At 11:34 AM 7/31/03 -0700, Tim May wrote:

Some people expected a "land rush" when the main RSA patents expired several years ago. Parties were even thrown. The land rush never happened.

Wrong. RSA algorithm is used freely now in US designs, knowing it is no longer patented. I didn't go to any party, but I flipped a bit in my cranial store indicating that it could be used freely. And this is/was critical, because whereas a block cipher (eg IDEA) can be replaced, RSA can't in some apps. As someone currently rolling his own RSA by setting up the bignums in C, it is a relief to be free of patent issues. I don't believe this would have been the case before the expiry. (This is for embedded devices, I'm not reinventing a protocol wheel.) I'll predict a similarly invisible "land rush" when ECC patents run out, assuming that its patented and also considered useful when the supposed patents expire.