Current status of RSA patent...

Paul S. Penrod furballs at netcom.com
Thu Jun 20 00:10:44 PDT 1996




On Wed, 19 Jun 1996, Derek Atkins wrote:

> > Can anyone provide additional information on the RSA patent status? 
> > If memory serves me, it is due to expire sometime in 1997. 
> 
> I think you need to replaces your SIMMs, your memory is faulty.  RSA
> lives until 2000 (or 2003, I forget); 1997 is Diffie-Helman.

SIMM replacment on both sides of the aisle.

Patent # 	4.200.770
Date:	 	3/29/80
Expiration:	3/29/97
Inventor(s)	Hellman, Diffie, Merkle
Coverage:	Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

Patent #	4,405,829
Date:		9/20/83
Expiration:	9/20/2000
Inventor(s)	Rivest, Shamir, Adleman
Coverage:	RSA

> 
> > Also, what are the ramifications of deploying software based around it, 
> > such as PGP 2.62i (from UK)?
> 
> What you think would happen based on the fact that the patent hasn't
> expired.
> 

PGP 2.6.2i is not US codebase, and RSA is not patented outside the US 
according to Bruce Schneiner. Therefore, if a product was deployed into 
the US using a non-US codebase, it is unclear to me what legal 
jurisdiction (if any) RSA may have in these circumstances.

...Paul






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