On Sat, 6 Jul 1996, Deranged Mutant wrote:

On 6 Jul 96 at 4:10, anonymous-remailer@shell.port wrote:

...

MicroPatent, 4 July 96 [..] Abstract: Disclosed systems and methods for protecting a software program from unauthorized use and copying through the removal at least one of a plurality of instructions comprising a software program, and encrypting the removed instruction utilizing an encryption algorithm to produce an encrypted instruction, the encryption algorithm responsive to a randomly generated key.

Would certain computer viruses be considered prior art here? (Be it that they encrypt for the purposes of hiding rather than copy protection though.)

Rob.

Possibly, when looked on in a narrow venue. Polymorphic viruses exhibit this as only one characteristic though. It would be a tough sell in my book. Unless the patent's author stipulates in his method that this issue is the basis for the claim and that his claim is unique because of this method - then it just one step of many from point A to B. As a hunch, I would suspect that Vault Corp. may have existing code that might qualify as prior art. Dave Lawrence and a few of his coding buddies spent several years staying one step ahead of software products like copyright, and it is concievable that some of this methodology may have been employed to do so. ...Paul