The claim was made here by someone at Netscape that no suitable public key algorithms existed other than RSADSI technology. I don't remember how explicit this claim was; it may have been an implication of some more general statement. I note that the folks at Netscape must never have heard of elliptic curve algorithms for public key technology. I would hazard that representatives at RSADSI stated or implied that such technology was covered by their patents. I would then ask if they said so in writing. Making claims about a patent that are knowingly false is grounds for vacating the patent. The IEEE P1363 working group on cryptography standards is moving forward with elliptic curve cryptosystems but not with RSA because of patent issues. Coincidence? Eric