech. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com