Patents to be placed in PD

[L. Todd Masco]

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This appeared on the IPSEC list (Hooray!).
jwlowe at IBM followed up by announce the dedication of IBM's patent
#5,148,479 to the public.

Is this the apocalypse or something?  Never have I seen such signs
of rationality in companies of this size.  

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From: Ashar.Aziz at eng.sun.com (Ashar Aziz)
Newsgroups: hks.lists.ipsec
Subject: SKIP patents will be in public domain
Date: 5 Dec 1994 15:44:20 -0500
Lines: 17
Sender: root at bb.hks.net
Message-ID: <9412051928.AA25371 at miraj.Eng.Sun.COM>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bb.hks.net

I am happy to state that Sun management has asked me to make the following 
statement regarding the SKIP patents.

1. The SKIP patents (when they issue) will be placed in the public domain. 
Anyone may use it if they wish, with no rights or dues pertaining to Sun. 
There will be no need to license SKIP patent rights.

2. Sun Microsystems did this to help the industry make progress in the
area of security. We view this as an indication of our willingness to
promote open standards.

I thank all of you who publicly commented on this issue, because your 
comments helped bring about this change in Sun's policy.

Regards,
Ashar.

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