Nature of RSA's patent

[strick -- strick AT versant DOT com -- henry strickland]

# From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic at eff.org>
# 
# Can someone tell me whether RSA claims to hold process patents or device
# patents on RSA public-key crypto?

If you're interested in details of these patents, I have (at home) a
copy of (almost all of) the "full wrapper" of the four patents held by
Public Key Partners, referenced in RFC1170:

      Cryptographic Apparatus and Method
      ("Diffie-Hellman")............................... No. 4,200,770

      Public Key Cryptographic Apparatus
      and Method ("Hellman-Merkle").................... No. 4,218,582

      Cryptographic Communications System and
      Method ("RSA")................................... No. 4,405,829

      Exponential Cryptographic Apparatus
      and Method ("Hellman-Pohlig").................... No. 4,424,414

A couple of others on The List also have copies of the wrappers.



But it seems you're asking about the existance of a different
type of patent than these?  Or you're clarifying what type of
patents these are?

If they all say "Apparatus" and "Method", is that both a "device" and
a "process"?

						strick