I've been off the list for a while, I hope I'm not repeating things. The Internet patent news service has some interesting stuff on an internal battle between PK Partners. The full text of the suits filed by Cylink and RSADSI is 30k, so I'm not posting it here. Rishab --------------- .... Other patents involved are held by the consortium Public Key Partners (PKP) of Sunnyvale, California. Well as it turns out, members of PKP are now suing each other (isn't patenting fun :-). One member, Cylink (Sunnyvale) is suing another member, RSA Data Security (Redwood City, CA) over RSA's use of some MIT technology (MIT also being a member of PKP, along with Stanford). Cylink filed suit in June, and the squabble could lead to the break up of PKP, which will either simplify or complicate the use of their technology in the government's DSS digital signature standard. .... For many years, there has been an ongoing controversy in the cryptogrpahy field dealing with patents. At the heart of these matters is a patent awarded to Diffie and Hellman while at Stanford, which along with a few other patents, make up the portfolio for which PKP defends and is affecting US Government activities with digital signature standards. Someone has filed a lawsuit challenging these patents, partly on the grounds that Diffie and Hellman talked about their ideas in public before they applied for the patents, and thereby forfeited their patent rights. What follows is a copy of the complaint as filed in court. The complaint is interesting as an example of such documents, as well as being good grounds to have some or all of the patents overturned. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab@dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA